My dad turns 72 today, and I’ve been thinking a lot about this journey and this blog and all the beautiful, brutal experiences of the past year or two. Writing still is a powerful tool for processing, and today I have all the feelings.
My last journal entry, Frequent Flyer, seems funny to me now. At the time, he had two hospital visits in that month alone and we were feeling the consequences of being labeled a Frequent Flyer in the ER settings. I didn’t know then that before his major accident, he would have visited the ER 7 times in 3 weeks. I didn’t know it would get a lot worse before it got better. I also didn’t know how insanely lucky I’d be to be writing a blog about my Dad’s progress a year and a half later. I never would have thought he’d survive that year, and I don’t know how we are here.
I don’t think words would be able to describe what ‘rock bottom’ for him actually looked like. The changes in his body, his scent, his entire demeanor. He was not present, but fully ‘gone’ for most of the end of 2023. I wrote that last entry on the last day of January, and not even a month later – my dad had a major fall that caused significant brain damage. To save him, he underwent several brain surgeries. He lost his entire memory – including where he was, what had happened and anything in his recent past. He never went back home, but instead moved into an intensive therapy facility where he began the healing process from a traumatic brain injury and surgery. He was wheelchair bound and I became his sole decision maker, power of attorney and handler of his finances. I was thrust into a level of decision making that, while not entirely new to me, was a lot to carry. The doctors didn’t know what kind of memory would come back or when. We also had to acknowledge that a great part of his memory loss had to do with his Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome, and not necessarily his brain injury.
Today, he’s happily living in an assisted living community. He has very little memory of the past 10 years, aside from flashes of information. He doesn’t know what kind of an alcoholic he was. He doesn’t remember what some of the most traumatic events of my life were, though he was one of the star characters. He doesn’t remember living in his apartment – and even when we drive by, he registers nothing. He just lives in the here and now, blissfully, like everything is fine. He blames all his health issues on the prescription drugs he’s been on since his heart surgery 5 years ago (and not the insane amount of booze that he consumed right along with them). He argues with doctors when they tell him how many times he was seen in the ER (surely their information is wrong, that never happened). Despite his acknowledgement of his lost memory, his denial of his addiction continues to run as deep as ever. It’s such a crazy place to be for me….on one hand, I’m beyond grateful for his ‘second chance’. He doesn’t have access to alcohol in his assisted living community, so he has been sober for 18 months. Doctors and family members fall over themselves to praise him for this milestone, while I struggle to celebrate him because it feels not…earned. The dark side of me – the one with anger and resentment – has to find a place amongst the happiness of his new life.
And yet….today I’m picking up balloons and cake and taking my kids to visit with him and bring him the crafts they spent hours making for their Grandpa. Today I get to reflect on the journey with its wild twists and turns that eventually brought us to a place of happiness and sobriety. Today, I think of my mother, and how Mary should still be here and be a part of this celebration. How some people just aren’t lucky like my dad has been. How some people are still on this wild journey and how their families are not sure what to brace for. Now I see that there is no certain ending. There is no guarantee of sobriety but there is no guarantee of death, either. There is so much in-between, and we are meant to sit with that discomfort and find our growth and happiness anyway.
Today I am happy, but I am angry. I am grateful, but I have resentment. I’m learning to ‘bless and release’ the negative feelings and focus on the joy that comes with human life, as it is sacred in its own right. Even the addicts. Especially the addicts. Sending peace and healing to everyone on this journey. There are always plot twists.
Loving an Addict 