Intro
In childhood the things you remember most are not the ones you talk about to outsiders. In fact you would rather not talk about them at all. This may not be true for everyone, but this is true for at least for me. It’s not the 13 years of baseball, the little league championships, the countless snowboarding events, graduation, family vacations, it is none of these. For these are happy memories, while wonderful to share in collaboration with pictures and home video, these are not the images burned into your brain that will teach you new lessons everyday of your life whether you like it or not, no, the memories that do that are the secrets, the shames of your family. For me this is a grotesque black stain on 9 years of my childhood, compiled of sickness, disease, depression, self destruction, not of me but of my father. What is done is done, I am not expecting sympathy points, many people have many traumatic experiences that are worse than mine, I am simply making you think about what it is in your life that will forever be with you and teach you lessons nothing else could.
New Orleans
The sterile smell of hospitals is entombed in my senses the constant alarms of code blue, pages of nurses and doctors, these senses will never leave me as they may lay dormant for time any whiff of that unforgettable smell of hopelessness will bleed back in and awaken the monster in my head. It was January 1st, 1999, four days short of my 9th birthday in New Orleans Louisiana, the Nokia sugar bowl between The Ohio State Buckeyes and the Texas A&M Aggies. Like I said earlier from press clippings and online box scores I can tell you the outcome, but that is not what is in my mind. The game to me is a mute point. I did not know at the time but the man that I knew as my dad would forever change in the days to come. It was shortly after this trip we returned home to Ohio, with my dad, then a strong pertinent figure, hurled over in pain vulnerable as ever, not the superhero I was idolizing. This was the beginning of the smell, the birth of why it means weakness and death, a looming cloud of depression. Hospitals are supposed to help you, to be a haven, for me it was a prison trapped in by my love for my father, the reality of wanting him to feel better, the way he used to be, but all the time wanting to escape this reality, knowing things would never be the same. He was diagnosed with Chrones disease, a genetic gastrointestinal ailment that has and will plague him for the rest of his life.
Athens I
This part of the story is just that, a story. I was not alive for these events but through what I have been told over the years. This is bits and pieces of my father’s childhood that I feel are important in explaining why my father became what he did later in life. My dad grew up in a very competitive lifestyle. With being the youngest of 3 boys and unarguably the most athletically gifted, my Grandfather was the typical coach-father, a dual persona consisting of an overly competitive side that when disrupted by loss or disappointment got deflected toward his own children whom he coached for many years. My dad’s eighth grade football team went undefeated, winning every game without being scored on. This is what my grandfather expected all through life, to win at sports and to win at life, but unlike many people winning at life did not mean being happy, no, to him it meant making money. This, from what I hear, was a rough patch between my father and his own. My dad always aspired to be a teacher and to coach, but was denied consideration of this career choice due to the lack of financial benefits associated with it. So instead he went to Ohio University majoring in business to follow in his own fathers shadow as a financial advisor. Through this disappointment my dad’s time as a teen and young adult was clouded with poor decision making mostly involving drugs and alcohol. These along with my grandfathers own personal issues will haunt my Father, me, and the rest of our family later in life.
Cleveland
Years have advanced since we last visited the prison that is hospitals. Now the pain is greater the smell of death and depression growing ever stronger as the outlook for my dad and therefore my family grows weaker. We are now 3 surgeries into his fight with Chrones, a feat which is tough to accomplish even with a severe case of the disease. We sit for hours on end mindlessly doing puzzles of the twin tower memorial still fresh in our minds having fallen only 2 years ago. Waiting for a doctor to visit, or is he asleep, getting tested? They run together as days mix into weeks, at 13 I am caretaker when home. Not because my mother is sick or incapable, but overwhelmed driving the 1000 plus miles a week to Cleveland and back to Columbus. Attempting to balance caring for her husband and caring for her kids, while all the while neglecting herself. We as her children attempt to comfort her by saying we know she has to be with him, but all the time screaming silently inside for attention, for things to return to what we know and love the balance in our lives. Little did we know this balance would probably never return!
