Father's Day...and terrible memories

Well, I survived Father's Day and the memories it brings back up so close to the surface.  Jeesh.

I hero-worshiped my father when I was a little girl.  He could do no wrong.  He had a beautiful singing voice.  Sometimes he'd come home and start singing to my mom the moment he arrived at the door.  "Hey, hey, Good-looking" a song by Hank Williams was one of his favorites and he'd win my mom over every time.  He was kind, gentle and a lot more reasonable than mom. I could talk to him and he took the time time to listen if he was around.  But he wasn't around very much.

He was a gambler, a thief and a con man plus he was addicted to heroin.  So he was either in hot pursuit of "The Big Game" or acting as if he was an exterminator with a spray can mostly filled with water and a little bit of roach spray or busy talking mom out of the rent money she hid away.  But he could do no wrong in my eyes.

He kept going to jail then finally to prison and the time he spent with us got less and less while mom got meaner and meaner.  Once, while we lived on East 2nd Street, he went to the restroom with his newspaper in hand so we all knew he'd be in there for quite a while.  This time he was in there so long and no amount of knocking and banging on the door got him out.  An ambulance was called...he had overdosed and was unconscious.  There were times he and his buddies crowded the kitchen as they laughed and talked, the best of friends as they got a spoon, cotton, dope and rig ready to do the deed.  Their bare arm extended with a tourniquet to help find a vein.  No big deal.  We knew not to say one word about these things.  Not one little slip of a word.  This was one of our family secrets.  No matter what, loyalty to family was paramount for our survival.

As things got progressively worse, my father ended up in prison on quite a stretch of time and when he was out briefly was when he molested me by allowing me to put his member in my mouth.  When my mom came to pick me up I told her what happened and she slapped and hit me, saying it was all my fault.  He went back to prison not too long after because of drugs.  For years I thought this was all my fault but Bernard, my therapist, assured me that as an adult my father should have known and done better.  I told Bernard I thought I was "The Abomination" like the girl on the movie "Dune".  I felt guilt-stricken and ashamed.  I had done this after my two older brothers, Ray and Rudy had acted out with me by forcing their members in my mouth and would bend my fingers back until I was on the floor on my knees.  They demanded I say, "Mercy." and for some reason I felt such a rage and rebellion against saying "Mercy" so I fought back with tears streaming down my face until they won.  And I lost because I was too stupid to learn to just submit instead of fighting back.  When they zeroed in on my younger siblings I would throw myself back in the arena just to lose again.  I loved my brothers but I hated them for this.  Such opposing strong emotions..jeesh.

My father died June 7, 1970.  He was my grandmother's only child and had been staying at her house.  In the restroom, early one morning she discovered his dead body with the hypodermic needle still in his arm.  May he rest in peace.  Addiction has no mercy.  I hate the disease and the devastation it wrecks not only on the alcoholic/addict also the family and society at large.

I love the 12 Steps...because there is a way to heal, to survive and to triumph over a seemingly helpless, hopeless situation.  May the Higher Power, I choose to call GOD, help us all.