One of the hardest things I've ever had to do was
come to grips with my father's alcoholism.
My earliest memories in life involve my dad coming home drunk at two o' clock
in the morning and dragging me out of bed to witness his violent physical abuse
of my mother while he lectured me with in his slurred, drunken speech about his
idea of what a man should be.
After my parents divorced it took me many years before I was able to speak to
my father again and I can't honestly say that we were ever able to maintain a
healthy relationship. But there was a brief period, for about two weeks in the
summer after my junior year, that I really felt we understood each other.
When
my parents moved to Texas from Fayette County, Alabama we left all my other
family behind. I got to know my relatives through a combination of letters and
the occasional telephone call.
The call I got soon after school let out that year presented me with one of the
toughest decisions I would have to face in my young life.
The call came from my grandmother back in Fayette County. Though we had never
met face-to-face we had, nevertheless, developed a very strong bond based on
telephone calls and a mutual appreciation for Mark Twain. But she was calling
to tell me that she was sick. The doctors had given her a very short amount of
time. She was calling to ask me if I could join my father on a trip to Fayette
County to see her before she died.
I
spoke very briefly with my father on the phone that night and we made plans to
meet up the next day. The conversation was extremely short and goodbyes were
tense: "I love you son" " I'll see you soon dad".
Small talk and catching up carried us through the Texas border and on into
Louisiana where we stopped for the night. We ate together in our hotel room and
laughed together, probably a little more than was absolutely necessary, at some
random movie that was on television. But, after the credits, things started to
get more serious.
My
dad said it was time we talked about some things and that was how it got
started. We spoke for many hours and on through the night. We screamed, we
cursed, we cried and we whispered monstrous confessions. He told me that he had
stopped drinking. And I let him know just how late night talks had been all
those year ago. It was a difficult, painful process but, when the sun cam in
the morning, we were friends.
We drove the remaining miles in a young son's dream. Joking and teasing and
discussing music, girls and life. A father and son reunited. When I met my
relatives in Alabama things only got better. We stayed our two weeks enjoying
fish fry's and playing cards at the kitchen table every night.
Towards
the end of our trip, the evening before we were to leave, my grandmother called
me into her bedroom for a private talk.
She had a gift for me, she said. And I entered her bedroom with an instinctual
feeling of anticipation. She had put together a scrapbook of photographs and
newspaper clippings from both mine and my father's childhood. It was shocking
how similar we were. 'Now you take this book and you remember' she said. 'and
you learn from your father's mistakes'. It was a dying wish and I recognized it
as such.
After we returned to Texas my father and I kept in touch. But towards the end
of my senior year I hadn't heard from him for a couple of weeks. And, when he
didn't return my phone call from a message I left him about my graduation, I
started to worry.
During
the graduation ceremony I scanned the crowd for my father's face. But he wasn't
there. After things settled down a little bit my uncle pulled me aside for a
heart-to-heart to let me know that my father had wanted to be here but couldn't
make it I found out later that he had started drinking again.
I
heard from my father irregularly over the next few years. He's gone now and we
can never enjoy the time together that we should have had. But, mixed in with
all the bad memories, there will always be that summer. And those two shining
weeks in Fayette County.
Travis