Code Blue
One of the lowest points during my dad’s stint in the hospital came in 2004. the Chrones had been in recession for about 6 months when it came back with a vengeance. Later on we would come to realize that this was not the fault of any doctor or medicine, but of the self destructive behavior of my father. The air that night had a feeling of gloom, much like that of the hospital. I hear the moans and groans coming from the upstairs bedroom, but I do not dare to interfere with the arguing, I know nothing good will happen if I do. Hours pass I should be asleep, but I know I wont sleep tonight I feel an odd sense of responsibility. I knew it was a matter of time before I would hear the door open and see the light from the hallway as my mom crept into my room to tell me they were leaving that dad wasn’t feeling good and he had to go see the doc. This to me seemed juvenile, every time the door opened at 3 or 4 am I simply said I’m awake ill take care of Grace in the morning. I knew dad was more than “sick” I knew he was barely walking, barely breathing hurled over in pain, but there is nothing I can do feeling helpless yet needing to do something, discover a miracle cure perhaps, but I just lay there hoping they will return both healthy and happy and things will be the same but the never do.The term code blue in a hospital is read aloud over the PA system to announce a patient in urgent need of emergency treatment. This unnerving feeling occurred three times to my family over our years in and out of hospitals. All three time because of a low enough heart rate to trigger the warning. These events occurred within months of each other, in a sequence I refer to as hell. Along with Chrones my dad was diagnosed with a failing liver and kidney cancer. While the cancer diagnosis was later removed, that word should have meant death to a man like my father, a 6’3”, 230 pound man I had known, who had shrunk into a slouching 6’1” 140 pound elderly looking man now. It would not be for a few more years we learned the true cause of these problems and how intensely ignorant such a smart man could be.
Hiding
With Chrones in recession once again, I was hopeful things would begin to get better, to return to normal. I had just started dating a new girl and things in my life were looking up I was a sophomore in school and I was playing baseball on JV and dressing for some varsity games. Little did I know how naive I had been for the past few years.After arriving home one night from dropping off my girlfriend back at her house, I walked in and gave a quick hey to my dad anxious to get downstairs to watch TV. I walked into the dining room to set my coat down when instead of a response back from my dad I heard ice from the refridgerator hit the floor, I turned around and saw my father sitting there pushing his cup into the ice machine which was overflowing with ice, I yell for him to stop, but all I see is his limp body flop downward toppling over and smashing face first into the counter with a bone chilling velocity. I rush to his side screaming unaware of what has happened grabbing his bloody forehead in my hands trying to lift his head, unresponsive to my screams off the ground now covered in a watery red mix of blood and melted ice, I’m screaming and crying as my mom rushes in to a disturbing scene. We both work to lift him up as he starts to regain consciousness, we place him in a chair sitting upright as his head rolls backward like a ragdoll. Expecting my mother to be crying in a worry she is crying but in a much angrier manner. By this time he is waking up to my mother’s furious growls she screams he’s killing himself, and how could he put us through that. It is now I get close to wipe off his head, that I smell the sickening smell of blood sweat and liquor, a smell much like that of the hospital I will not soon forget.These episodes were constant now that I found out what was going on. To this day I don’t know how I could have been so blind to the problem. I was still not fully aware of the carnage this mental disease would have on my family. Out of my lack of understanding for this disease grew a feeling of responsibility, responsibility to fix it, responsibility that I had caused it. I now know of course it was not my fault at all, it was a lifetime of depression, rejection, false hopes, and sickness that caused his demise, it was not at all the fault of me or my family. This is a feeling common among children and loved ones of alcoholics as shown by Scott Russell Sanders, in his essay Under the Influence.“Whatever my brother and sister and mother may be thinking on their own rumpled pillows, I lie there hating him, loving him, fearing him, knowing I have failed him. I tell myself he drinks to ease the ache that gnaws at his belly, an ache I must have caused by disappointing him somehow, a murderous ache I should be able to relieve by doing all my chores, earning A's in school, winning baseball games, fixing the broken washer and the burst pipes, bringing in the money to fill his empty wallet. He would not hide the green bottles in his toolbox, would not sneak off to the barn with a lump under his coat, would not fall asleep in the daylight, would not roar and fume, would not drink himself to death, if only I were perfect”. (Sanders 1-2)Now with this feeling creeping in my job began. At first it was the espionage, subtly marking where he went alone, finding the rank bottles of vodka stashed in the golf bag hanging in the garage, the center console of the Honda in the driveway, above the roof panels in the unfinished section of the basement, inside the unused grill during the winter. The locations are endless when we foiled one stash another would appear only a few hours later, never removing the foul liquid myself, but instead I retreat to the safety of my mother and report the position of the stash to her so that she could deal with the removal of the vodka. This never sat well with my father when he would come home drunk. The fights would rage into the night as I would listen, knowing not to get involved, this would only make matters worse.
