Читать книгу Forming True Partnerships - Группа авторов - Страница 13

March 2014

My dad brought me home from the hospital on Sept. 19, 1960. I was five days old. On the way, he had to stop at an old hotel bar. If you were from “The Bottoms,” outside of Pittsburgh, you knew of this place. It was an old saloon, now long torn down. I remember Dad telling me that he facetiously baptized me by dabbing his thumb into a shot glass of bourbon. He made the sign of the cross as I whined, then stuck that thumb in my mouth.

As I got older, I would go with my dad whenever he went to that old hotel. He’d drink double shots of bourbon, and I would sit and watch the cartoons. Often he would leave a little bit in the shot glass for me. They would play that Stealers Wheel song “Stuck in the Middle with You.” I remember it because the guy was singing about being scared of falling off his chair and wondering how he’ll get down the stairs …“clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.” Drunk on bourbon, I’d stagger back to my little table to watch more cartoons.

By the time I was 5, I was drinking every Saturday. In fact I got so good (as if getting good at drinking is an accomplishment) that my dad would make bets with men at the bar about how much I could drink. He’d make money that way. If I lost the bet, sometimes he’d leave me at the bar and the waitress would take me home, and he’d come pick me up in the morning at her house. Dad was an angry and violent drunk and would often go home and beat up my mom or my brother.

He always used the rent money for booze, but my mom suffered from cerebral palsy so she couldn’t stand up to him. So many times he would wake us at 2:00 in the morning and say, “The moving truck is here.” I guess going to 14 schools in five years is a telling sign that the moving truck was around a lot. Finally my mom got up the nerve to leave him. She got bus tickets for herself and the six children and we moved to the west coast.

As a teenager I moved back to the east coast for a bit to live with my dad to go to high school. He hadn’t changed much. He and I lived above a bar and then over an adult bookstore.

After many years of drinking, in March of 1992 I finally made it to AA—thanks to the guidance, love and direction of some members of my family. The following November, my grandparents were having their 50th wedding anniversary. Not yet being of sound mind, I decided it would be a great idea to test my sobriety and drive back home to Pennsylvania to see them. Maybe part of me wanted to see my dad too. I hadn’t seen him in years.

The anniversary party was awesome. The next day I called my cousin and told him I wanted to go see my dad. We went to my aunt’s house, and she told me where I could find him. He lived in an old building, and as my cousin and I walked up the stairs, my cousin asked, “What are you going to do—hit him?” I just looked back and shrugged and said, “I don’t know.” We got to his apartment and I knocked on the door.

My dad opened the door. He looked right at me and said, “Can I help you?” I was so mad that he didn’t recognize me that I wanted to hit him. After a couple of minutes he looked at me again and said, “Gene!” Then I said, “Yeah, dad, it’s me.” He hugged me for what seemed like an eternity and invited us into his apartment. I was overwhelmed by what I saw.

There were clean dishes. The heat was on. The electricity was on. The windows were clean. The pictures were neat and organized. My Navy picture was on his mantle. I had never sent it to him; my mom must have sent it. We sat down on his couch. As we talked, I saw a sparkle in his eye that I hadn’t seen in forever. I just blurted out, “So Dad …how long you been sober?”

He smiled. “I just celebrated seven months,” he said. “Why do you ask?” He then reached out his hand toward my face. I didn’t flinch as I had done in the past. My face was all wet. As he wiped away the tears he asked, “What’s wrong?”

Here was this man who never cared or showed any affection to me reaching out tenderly with affection and compassion. I told him I too was celebrating six months of sobriety, and we talked at length about what AA had given us both so far and the lengths we would go to keep it.

Just then there was a knock on the door. I got up and answered it. It was my aunt. She joined us and said she wanted me to see for myself how much my dad had changed. Before I left I told him that he had a couple of grandsons who would love to know they have a grandpa. He assured me he would call me and we could arrange something.

I was so excited to drive home and share the news with my family. I told them everything. A few days later I went to class, and it was also my day to volunteer at the VA hospital. While I was working, I got a call telling me that my dad had died from cirrhosis. I cried for almost an hour. Then I remembered something my dad had said to me only a few days before: “You know son, only when I was able to let go was I ever able to get a grip.”

We can’t change the things that happen in our sobriety any more than we can change the things that happen when we drink. We just stay close to AA and the program so we don’t go out there and drink.

Anonymous