MY SISTER MADE THIS AND IT GOT ME TO CRY >.< ITS AMAZING!!!! btw when she says brianna shes talking about me. shes so talented.....

When I was growing up, my father was an alcoholic. At this point in time, probably when I was still in the beginnings of grade school, he was an alcoholic just at night. He would often take me to the liquor store with him to buy a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Sometimes I would wait in his off-white Tempo in the parking lot until he came out with his bottle discreetly placed in a brown paper bag, as if no one could figure out the contents. On some occasions I got to go in with him, then he would buy candy and whiskey. The owner of Smile’s liquor store always called him “boss man”, which sounds weird coming from an Arab man. He always “hid” the bottle in the cabinet above the kitchen sink where no one could reach it. More often than not, I would climb on top of the counter and pour the bottles out or hide them. He wasn’t a happy drunk or a nice drunk. He would just drink the bottle, no chaser, no mixer, just whiskey. Usually when the weather was nice I wouldn’t be at home, it was safer to be out playing somewhere than just stay in my room for the night. When I was home the drama had quite the impact. I went to sleep listening to the sounds of my parents arguing on the other side of my bedroom door. My mom would always try to quiet him so my sister and I wouldn’t know what was going on. Sometimes she got hit, sometimes he just passed out on the couch after breaking some things around the house. The next morning I just got up and ready for school and went about the day like nothing was wrong or had happened. I think now I vented all my anger about these events onto kids at school. I made fun of people and was just rude. It turns out some people really got hurt by the things I said and did. But at the time it was just a coping mechanism for the drunkenness of my childhood.
Everyone went about the next day as if nothing happened. My parents went to work and the children went to school. I remember in third grade we had to write a story about a monster. In my story the monster threw up all over a boy’s kitchen. I described the contents of its stomach that coated the kitchen. My teacher reported this to my parents since my monster puked up whiskey. It wasn’t until I got older that I really began to notice how wrong my life was functioning. I would worry about what would happen every night and what would happen to my mom. She was never hurt badly enough to end up in the hospital, just bumps and bruises. My neighbors would call the cops and he would get arrested. It was usually only for a few days at a time that he would be gone. He received restraining orders to stay away from our house, but those were never followed. Sometimes I would ask my mom why she didn’t just leave him. I told her that all us girls could just live together. Instead she called the cops or my grandma to come get him from our house. By this time he lost his job and mother got the joy of supporting three daughters and herself.
In all the years that I dealt with him as an alcoholic, I only got hit once. It was one day in August when my family got back from State Fair. I went out with one of my friends and came back to check in. I was in the bathroom blowing my nose when he came in and started yelling at me. All I can remember is that he hit me and kicked me. I ran out of the house crying and left. Another time I got so fed up with the way he was acting that I packed clothes and started swearing at him. I walked to my grandma’s house in the rain. When I got there they didn’t answer the door since it was late. I walked the mile back in the rain to the drunken abyss I called home.
One Father’s day I made him a card. It was all shades of blue and on the bottom, under my name I wrote, “Maybe you could try not to drink today”. He flipped.
Holidays were a whole other event. We went to the grandparents house and acted like a loving family. He would get drunk but stay under control. When we got home he would beat up our Christmas tree and throw the glass ornaments at the tree. One of my favorite parts of Christmas was to decorate the tree as a family, but after years more ornaments were gone and I refused to participate. In the morning it was always fun to try and wake him up so we could open our presents.
He broke our grill, my basketball hoop, and other odds and ends. Miraculously he never crashed his car or got caught drunken driving. For some reason I feel like I’m the only one that ever stood up to him and held my grudge. My mom always let him come back and was fine with him for the most part when he was sober. I guess she must have loved him for some reason. Jessica rarely said anything and Brianna was too little. I screamed, swore, ran away, poured out alcohol, broke cigarettes, hid whiskey, and probably more. Apparently the hurt of someone’s daughter isn’t enough to make them stop drinking.
He tried to get help, or maybe he was forced to by the courts. Either way he was in rehab for a short period of time. He went to meetings and everything that was required. I went to one group session and that was all. I didn’t talk or participate. Rehab is a joke if someone isn’t committed to fixing themselves in the first place. Right after he got out the bottle went right back to his mouth.
One time he stabbed my mom in the leg with a fork.
When Brianna was still a toddler she told my cousin that if she sleeps over and my dad gets crazy they can hid in her closet because that’s what she does.
I never went and saw him when he was in prison until my mom died and I was living with my grandparents.
After a few years he would spend more time in prison or stay at my grandma’s house. My mom started to drink since she was living in hell. Her drink of choice, vodka. When she first started she would drink enough to go to sleep and get up and be a nurse. Eventually she stopped going into work and losing her ability to function. She stopped showering, eating, and couldn’t even walk. She crashed two cars and was always covered with bruises because of her falls. She often admitted herself into the hospital and rehab centers a few times but her sobriety was short lived. In October my little sister moved in with my father’s parents since my dad was in jail and my mom was incapacitated. On Thanksgiving of 2004 she disappeared. As of then Jessica and I moved in with my grandparents too. Every day after school Jessica would go out with her boyfriend and I would have her drop me off at my house. When I walked in the house would be filthy. Sometimes I would find my mom passed out in the hallway with bruises and soiled pants. Other times she would try to get money from me or try to fight me to let her leave. Once she was out of a car she would call taxis or walk to near by bars. This was how she met some guy named Steve who used her for money. It’s a possibility that he got her into drugs and who knows how far their relationship went. Jessica kicked a guy out of our house before and I caught her coming home from a festival with a man who I kicked out. When Jessica and I still lived at home we put a lock on my mom’s bedroom door to try and sober her up. We took over cleaning, cooking, paying bills, and caring for Brianna for a short amount of time. Each side of the family tried to help her get better.
When my dad got out of jail all that was left in his home was a drunk girlfriend. Once he got out I stopped going home because he would be drunk to. He claimed he was going to help her with her addiction but really they just stayed in the house in drunken stupors. Then Sunday February 27th she died. My dad called my grandma from a pay phone to say he was leaving town because he would be blamed for her death. He claimed that she rolled out of bed and didn’t move. My mom’s brother was called to go to the house and find his dead sister. We were told by my grandma and aunt. I don’t know if my dad killed my mom. I know how each of them behaved when they were drunk though. My mom couldn’t even walk and my dad would beat the hell out of her. After I didn’t talk to my mom’s side of the family for two years, my grandpa told me that the autopsy said she had no alcohol in her system. Maybe all the alcohol tore up her organs or maybe she was beaten to death. What a thought to live with.
Now I get to see my dad in jail as he lives out his 12 year sentence for bail jumping. When I want to see my mom I can look at the urn in my room. No more looking forward to holidays. No parents at my high school graduation, college experience, proms, driving, nothing. Can’t help but love Mother’s day, March 19th, and February 27th.
When it comes down to everything, I don’t miss my dad.
I have no real reason to miss the man. He never really did anything for me. Sure he bought me things, was there for vacations, but he loved his alcohol more and put me through hell. He does have a role in my mother’s death even if it wasn’t directly. If he could have controlled his drinking and been a normal person she never would have resorted to alcohol to cope with the problems that were all his fault. She didn’t start drinking because of work or her children, it was because the man that she was supposedly in love with.