Rehab
The events that had been escalating over the past year and a half hit an all time low in the spring of 2007. My sister still not aware of the full extent of my dad’s problem is playing softball when suddenly she would be made fully aware of the urgency of the situation. Dehydrated from the heat and sipping vodka from a coffee cup my dad is just a bomb waiting to explode. Then what happens next is probably the darkest time for my sister, much like the first night I saw him collapse, his body goes limp, he fall quickly to the ground and is unconscious for a few minutes, as gasps from the crowd filled with family friends and acquaintances a few rush to help knowing very well his previous health problems, but most simply watch, lost as to what has happened. Ashamed he wakes up to the roar of an ambulance the vodka on his breath, enhanced only by the puddle seeming from the ground into his shirt.This is the begging of the stories turn around. Over the next two weeks the drinking continued resulting in my mom throwing my dad out of our house unless he went to rehab, so he left. This drunken independence didn’t last too long and he decided it was time to go to rehab. This also didn’t last too long within 5 days he was out, pulling into the driveway after work with a smashed front end to his brand new accord, the drivers window and mirror smashed into a million tiny pieces, he was sitting there blood streaming down his face from the 3 inch gash along his forehead that I realized he was going to die if he continued to drink. I worked quickly to get him out of the car and into the house while attracting the least attention from the neighborhood around us. I stow his beaten car in the garage to hide the collateral damage, in this process I discover the source of this nightmare a ¾ empty bottle of vodka on the floorboard beside the passenger seat. Denial is not an option I decide to take this one into my own hands. In a curious moment of clarity and rage I walk into the house with the bottle in my hand gently push my mom to the side and slam the bottle down on the table my mother is crying beside us and I look him in the eyes and ask why he is killing himself, but more so why he is killing us. This is his last chance by my accord, so I present two options, one he cleans up his own cut and gets into the car with me and I will take him back to rehab where he will get clean or die, or he can leave right now and not come back. In my moment of clarity he must have realized the seriousness I was putting on him as he showed up roughly 20 minutes later with a bad he had packed himself and said lets go I don’t want to kill my family anymore.After a 4 month stint between hospitals and rehab a different man emerged, one that was frail, weak, and afraid of what might happen now that he is allowed to choose for himself what to do, but this man was sober. And that after all was the dream his family had been waiting for.
Athens II
This is where the known ends and the speculation begins. Being the son of an alcoholic as described by sanders“I knew the odds of my becoming an alcoholic were four times higher than for the children of nonalcoholic fathers”. (Sanders 10)This is my fear, my prolonged unknowing, as I enter college in the same place my father did 30 some odd years ago, I am aware of the risks, but tempted by the rewards when used in moderation. Alcohol is a social medicine, one that can help you open up easier, to find out something otherwise hidden behind a wall of insecurities be it about your self or another. But with the risks so great is it worth it. My career choice as a pilot is one where alcohol is a major issue, a high stress career filled with long days and longer nights. But it is a passion, something I love, a right my father was denied in youth. I feel I am a smart enough man to use alcohol in moderation, but I will always listen to my body, listen for signs that things are not right, I will deal with my problems head on not drown the in a poison designed to alleviate issues that will emerge in sobriety once again. Already being 25% more likely to suffer from alcoholism than many people and entering a career where according to Addiction,“In the United States of America, the taboo was broken when it became known that 30% of fatally injured pilots in general aviation had been under the influence of alcohol”. (Holdener 953)These realities scare me; they make me realize how venerable even someone as strong willed as me can be to the affects of a poison. If my family were to read this now I feel they would be somewhat shocked to find out the reality of my feelings toward this situation, but I think ultimately the stain that has affected our past can never be removed or covered up completely. More so I think we will all use it as a reminder of what we have all experienced and do not wish to live through again.
Sources
Sanders, Scott R. "Under the Influence." Harpers November 1989: 1-10.
Holdener, Fridolin. "Alcohol and Civil Aviation." Addiction June 1993: 953-958.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Memoir
Intro
In childhood the things you remember most are not the ones you talk about to outsiders. In fact you would rather not talk about them at all. This may not be true for everyone, but this is true for at least for me. It’s not the 13 years of baseball, the little league championships, the countless snowboarding events, graduation, family vacations, it is none of these. For these are happy memories, while wonderful to share in collaboration with pictures and home video, these are not the images burned into your brain that will teach you new lessons everyday of your life whether you like it or not, no, the memories that do that are the secrets, the shames of your family. For me this is a grotesque black stain on 9 years of my childhood, compiled of sickness, disease, depression, self destruction, not of me but of my father. What is done is done, I am not expecting sympathy points, many people have many traumatic experiences that are worse than mine, I am simply making you think about what it is in your life that will forever be with you and teach you lessons nothing else could.
New Orleans
The sterile smell of hospitals is entombed in my senses the constant alarms of code blue, pages of nurses and doctors, these senses will never leave me as they may lay dormant for time any whiff of that unforgettable smell of hopelessness will bleed back in and awaken the monster in my head. It was January 1st, 1999, four days short of my 9th birthday in New Orleans Louisiana, the Nokia sugar bowl between The Ohio State Buckeyes and the Texas A&M Aggies. Like I said earlier from press clippings and online box scores I can tell you the outcome, but that is not what is in my mind. The game to me is a mute point. I did not know at the time but the man that I knew as my dad would forever change in the days to come. It was shortly after this trip we returned home to Ohio, with my dad, then a strong pertinent figure, hurled over in pain vulnerable as ever, not the superhero I was idolizing. This was the beginning of the smell, the birth of why it means weakness and death, a looming cloud of depression. Hospitals are supposed to help you, to be a haven, for me it was a prison trapped in by my love for my father, the reality of wanting him to feel better, the way he used to be, but all the time wanting to escape this reality, knowing things would never be the same. He was diagnosed with Chrones disease, a genetic gastrointestinal ailment that has and will plague him for the rest of his life.
