It was a habit that she can
only assume happened gradually, but the symptoms appeared suddenly.
There was the weight loss, the lack of money and the excuses as to where
he’s going and where he’s been. The strong man that she knew as a
little girl had found a weakness in drugs. For a very long time she
stayed in denial. Her father would never do anything like that. He was
strong willed and had a great family. She loved him and knew there was
no possible way he could do that and tear their family apart. This is
something that doesn’t happen to a family like hers. As long as he
denied it, she believed him. She loved him. Then there came the
heart failure and rushing to the hospital in the wee hours of the
morning. The first time he almost died. She cried her eyes out as the
doctors took her and her mother to the grieving room. He eventually came
back. Again she believed his denial. There was no way that he would lie
to her. She started to make excuses for him. He smoked a pack a day or
more. That’s where the weight loss and health problems stem from, right?
On one of his many drives to, who knows where and for how many hours,
she even searched her parents’ room and found his stash. They were tiny
empty capsules in a large peanut can. Her mother later confronted him
with it and took the hit to say that she had found it instead. His
excuse was that he sold it to make ends meet. It was a horrible excuse
that still never explained the lack of money, but she took it. For many
years she took in his excuses to keep her mind off the fact that her
father was an addict. This was a man she didn’t know at all.
She watched her mother cry. Her
mother blamed herself for not knowing and seeing the signs sooner. Her
mother also apologized for not being a better mother and protecting her
from this type of lifestyle and deterioration of their family. It broke
her heart to hear her mother blame herself. “It’s not your fault,” she
told her. “You did your job as a mom.” It was their own private
struggle. People knew, but they didn’t really know. Others know the
surface of things. It’s easy to say “Leave” or “Just send him to get
help” when all you know is the surface of things. You can’t make someone
change unless they want it. If she could she definitely would just to
get him back from that darkness. To get him back to the man that he used
to be.
This young woman finally came
into adulthood and spent her time as any other 20 something. Going to
community college to try and fulfill a life as a writer, spending time
with her friends partying/ drinking and working to pay her own bills. It
was a struggle, because in the back of her mind she knew her father was
only getting worse. She frequently gave him money for gas and took on a
bill or two in the household, but she still continued to believe that
her father didn’t have a problem. Then the second bout
with heart failure came about. It was another trip to the
hospital in the middle of the night, but this one not at bad as the
first. God had given him another chance and she prayed that this time he
would listen. It would be almost crazy not to see it as a sign to get
your life together. Her mother vowed she wouldn’t take him back, that
she wouldn’t waste her time on hospital visits. She stood next to her
mother in this, but how do you make this threat against someone you care
dearly for who, whether they know it or not, needed your help? Upon his
second release from the hospital the doctor informed her that they did
in fact find drugs in his system. There was denial all around. He swore
he’d never taken any and she no longer knew what to think. She now had
the proof which heft her nothing, but empty. She was in a place where
she had no one to talk to and nowhere to vent. Her mother had her hands
full and all her friends worried about was being young and partying.
Once she broke down and couldn’t take it. She took a drive for hours
with a friend. All she wanted was to talk with someone that she could
purge this secret to that was eating away at her and wanted their ear to
just listen without any judgment. Before she could get past the words
“My father is a drug addict,” her friend stated she didn’t want to talk
about it. That was that. If talking to her mother made her more
depressed and her friends didn’t want to be bothered, where was she to
turn? She couldn’t talk to just anyone. People get judgmental and you
can’t trust that rumors won’t be spread. She stifled her emotions. The
only option was for her to get out. How can she live her life with the
constant worry? She had to know what it was like to live before time
crept up on her.
She got her chance finally. She
was accepted to a college out of state. In her heart she didn’t want to
leave her mother, but couldn’t afford to walk in her footsteps. Her
mother also had a father who had an addiction and took off with the
first man who promised her a life of stability. Now all these decades
later the same man that promised her this stable life only offered many a
sleepless nights of worry and stress. Although the young woman admired
her mothers’ strength and hated leaving her in a bad situation, she had
to make a path of her own. Even as she made her big move her father was
there for her as she prepared for this big step in her life. He was the
one with words of encouragement. “I know I raised you right. I know
you’ll make me proud,” he told her. Her mother on the other hand was
hurt. She wanted to keep her daughter around for always, but she found
it in herself to finally let her go to find her way. Her mother didn’t
know at the moment, but with this change she would ultimately find
herself too.
She knew leaving home wouldn’t
change things. She did know that getting away would at least give her a
break and a better chance at reaching her dreams. She still worried. How
could her mother handle it all with only her being there to take on the
burden? There were frequent calls between the two of them. Venting,
talking, laughing. Funny how being apart actually drew her closer to her
mother. After months of being away she got a phone call in the middle
of the night of her father being rushed to the hospital again. Her
mother had stuck to her word this time. She called an ambulance to pick
him up and went back to bed. Good for her. But after three tangos with
death you would think her father would say he’d had enough. He wanted to
live. This time he couldn’t run from it. Her mother asked him to be
honest. “I asked him what he was doing.” Her mother informed her of the
confrontation over the phone. “Heroin,” the daughter said before her
mother could finish. “How did you know?” The young woman couldn’t
explain how she knew, but she had a feeling it was bigger than cocaine.
It was real now. He had finally confessed to someone. It had to have
been hard for him to do. She was proud of her father for taking that
first step. He never confessed when it started or when the habit grew,
but that didn’t matter now. All that mattered was that he found the
right track and stayed on it. Years before her mother stated to her that
he once confessed he had been depressed for some time. “What do you
have to be depressed about?” was her only question to him. When hearing
this there was no way she could help her father through his depression.
