I AM NOT MY INHERITENCE

While I was close to my mom growing up, my father was emotionally absent and only seemed happy when he was highly intoxicated. Like a ghost, he came and went. I only saw him briefly before he left for work and after he came home, or during the weekends as he binge drank in the living room. Then I’d see him the next week, when he repeated the cycle.

As I grew older, I learned that my father had suffered a lot and was a product of his environment. He was abused as a kid, mostly by his father. Both of his parents died young from drug overdoses. When my father drank, he became a different person and could turn spiteful, mean, and abusive in the blink of an eye. He often fought with my mother and was verbally abusive to my older sister and me, or simply ignored me.

One night when I was around 12, my parents fought while my sister and I stayed in our separate rooms, trying to drown out the sounds of screaming, hitting, and thrown objects. The next morning, my mom, dad, and sister were all cuddling in my parents’ bed, waiting for me to join them.

As I stood there in confusion, my father excused himself to get something from the kitchen. When he was out of the room, I said, “I thought we were all mad at him?”

My mom and sister shared a scoff and an eye roll as my mother said, “Oh, come on, that was so long ago!”

“That was yesterday,” I said, as I started to feel like I was the only one who noticed a recurring problem.

While I knew, deep down, that my father tried his best to be a decent person, his issues triumphed over his attempts to change his ways. He sometimes went a day without drinking, and my mother and sister praised him for it, but the next day he’d be back at it. I soon realized he wouldn’t be able to quit unless he got professional help.

Written by A Youth Communication Teen Writer