Athens I
This part of the story is just that, a story. I was not alive for these events but through what I have been told over the years. This is bits and pieces of my father’s childhood that I feel are important in explaining why my father became what he did later in life. My dad grew up in a very competitive lifestyle. With being the youngest of 3 boys and unarguably the most athletically gifted, my Grandfather was the typical coach-father, a dual persona consisting of an overly competitive side that when disrupted by loss or disappointment got deflected toward his own children whom he coached for many years. My dad’s eighth grade football team went undefeated, winning every game without being scored on. This is what my grandfather expected all through life, to win at sports and to win at life, but unlike many people winning at life did not mean being happy, no, to him it meant making money. This, from what I hear, was a rough patch between my father and his own. My dad always aspired to be a teacher and to coach, but was denied consideration of this career choice due to the lack of financial benefits associated with it. So instead he went to Ohio University majoring in business to follow in his own fathers shadow as a financial advisor. Through this disappointment my dad’s time as a teen and young adult was clouded with poor decision making mostly involving drugs and alcohol. These along with my grandfathers own personal issues will haunt my Father, me, and the rest of our family later in life.
Cleveland
Years have advanced since we last visited the prison that is hospitals. Now the pain is greater the smell of death and depression growing ever stronger as the outlook for my dad and therefore my family grows weaker. We are now 3 surgeries into his fight with Chrones, a feat which is tough to accomplish even with a severe case of the disease. We sit for hours on end mindlessly doing puzzles of the twin tower memorial still fresh in our minds having fallen only 2 years ago. Waiting for a doctor to visit, or is he asleep, getting tested? They run together as days mix into weeks, at 13 I am caretaker when home. Not because my mother is sick or incapable, but overwhelmed driving the 1000 plus miles a week to Cleveland and back to Columbus. Attempting to balance caring for her husband and caring for her kids, while all the while neglecting herself. We as her children attempt to comfort her by saying we know she has to be with him, but all the time screaming silently inside for attention, for things to return to what we know and love the balance in our lives. Little did we know this balance would probably never return!
Code Blue
One of the lowest points during my dad’s stint in the hospital came in 2004. the Chrones had been in recession for about 6 months when it came back with a vengeance. Later on we would come to realize that this was not the fault of any doctor or medicine, but of the self destructive behavior of my father. The air that night had a feeling of gloom, much like that of the hospital. I hear the moans and groans coming from the upstairs bedroom, but I do not dare to interfere with the arguing, I know nothing good will happen if I do. Hours pass I should be asleep, but I know I wont sleep tonight I feel an odd sense of responsibility. I knew it was a matter of time before I would hear the door open and see the light from the hallway as my mom crept into my room to tell me they were leaving that dad wasn’t feeling good and he had to go see the doc. This to me seemed juvenile, every time the door opened at 3 or 4 am I simply said I’m awake ill take care of Grace in the morning. I knew dad was more than “sick” I knew he was barely walking, barely breathing hurled over in pain, but there is nothing I can do feeling helpless yet needing to do something, discover a miracle cure perhaps, but I just lay there hoping they will return both healthy and happy and things will be the same but the never do.
The term code blue in a hospital is read aloud over the PA system to announce a patient in urgent need of emergency treatment. This unnerving feeling occurred three times to my family over our years in and out of hospitals. All three time because of a low enough heart rate to trigger the warning. These events occurred within months of each other, in a sequence I refer to as hell. Along with Chrones my dad was diagnosed with a failing liver and kidney cancer. While the cancer diagnosis was later removed, that word should have meant death to a man like my father, a 6’3”, 230 pound man I had known, who had shrunk into a slouching 6’1” 140 pound elderly looking man now. It would not be for a few more years we learned the true cause of these problems and how intensely ignorant such a smart man could be.
Hiding
With Chrones in recession once again, I was hopeful things would begin to get better, to return to normal. I had just started dating a new girl and things in my life were looking up I was a sophomore in school and I was playing baseball on JV and dressing for some varsity games. Little did I know how naive I had been for the past few years.
