“Hello?”
A very simple greeting turned into a sorry cry for answers. I waited, longing for a reply. It felt as if I was in a horror flick waiting for something evil to answer. In my defense, it turned out to be quite similar to what I had come to expect. After several draining seconds I could hear my mother’s voice quivering on the other end.
“Honey…” she said shaking.
My heart stopped. After a long, awkward silence she finally broke the nervous tension.
“I have some bad news.”
My heart continued, still racing. How bad could it be? Was I going to be in trouble? I hated being in trouble. She continued.
“Dad is going to be in the hospital for a while, we’ll talk more when I get home.”
What did she just say? Was I hearing her correctly? I hung up the phone. I was in pure shock. I began running scenarios in my head. Will he be okay? What’s wrong with him? I walked into my room and curled up into my covers. All I could do was gaze blankly at the wall, waiting for my mother to come home. Little did I know how this simple yet terrifying sentence would affect me, or how the days to come would alter my life forever.
After the four longest hours of my short life, I could hear the door slowly creak open. I was paralyzed. My body stayed stiff in bed. My mother walked into my room and called in my brother. He sat next to me, so naïve to what was happening. My mother placed her hand on my leg and let out a sigh. She began to speak, her words were soft at first.
“J? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine mom, can you please just tell us what is going on?”
“Well, you know how dad’s been sick? It turns out he had pneumonia…”
Pneumonia? That’s not that bad. Was that really all this was about? I began to release the sharp tension that had built up inside of me.
“… You also know how he has been drinking again? It turns out his immune system is too weak to fight the infection because of the drinking and abuse of his pain medication. The doctors put him in a coma so they can try to make him bet-.”
“What? Is he going to be okay?” My brother jumped in, as the pure shock of it all had overwhelmed him.
“We are not sure yet, but I promise I’ll tell you anything I come to find out.”
I fell silent. My mind was as lost as a tear drop in a glass of water. I couldn’t handle this. Not now. My mother finally got up and left the room, considering she felt as terrible as I did. I turned on the television and flipped through the channels. I tried to get my mind off of things, yet I was emotionless. I laid in my bed swaddling myself in to my blankets. I was trying to create some causable explanations for why my mother was thinking this. It obviously couldn’t be true. Could it? I stared at my television hoping, begging for something to grab my attention and take me out of this miserable state, but no matter what, I would not cry. Crying only displayed your weaknesses.

A few extremely tediously long days later my mother, Mikaela, and I made our way to my father’s house. Walking in the front doors I could feel the lonesomeness this house bared without my father in it. My mother was never allowed in the house so I came in alone, moping about the living room, looking at old memories of us we had the great fortune of capturing into pictures. Some brought a smile to my face. The only real happiness I had had in days, but it didn’t last. I soon would realize my father wasn’t here and possibly would never be again. I was a pathetic miserable ball of depression. I walked into my father’s room and sat on his bed. I bundled myself into his sheets imagining he was reading me doctor Seuss just like when I was little, wishing he would come back. Why did he do this to me? My eyes glazed over just slightly until I reminded myself that my father would be fine, this was no crying matter. I pulled myself together. I had to be strong. I wiped my eyes into the sheets as a small white pill rolled down the blanket lying next to me on the bed. I looked at the small white pill; I had done things like this before... I thought about the consequences of this little pills affect on me, but I needed something, anything to make the pain disappear. In a single instant the pill was gone.

That one little white pill began to take over my entire life. I was constantly running to my fathers to “clean up a bit”. I had memorized every pill he had and every drawer he kept which in. My life was spiraling out of control at an inclining rate. Days upon days would go by, and my demeanor had become that of a junkies. I didn’t care though, anything to help numb the pain. Slowly I became addicted to being anything but sober. My life was leaving my grasp and was in the hands of something all new now. I became an exact replica of my father. I was a waste.

After weeks of my father’s hospitalization my mother disclosed to me my father had woken up. She told me were going to finally go see him when she got home from work. She warned me of his condition and explained to me he may not remember me. We all piled in the car as I looked out the window watching the city at its finest. It had seemed to be an hour before we had finally arrived at the hospital.

I walked through the doors and was immediately greeted by the harsh smell of cleaning supplies and urine. I looked to the floor beginning to count the blank white tiles at my feet. Sixty-eight… Sixty-nine… Seventy… My mother stopped in front of me. My head began to feel heavy, as if it were impossible to look up, but at last I did. Before me was not the man I had called dad all of my life, at least not the one I knew. His arms had grown twice their size, while the skin on his face stretched thin, clinging on to his skull. I walked into the room and sat in the chair next to him. He looked me right in the eyes; I knew he couldn’t recognize me. The whites of his eyes had become a constant deep shade of red. The longer I stared at him the more stranger-like he became, but I had to ask.
“Do you know who I am?”
An odd jumble of words came pouring out of his mouth containing nothing at all to do with me. My emotions began to kick in, something I hadn’t experienced in a while. My eyes brimmed with tears. I couldn’t tell if he was doped up, or if he would just stay like this forever. It was terrifying.

I sat there looking at the wall while my brother kept up the best conversation he could with my father. I couldn’t listen. It was bringing up too many memories, tweaking my emotions. Every miscommunicated sentence wrenched at my soul. I never showed my emotions to anyone. I held it in for so long all it was doing was ripping me apart from the inside out. I could barely take another slight glance at him without running the risk of breaking down, but I had to. I slowly took in his entire being and realized just pathetic he really was. He couldn’t even say his own name. It was in this moment I knew I couldn’t be like him.

It had come time to leave. I wasn’t one for the sorry spews of emotions in our heartfelt goodbyes. I looked at him, debating saying those three oh so important words. I knew those words made you feeble. I walked a bit closer to him and took his hand in my own. His child-like essence looked up at me with a baffled expression on his face.
“I love you dad. I’ll miss you.”
The words had not even made it out of my mouth when the tears began to run down my cheeks. I had let my guard down, and I couldn't care less.

Months later I had finally gotten the help I had needed. It has been a few months since I have touched any substances, and has been about a year since my father has gotten out of the hospital. He still abuses his narcotics and still drinks behind closed doors. I know my father will never be able to walk me down the aisle, or ever meet my future children. Now I realize I cannot change my father, nor can I see the future, and that is why I cherish every moment I have left with him. Though I love my father with all of my being, I will be the one to break this cycle. I will never again subdue myself to the petty lifestyle of a junkie, and I will never put my children through the hell my father’s ignorant decisions put me through. I had never before realized just how serious the simple act of holding in your emotions had become. Everyone faces obstacles in life, but you need to overcome them and strive to be great. I have changed my life for the better; I just wish he would have changed his too.