She was battling her own. Her head constantly had the nonsense of people
not loving her enough and dying alone swirling around. She hadn’t
noticed her fathers’ change for she didn’t even notice the change in
herself. She was a witty individual who became moody and short with
people. She felt ugly inside and out. She had the feeling that she let
everyone down and was an utter disappointment. Maybe this is how her
father felt. If this was the case, how could she punish him for finding
an outlet, even if it was killing him?
She never told her father, but
the second time he had to be rushed to the hospital she had foreseen it.
The night before she tossed and turned as she had a nightmare that her
father had been having trouble breathing. When he was taken to the
hospital it was too late and he had passed on. There was a guilt in her
as if she let it happen. She awoke in a cold sweat because it felt so
real. That afternoon as he walked her to her car before she left for
work he casually told her that his chest hurt a bit. She felt her body
shake. That night he grabbed his chest gasping for breath just as she
saw the night before. As she followed behind the ambulance with her
mother, with a sense of calmness she said, “He’s not going to make it. I
saw it.” Luckily that tragic ending was the only thing in her dream
that didn’t happen.
The admission was now out of
the way. This family could now move on, grow and improve. For a time he
seemed to take to the right path. There were no sneaky phone calls from
unknown numbers and no shady characters that show up randomly at the
house, but this, unfortunately, did not last. The withdrawal became too
much for him to handle. He slowly started to slip into old habits. She
couldn’t understand how someone could be given three chances at life and
not want to change, but everyone, whether they admit it or not, has
their own addiction. Knowing what it’s like to want to disappear, the
daughter could only think one thing. “I think he wants to kill himself,”
she told her mother over the phone. That would be the only thing that
would make sense in her mind. Why couldn’t she make him want to change?
It’s a helpless empty feeling to want to help someone, but can’t.
There’s one trait she wishes she’d never gotten from her parents and
it’s lack of emotion. Things like this weren’t discussed openly amongst
each other unless it came off as accusing and she can’t remember a time
in her adult life where she actually cried unless things got too
overwhelming or at funerals. If she had any emotion in her bones her
father could see how much his addiction was ripping her apart.
His stroke happened almost four
years after his first heart failure. No questions asked she made the 8
hour ride by Greyhound in the middle of the night to be by her fathers’
side. She hadn’t been so scared since that night four years ago. Her
mother told her of the news he couldn’t put a sentence together, didn’t
know who she was and only wrote in scribbles. What if he didn’t
recognize her when she got there? It had been almost three years since
she was able to afford to come home. Tired and ragged when she reached
the hospital, she smiled when he perked up at the sight of her. She
hugged his frail frame. He knew who she was, but he couldn’t say her
name. Her heart shattered seeing her dad in the state of a child. Trying
to walk and put sentences together. She could feel his frustration
because no one knew what he was trying to say. This is what became of
him. He let this drug take his life away. Each day for two weeks, she
spent her days by his side in the hospital. One day as they all sat
watching television together he pleaded with nurses to let him go home
as he did everyday. This day was different. Tears welled up in his eyes.
He was upset that he wouldn’t be able to spend time with his daughter
outside of the hospital walls before she had to return to her city life.
She held his hand. “I’m here daddy. I’ll be here with you everyday
until I have to go.” Leaving him was the hardest thing she ever had to
do. Before she left her heart was lifted as her father put together the
sentence “I love you.” This stroke was as worse as it could possibly
get. Hopefully her father would count his blessings and turn his life
around before it was too late.
Her father had shown promise
when he was released from the hospital. The young woman called everyday
to show him she cared and that he was loved. That promise shortly faded
as conversations with her mother had a familiar tone. There was the lack
of money, a strange man that would show up randomly at the house and
strange phone calls. It was happening all over again. Her mother was at
her wits end. Talking didn’t seem to help and the yelling definitely
didn’t. She felt bad for her mother having to be the person to carry
that weight. She was also scared for her. How could her father bring
this to their home? What if something extremely bad happens to him and
this man is still looking for a way to get paid? He knew where they
lived. What if he tried to harm her mother because of her fathers’
mistakes? She couldn’t believe how anyone could be so blinded by a
substance that he could potentially put his family in danger.
In the back of her mind she
will always remember him as the man that took her fishing when she was
little with her tiny Snoopy fishing pole. That was the man that was her
superhero. She knows that he’s in there somewhere, but he somehow lost
his way. The young woman can only hope that he finds his way back before
it’s too late. She sometimes thinks about if he’ll be there to walk her
down the aisle the day she gets married or if he’ll be there to see his
grandchildren. Only time will tell if he’ll get to witness these events
in his daughters life. If she could wave a wand and make him change she
definitely would, but it has to come from within. Once he told her that
even if she made mistakes that in the end good things will happen for
her because she is a good person at heart, unlike him. It shocked her to
hear that him say he wasn’t a good person. What he didn’t know what
that she was a good person because of her father. He was and is a great
person that sometimes makes terrible mistakes. Mistakes he can change.
She stands by her father no matter what. She hopes to be able to stand
by him for a long time to come. His superhero cape is waiting for him
whenever he wants his take life back into his own hands.
-Asia Aneka Anderson
*I wrote this a few years ago after my father had admitted to his drug
use. I was living in Chicago at the time and didn’t have a chance to get
home to Ohio while he was in the hospital when he made this confession.
He has never seen this but I did write him a letter at the time to tell
him how proud I was that he took the first step and that it could only
get better from there. Well, that didn’t happen and now that I’m back
home and get to see it on a daily basis it is actually worse. I’ll call
this short story “Superhero part 1” because the innocent young girl in
this story no longer exists.
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