After arriving home one night from dropping off my girlfriend back at her house, I walked in and gave a quick hey to my dad anxious to get downstairs to watch TV. I walked into the dining room to set my coat down when instead of a response back from my dad I heard ice from the refridgerator hit the floor, I turned around and saw my father sitting there pushing his cup into the ice machine which was overflowing with ice, I yell for him to stop, but all I see is his limp body flop downward toppling over and smashing face first into the counter with a bone chilling velocity. I rush to his side screaming unaware of what has happened grabbing his bloody forehead in my hands trying to lift his head, unresponsive to my screams off the ground now covered in a watery red mix of blood and melted ice, I’m screaming and crying as my mom rushes in to a disturbing scene. We both work to lift him up as he starts to regain consciousness, we place him in a chair sitting upright as his head rolls backward like a ragdoll. Expecting my mother to be crying in a worry she is crying but in a much angrier manner. By this time he is waking up to my mother’s furious growls she screams he’s killing himself, and how could he put us through that. It is now I get close to wipe off his head, that I smell the sickening smell of blood sweat and liquor, a smell much like that of the hospital I will not soon forget.
These episodes were constant now that I found out what was going on. To this day I don’t know how I could have been so blind to the problem. I was still not fully aware of the carnage this mental disease would have on my family. Out of my lack of understanding for this disease grew a feeling of responsibility, responsibility to fix it, responsibility that I had caused it. I now know of course it was not my fault at all, it was a lifetime of depression, rejection, false hopes, and sickness that caused his demise, it was not at all the fault of me or my family. This is a feeling common among children and loved ones of alcoholics as shown by Scott Russell Sanders, in his essay Under the Influence.
“Whatever my brother and sister and mother may be thinking on their own rumpled pillows, I lie there hating him, loving him, fearing him, knowing I have failed him. I tell myself he drinks to ease the ache that gnaws at his belly, an ache I must have caused by disappointing him somehow, a murderous ache I should be able to relieve by doing all my chores, earning A's in school, winning baseball games, fixing the broken washer and the burst pipes, bringing in the money to fill his empty wallet. He would not hide the green bottles in his toolbox, would not sneak off to the barn with a lump under his coat, would not fall asleep in the daylight, would not roar and fume, would not drink himself to death, if only I were perfect”. (Sanders 1-2)
Now with this feeling creeping in my job began. At first it was the espionage, subtly marking where he went alone, finding the rank bottles of vodka stashed in the golf bag hanging in the garage, the center console of the Honda in the driveway, above the roof panels in the unfinished section of the basement, inside the unused grill during the winter. The locations are endless when we foiled one stash another would appear only a few hours later, never removing the foul liquid myself, but instead I retreat to the safety of my mother and report the position of the stash to her so that she could deal with the removal of the vodka. This never sat well with my father when he would come home drunk. The fights would rage into the night as I would listen, knowing not to get involved, this would only make matters worse.
Rehab
The events that had been escalating over the past year and a half hit an all time low in the spring of 2007. My sister still not aware of the full extent of my dad’s problem is playing softball when suddenly she would be made fully aware of the urgency of the situation. Dehydrated from the heat and sipping vodka from a coffee cup my dad is just a bomb waiting to explode. Then what happens next is probably the darkest time for my sister, much like the first night I saw him collapse, his body goes limp, he fall quickly to the ground and is unconscious for a few minutes, as gasps from the crowd filled with family friends and acquaintances a few rush to help knowing very well his previous health problems, but most simply watch, lost as to what has happened. Ashamed he wakes up to the roar of an ambulance the vodka on his breath, enhanced only by the puddle seeming from the ground into his shirt.
This is the begging of the stories turn around. Over the next two weeks the drinking continued resulting in my mom throwing my dad out of our house unless he went to rehab, so he left. This drunken independence didn’t last too long and he decided it was time to go to rehab. This also didn’t last too long within 5 days he was out, pulling into the driveway after work with a smashed front end to his brand new accord, the drivers window and mirror smashed into a million tiny pieces, he was sitting there blood streaming down his face from the 3 inch gash along his forehead that I realized he was going to die if he continued to drink. I worked quickly to get him out of the car and into the house while attracting the least attention from the neighborhood around us. I stow his beaten car in the garage to hide the collateral damage, in this process I discover the source of this nightmare a ¾ empty bottle of vodka on the floorboard beside the passenger seat. Denial is not an option I decide to take this one into my own hands. In a curious moment of clarity and rage I walk into the house with the bottle in my hand gently push my mom to the side and slam the bottle down on the table my mother is crying beside us and I look him in the eyes and ask why he is killing himself, but more so why he is killing us. This is his last chance by my accord, so I present two options, one he cleans up his own cut and gets into the car with me and I will take him back to rehab where he will get clean or die, or he can leave right now and not come back. In my moment of clarity he must have realized the seriousness I was putting on him as he showed up roughly 20 minutes later with a bad he had packed himself and said lets go I don’t want to kill my family anymore.
After a 4 month stint between hospitals and rehab a different man emerged, one that was frail, weak, and afraid of what might happen now that he is allowed to choose for himself what to do, but this man was sober. And that after all was the dream his family had been waiting for.
