As I opened my closet door, the sinking feeling of having nothing that could begin to mimic appropriate attire, even by the greatest of stretches, made me quickly shut the door and go into panic mode. I suddenly needed a suit to wear to a function that usually comes without an advance notice: a funeral. When thinking back, perhaps there was some notice - in fact it was more or less inevitable - but still, if there is a glimmer of something you can fashion into hope, why not shoot for it?
Several months back, my dad had decided that he had encountered a few too many let downs and opted to look for answers inside a bottle...and boy did he ever find answers. He learned about the easiest way to drive one's immediate family crazy; he learned of the surest way to destroy oneself from the inside out; he learned how the total loss of faith in himself could be fashioned into a suedo reality where it became everyone else's fault but his - how he could turn the most logical of concepts around and mold them back into something twisted - telling you how things actually were through his eyes, almost getting you to believe it, all the while spiraling down and down.
When I told myself I was too tired to try again and that he had made his choice, I found myself once again knocking at his door hoping to find a glimmer of the person I knew in the past on the other side. But a lie would always be staring back, attempting to portray itself as a truth. I would stay with the lie and bleed myself of every possible emotion: anger, sympathy, compassion - I even tired empathy and fashioned myself into a lie so I could attempt to see through the lie's eyes, but that hardly solicited a flinch and the lie would just look back without being moved at all, revealing not a thing.
As strange as it sounds, when the call came in that my dad was in the VA hospital it was almost a relief. As if now he was somewhere that would force him to get well. But when I went to visit, the person in the bed wasn't my dad. Instead a bloated and yellowed version of him was lying there doing battle with his liver. The doctors said his liver was too far gone and that our family should prepare ourselves for the worst. I thought, you're telling us to prepare for the worst, do you know what the fuck we have just gone through for the last year?
After a few days he came around a bit by getting force fed some nourishment, without a proof label on it. The doctors kept saying that people in this state can sometimes be delusional and if he doesn't recognize us, or says something off the wall, that we should just understand it's the byproduct of having your liver shut down while toxins flood the body. But my dad was perfectly lucid and for a few days almost became himself again, recounting stories from the the distant past that I had long forgotten.
Once when we were alone, I asked my father why did you do this yourself - you never had a serious drinking problem. Is this just another form of suicide? He shut his eyes and turned away. I had the floor and if this was the last chance I had to speak to him, I was going to open the flood gates.
Can you hear me? It's almost better you don't answer so I can finally speak uninterrupted for a few minutes. How dare you put our family through hell and put us all down because you decided to put your own life into a tailspin. You made your choices and are one-hundred percent at fault here; no one else put those bottles into your hands but you. To suggest we didn't understand is laughable; the problem is that we did understand - it was all so crystal clear. But all you could do was rub our faces in this twisted reality of yours that puts everyone else at fault except yourself, apparently to appease what's left of your ego and somehow justify your stupidity.
I'll be honest with you, the doctors say it doesn't look good. Your liver is a mess and your body cannot function in this state much longer. If you have any fight left in you, you had better give it all you got - you have to decide if you want to live or call it quits. I wanted to come hear today as the caring son and somehow find the strength to say just the right words. In the version that keeps playing over and over in my head, my words finally hit a chord in you and you're struck by the passion and truth in them. You finally see everything for what it really is and continue on with your life, realizing what a terrible mistake you had made. That's all it is, right, a mistake? But now, seeing you in this state, my words feel so empty and hollow.
I still don't get it, a handsome and charismatic guy who always had more girlfriends than there was the time in the day for, a promising book in the works, caring friends and family, and until now good health, all to be eaten away by a bottle. You really hurt your family, in fact I think I'm the only one left who will have anything to do with you, emotionally that is. The rest of the family is here in body, but honestly their tears have dried and they are attempting to move forward and take the hold button off from their lives. They didn't have the strength to get mentally beat up anymore and are just numb to the whole thing. I'm somewhere between numb and still trying to believe - I don't know if I should call it stupidity or optimism , but I don't know what else to do, or who else to be. You know me, if the cup needs to be filled with something just so I can try to think positive, I'll fill it with crap if I have to. I should just wear a shirt that says: idealistic fool for hire.
Maybe somewhere along the way you taught me that; to keep believing. You didn't have to say it, you lived it and I was watching. Up until now I've always believed in you -you're a survivor and can make it through this if you wanted to. Remember how you went through hell on a battlefield a half a world away and nearly died fighting for a facade called freedom? Remember how the bullets shattered your shin and tore part of your boot off? Remember how the shrapnel bounced around inside your helmet until the blood and the sweat and the fear streamed into your eyes and made you blind? You must remember how you woke up on the side of a helicopter saved by an unknown comrade, perhaps thinking you were ascending to heaven. I know the stories were real, I saw the scars and the sadness in your eyes. You were so young and probably weren't told that the lives you were ordered to take would continue to fight with you long after the battle had stopped. A Purple Heart medal was your door prize- what a kick in the ass that must have been!
And now you lie here in a battlefield of your own making, at war with your own body. You have apparently given up and I can't step in and live your life for you. I honestly don't know what to do from here; I can't magically fix this and make it go away. If there is anything to be learned, it's that as hard as it is to accept, we can't always make things right. The way it looks is that you are going to bow out and leave your family to sort this out for the rest of our lives. I feel like punching the walls and shaking you to your senses, but don't even have the strength to get mad anymore. I wish you would open your eyes a moment, just to let me know you can hear me. Is there anything left in you that hasn't been consumed?
Visiting hours ended all too soon and I left my dad lying there. It was the last time I ever saw him alive. I drove away in a blur of green and red traffic lights hardly recognizing what I was seeing, as I tried to make sense of pain I was barely old enough to understand. Tears were trying to flood, but only pooled within becoming the hardest ones to wipe away.
As I swung open the doors to the store, I quickly saw that everything was too stiff and cost too much. But then something in the back caught my eye. It was an unpretentious suit for $99 that fit just right, and that was just the amount I had to my name.
