relationship with him anymore by the time I was fifteen. I couldn’t forget how much I loved him when I was little, and I couldn’t forget how much I hated him when I was older for the way he treated the family. I didn’t know what to do with that combination.
When it comes to family problems like that, though, you never get to sort through things in your own time. They always end up exploding in your face when you least expect it, forcing you to face things you don’t feel ready to face. I had already built up a lot of walls so I wouldn’t have to deal with my relationship with my father, and it all came crashing down on me much sooner than I was prepared for.
My dad had been staying at our place for a couple of nights. He’d gotten sick, puking up blood, and his stomach was swelling up really bad. He was having trouble breathing. But after a couple of days he went back home to rest at his own place. That night my mom had a dream that something bad was going to happen to him. It freaked her out so bad that she got up early in the morning and went straight to his house to take him to the hospital.
She was right to trust her instincts. It turned out the fluid in his stomach was squeezing his heart. They drained two freaking liters of fluid from his stomach. If my mom hadn’t taken him to the hospital, he would have died in hours.
My dad had been an alcoholic for my entire life. In fact, he was an alcoholic right up until the moment he went to the hospital. That alcoholism had destroyed our relationship. And it had destroyed his body, too. Now he was in the intensive-care unit with cirrhosis of the liver, and the doctor was giving him eight months to live.
When my brother and I found out, I remember Bubby freaking. He locked himself in the bathroom, yelling and screaming. I was weirdly calm. I remember saying to him, “Quit freaking out. You’re gonna be fine.” I didn’t even think about it. Then I got to the hospital. As soon as I walked in there I started bawling my eyes out so bad I couldn’t even make my way into the fucking room. I shocked myself with my own reaction, because I had hated him for so long. But knowing he was in the ICU just got underneath that grudge I was holding and shook a lot of feelings loose.
When my father got out of ICU, he was sober. And that was the craziest shit. He was like a completely different person. He would come over to sit with me and try to talk to me. At that point the shock of seeing him sick had worn off, and I was feeling even more confused and lost than I was before. I just didn’t know where to go from there. At that point I still hated him because I couldn’t even process this new person that he was. I couldn’t remember knowing him sober, outside of those little-kid memories from way back when. But after so many years with my father the alcoholic, they seemed more like dreams than reality. Now that he was sober, it was truly like talking to a stranger. I used to explain it by telling people that the first time I met my dad was when I was sixteen. That’s how it felt to me.
Slowly, I got to know him on those new terms. One thing I realized after my dad became sober was how much we have in common. I’m so much like him that it’s insane. We both have the same filthy mouth. We’re always trying to get a laugh out of people. We’re always thinking about random stuff, starting crazy conversations about unexpected things. There’s so much of him in me that I never knew about growing up, because I never got to see it past the alcohol.
Our relationship didn’t recover right away, though. I didn’t leave that hospital planning father-daughter days. When you have that much hurt and anger between a parent and a child, it’s not that easy to fix. As stubborn as I am, I don’t know how long I might have gone on hating him if the situation hadn’t forced me to accept that things had changed.
It started with a big fight between my mom and me. I was so pissed I
When it comes to family problems like that, though, you never get to sort through things in your own time. They always end up exploding in your face when you least expect it, forcing you to face things you don’t feel ready to face. I had already built up a lot of walls so I wouldn’t have to deal with my relationship with my father, and it all came crashing down on me much sooner than I was prepared for.
My dad had been staying at our place for a couple of nights. He’d gotten sick, puking up blood, and his stomach was swelling up really bad. He was having trouble breathing. But after a couple of days he went back home to rest at his own place. That night my mom had a dream that something bad was going to happen to him. It freaked her out so bad that she got up early in the morning and went straight to his house to take him to the hospital.
She was right to trust her instincts. It turned out the fluid in his stomach was squeezing his heart. They drained two freaking liters of fluid from his stomach. If my mom hadn’t taken him to the hospital, he would have died in hours.
My dad had been an alcoholic for my entire life. In fact, he was an alcoholic right up until the moment he went to the hospital. That alcoholism had destroyed our relationship. And it had destroyed his body, too. Now he was in the intensive-care unit with cirrhosis of the liver, and the doctor was giving him eight months to live.
When my brother and I found out, I remember Bubby freaking. He locked himself in the bathroom, yelling and screaming. I was weirdly calm. I remember saying to him, “Quit freaking out. You’re gonna be fine.” I didn’t even think about it. Then I got to the hospital. As soon as I walked in there I started bawling my eyes out so bad I couldn’t even make my way into the fucking room. I shocked myself with my own reaction, because I had hated him for so long. But knowing he was in the ICU just got underneath that grudge I was holding and shook a lot of feelings loose.
When my father got out of ICU, he was sober. And that was the craziest shit. He was like a completely different person. He would come over to sit with me and try to talk to me. At that point the shock of seeing him sick had worn off, and I was feeling even more confused and lost than I was before. I just didn’t know where to go from there. At that point I still hated him because I couldn’t even process this new person that he was. I couldn’t remember knowing him sober, outside of those little-kid memories from way back when. But after so many years with my father the alcoholic, they seemed more like dreams than reality. Now that he was sober, it was truly like talking to a stranger. I used to explain it by telling people that the first time I met my dad was when I was sixteen. That’s how it felt to me.
Slowly, I got to know him on those new terms. One thing I realized after my dad became sober was how much we have in common. I’m so much like him that it’s insane. We both have the same filthy mouth. We’re always trying to get a laugh out of people. We’re always thinking about random stuff, starting crazy conversations about unexpected things. There’s so much of him in me that I never knew about growing up, because I never got to see it past the alcohol.
Our relationship didn’t recover right away, though. I didn’t leave that hospital planning father-daughter days. When you have that much hurt and anger between a parent and a child, it’s not that easy to fix. As stubborn as I am, I don’t know how long I might have gone on hating him if the situation hadn’t forced me to accept that things had changed.
It started with a big fight between my mom and me. I was so pissed I
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