Athens II
This is where the known ends and the speculation begins. Being the son of an alcoholic as described by sanders
“I knew the odds of my becoming an alcoholic were four times higher than for the children of nonalcoholic fathers”. (Sanders 10)
This is my fear, my prolonged unknowing, as I enter college in the same place my father did 30 some odd years ago, I am aware of the risks, but tempted by the rewards when used in moderation. Alcohol is a social medicine, one that can help you open up easier, to find out something otherwise hidden behind a wall of insecurities be it about your self or another. But with the risks so great is it worth it. My career choice as a pilot is one where alcohol is a major issue, a high stress career filled with long days and longer nights. But it is a passion, something I love, a right my father was denied in youth. I feel I am a smart enough man to use alcohol in moderation, but I will always listen to my body, listen for signs that things are not right, I will deal with my problems head on not drown the in a poison designed to alleviate issues that will emerge in sobriety once again. Already being 25% more likely to suffer from alcoholism than many people and entering a career where according to Addiction,
“In the United States of America, the taboo was broken when it became known that 30% of fatally injured pilots in general aviation had been under the influence of alcohol”. (Holdener 953)
These realities scare me; they make me realize how venerable even someone as strong willed as me can be to the affects of a poison. If my family were to read this now I feel they would be somewhat shocked to find out the reality of my feelings toward this situation, but I think ultimately the stain that has affected our past can never be removed or covered up completely. More so I think we will all use it as a reminder of what we have all experienced and do not wish to live through again.
Sources
Sanders, Scott R. "Under the Influence." Harpers November 1989: 1-10.
Holdener, Fridolin. "Alcohol and Civil Aviation." Addiction June 1993: 953-958.
In childhood the things you remember most are not the ones you talk about to outsiders. In fact you would rather not talk about them at all. This may not be true for everyone, but this is true for at least for me. It’s not the 13 years of baseball, the little league championships, the countless snowboarding events, graduation, family vacations, it is none of these. For these are happy memories, while wonderful to share in collaboration with pictures and home video, these are not the images burned into your brain that will teach you new lessons everyday of your life whether you like it or not, no, the memories that do that are the secrets, the shames of your family. For me this is a grotesque black stain on 9 years of my childhood, compiled of sickness, disease, depression, self destruction, not of me but of my father. What is done is done, I am not expecting sympathy points, many people have many traumatic experiences that are worse than mine, I am simply making you think about what it is in your life that will forever be with you and teach you lessons nothing else could.
New Orleans
The sterile smell of hospitals is entombed in my senses the constant alarms of code blue, pages of nurses and doctors, these senses will never leave me as they may lay dormant for time any whiff of that unforgettable smell of hopelessness will bleed back in and awaken the monster in my head. It was January 1st, 1999, four days short of my 9th birthday in New Orleans Louisiana, the Nokia sugar bowl between The Ohio State Buckeyes and the Texas A&M Aggies. Like I said earlier from press clippings and online box scores I can tell you the outcome, but that is not what is in my mind. The game to me is a mute point. I did not know at the time but the man that I knew as my dad would forever change in the days to come. It was shortly after this trip we returned home to Ohio, with my dad, then a strong pertinent figure, hurled over in pain vulnerable as ever, not the superhero I was idolizing. This was the beginning of the smell, the birth of why it means weakness and death, a looming cloud of depression. Hospitals are supposed to help you, to be a haven, for me it was a prison trapped in by my love for my father, the reality of wanting him to feel better, the way he used to be, but all the time wanting to escape this reality, knowing things would never be the same. He was diagnosed with Chrones disease, a genetic gastrointestinal ailment that has and will plague him for the rest of his life.
Athens I
This part of the story is just that, a story. I was not alive for these events but through what I have been told over the years. This is bits and pieces of my father’s childhood that I feel are important in explaining why my father became what he did later in life. My dad grew up in a very competitive lifestyle. With being the youngest of 3 boys and unarguably the most athletically gifted, my Grandfather was the typical coach-father, a dual persona consisting of an overly competitive side that when disrupted by loss or disappointment got deflected toward his own children whom he coached for many years. My dad’s eighth grade football team went undefeated, winning every game without being scored on. This is what my grandfather expected all through life, to win at sports and to win at life, but unlike many people winning at life did not mean being happy, no, to him it meant making money. This, from what I hear, was a rough patch between my father and his own. My dad always aspired to be a teacher and to coach, but was denied consideration of this career choice due to the lack of financial benefits associated with it. So instead he went to Ohio University majoring in business to follow in his own fathers shadow as a financial advisor. Through this disappointment my dad’s time as a teen and young adult was clouded with poor decision making mostly involving drugs and alcohol. These along with my grandfathers own personal issues will haunt my Father, me, and the rest of our family later in life.
Cleveland
Years have advanced since we last visited the prison that is hospitals. Now the pain is greater the smell of death and depression growing ever stronger as the outlook for my dad and therefore my family grows weaker. We are now 3 surgeries into his fight with Chrones, a feat which is tough to accomplish even with a severe case of the disease. We sit for hours on end mindlessly doing puzzles of the twin tower memorial still fresh in our minds having fallen only 2 years ago. Waiting for a doctor to visit, or is he asleep, getting tested? They run together as days mix into weeks, at 13 I am caretaker when home. Not because my mother is sick or incapable, but overwhelmed driving the 1000 plus miles a week to Cleveland and back to Columbus. Attempting to balance caring for her husband and caring for her kids, while all the while neglecting herself. We as her children attempt to comfort her by saying we know she has to be with him, but all the time screaming silently inside for attention, for things to return to what we know and love the balance in our lives. Little did we know this balance would probably never return!
Code Blue
One of the lowest points during my dad’s stint in the hospital came in 2004. the Chrones had been in recession for about 6 months when it came back with a vengeance. Later on we would come to realize that this was not the fault of any doctor or medicine, but of the self destructive behavior of my father. The air that night had a feeling of gloom, much like that of the hospital. I hear the moans and groans coming from the upstairs bedroom, but I do not dare to interfere with the arguing, I know nothing good will happen if I do. Hours pass I should be asleep, but I know I wont sleep tonight I feel an odd sense of responsibility. I knew it was a matter of time before I would hear the door open and see the light from the hallway as my mom crept into my room to tell me they were leaving that dad wasn’t feeling good and he had to go see the doc. This to me seemed juvenile, every time the door opened at 3 or 4 am I simply said I’m awake ill take care of Grace in the morning. I knew dad was more than “sick” I knew he was barely walking, barely breathing hurled over in pain, but there is nothing I can do feeling helpless yet needing to do something, discover a miracle cure perhaps, but I just lay there hoping they will return both healthy and happy and things will be the same but the never do.
The term code blue in a hospital is read aloud over the PA system to announce a patient in urgent need of emergency treatment. This unnerving feeling occurred three times to my family over our years in and out of hospitals. All three time because of a low enough heart rate to trigger the warning. These events occurred within months of each other, in a sequence I refer to as hell. Along with Chrones my dad was diagnosed with a failing liver and kidney cancer. While the cancer diagnosis was later removed, that word should have meant death to a man like my father, a 6’3”, 230 pound man I had known, who had shrunk into a slouching 6’1” 140 pound elderly looking man now. It would not be for a few more years we learned the true cause of these problems and how intensely ignorant such a smart man could be.
Hiding
With Chrones in recession once again, I was hopeful things would begin to get better, to return to normal. I had just started dating a new girl and things in my life were looking up I was a sophomore in school and I was playing baseball on JV and dressing for some varsity games. Little did I know how naive I had been for the past few years.
After arriving home one night from dropping off my girlfriend back at her house, I walked in and gave a quick hey to my dad anxious to get downstairs to watch TV. I walked into the dining room to set my coat down when instead of a response back from my dad I heard ice from the refridgerator hit the floor, I turned around and saw my father sitting there pushing his cup into the ice machine which was overflowing with ice, I yell for him to stop, but all I see is his limp body flop downward toppling over and smashing face first into the counter with a bone chilling velocity. I rush to his side screaming unaware of what has happened grabbing his bloody forehead in my hands trying to lift his head, unresponsive to my screams off the ground now covered in a watery red mix of blood and melted ice, I’m screaming and crying as my mom rushes in to a disturbing scene. We both work to lift him up as he starts to regain consciousness, we place him in a chair sitting upright as his head rolls backward like a ragdoll. Expecting my mother to be crying in a worry she is crying but in a much angrier manner. By this time he is waking up to my mother’s furious growls she screams he’s killing himself, and how could he put us through that. It is now I get close to wipe off his head, that I smell the sickening smell of blood sweat and liquor, a smell much like that of the hospital I will not soon forget.
These episodes were constant now that I found out what was going on. To this day I don’t know how I could have been so blind to the problem. I was still not fully aware of the carnage this mental disease would have on my family. Out of my lack of understanding for this disease grew a feeling of responsibility, responsibility to fix it, responsibility that I had caused it. I now know of course it was not my fault at all, it was a lifetime of depression, rejection, false hopes, and sickness that caused his demise, it was not at all the fault of me or my family. This is a feeling common among children and loved ones of alcoholics as shown by Scott Russell Sanders, in his essay Under the Influence.
“Whatever my brother and sister and mother may be thinking on their own rumpled pillows, I lie there hating him, loving him, fearing him, knowing I have failed him. I tell myself he drinks to ease the ache that gnaws at his belly, an ache I must have caused by disappointing him somehow, a murderous ache I should be able to relieve by doing all my chores, earning A's in school, winning baseball games, fixing the broken washer and the burst pipes, bringing in the money to fill his empty wallet. He would not hide the green bottles in his toolbox, would not sneak off to the barn with a lump under his coat, would not fall asleep in the daylight, would not roar and fume, would not drink himself to death, if only I were perfect”. (Sanders 1-2)
Now with this feeling creeping in my job began. At first it was the espionage, subtly marking where he went alone, finding the rank bottles of vodka stashed in the golf bag hanging in the garage, the center console of the Honda in the driveway, above the roof panels in the unfinished section of the basement, inside the unused grill during the winter. The locations are endless when we foiled one stash another would appear only a few hours later, never removing the foul liquid myself, but instead I retreat to the safety of my mother and report the position of the stash to her so that she could deal with the removal of the vodka. This never sat well with my father when he would come home drunk. The fights would rage into the night as I would listen, knowing not to get involved, this would only make matters worse.
Rehab
The events that had been escalating over the past year and a half hit an all time low in the spring of 2007. My sister still not aware of the full extent of my dad’s problem is playing softball when suddenly she would be made fully aware of the urgency of the situation. Dehydrated from the heat and sipping vodka from a coffee cup my dad is just a bomb waiting to explode. Then what happens next is probably the darkest time for my sister, much like the first night I saw him collapse, his body goes limp, he fall quickly to the ground and is unconscious for a few minutes, as gasps from the crowd filled with family friends and acquaintances a few rush to help knowing very well his previous health problems, but most simply watch, lost as to what has happened. Ashamed he wakes up to the roar of an ambulance the vodka on his breath, enhanced only by the puddle seeming from the ground into his shirt.
This is the begging of the stories turn around. Over the next two weeks the drinking continued resulting in my mom throwing my dad out of our house unless he went to rehab, so he left. This drunken independence didn’t last too long and he decided it was time to go to rehab. This also didn’t last too long within 5 days he was out, pulling into the driveway after work with a smashed front end to his brand new accord, the drivers window and mirror smashed into a million tiny pieces, he was sitting there blood streaming down his face from the 3 inch gash along his forehead that I realized he was going to die if he continued to drink. I worked quickly to get him out of the car and into the house while attracting the least attention from the neighborhood around us. I stow his beaten car in the garage to hide the collateral damage, in this process I discover the source of this nightmare a ¾ empty bottle of vodka on the floorboard beside the passenger seat. Denial is not an option I decide to take this one into my own hands. In a curious moment of clarity and rage I walk into the house with the bottle in my hand gently push my mom to the side and slam the bottle down on the table my mother is crying beside us and I look him in the eyes and ask why he is killing himself, but more so why he is killing us. This is his last chance by my accord, so I present two options, one he cleans up his own cut and gets into the car with me and I will take him back to rehab where he will get clean or die, or he can leave right now and not come back. In my moment of clarity he must have realized the seriousness I was putting on him as he showed up roughly 20 minutes later with a bad he had packed himself and said lets go I don’t want to kill my family anymore.
After a 4 month stint between hospitals and rehab a different man emerged, one that was frail, weak, and afraid of what might happen now that he is allowed to choose for himself what to do, but this man was sober. And that after all was the dream his family had been waiting for.
Athens II
This is where the known ends and the speculation begins. Being the son of an alcoholic as described by sanders
“I knew the odds of my becoming an alcoholic were four times higher than for the children of nonalcoholic fathers”. (Sanders 10)
This is my fear, my prolonged unknowing, as I enter college in the same place my father did 30 some odd years ago, I am aware of the risks, but tempted by the rewards when used in moderation. Alcohol is a social medicine, one that can help you open up easier, to find out something otherwise hidden behind a wall of insecurities be it about your self or another. But with the risks so great is it worth it. My career choice as a pilot is one where alcohol is a major issue, a high stress career filled with long days and longer nights. But it is a passion, something I love, a right my father was denied in youth. I feel I am a smart enough man to use alcohol in moderation, but I will always listen to my body, listen for signs that things are not right, I will deal with my problems head on not drown the in a poison designed to alleviate issues that will emerge in sobriety once again. Already being 25% more likely to suffer from alcoholism than many people and entering a career where according to Addiction,
“In the United States of America, the taboo was broken when it became known that 30% of fatally injured pilots in general aviation had been under the influence of alcohol”. (Holdener 953)
These realities scare me; they make me realize how venerable even someone as strong willed as me can be to the affects of a poison. If my family were to read this now I feel they would be somewhat shocked to find out the reality of my feelings toward this situation, but I think ultimately the stain that has affected our past can never be removed or covered up completely. More so I think we will all use it as a reminder of what we have all experienced and do not wish to live through again.
Sources
Sanders, Scott R. "Under the Influence." Harpers November 1989: 1-10.
Holdener, Fridolin. "Alcohol and Civil Aviation." Addiction June 1993: 953-958.
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