2007

It truly is the best best time of the year for the typical seven year old little girl who wants to sit up all night and hopes to catch santa claus kissing mommy or eating the cookies and what not. Although, Christmas  for this seven year old little girl took a wrong turn in every way possible.

Let's establish something, first and foremost, having divorced parents absolutely sucks. From having to always have all of your belongings portable for the weekends where you suddenly switched households as well as parents, to having to equally distribute your time between two parents on the holidays, it's all just a huge headache. This particular struggle goes much deeper than physical aspects though, seeing your family get torn apart in two breaks your heart in two at the very seams. So here is my story of my horrible, no good, very bad Christmas.

My parents divorce was just a tad bit different than any others. Rather than joint custody, my mom had all the say in whether or not she wanted to allow my dad to see or spend time with me. The cause of the divorce being set up this way was due to my dad's abuse towards drugs. Being as generous as she is, she allowed me to go to his house every other weekend, and see him on every holiday, completely disregarding the fact that he was not to be trusted in any way, shape, or form. Mom and Dad got a divorce in 2001, so a happy life with a normal family was never a custom that I got to enjoy or ever got to know. However, Dominic, my older brother, was old enough to know what exactly was going on at the time. But Dominic chose to go with my dad since that was his legal guardian, my mom, Libby, filled in as his mother when his real mom, Cindy, got in a fatal motorcycle accident causing her to suffer serious brain damage.

Dominic living with my dad, Marc, worked for a few years, then just as Marc’s drug addiction started to get out of hand, Dominic moved in with my dad’s mom, who we refer to as Nana.

Now that all of that is cleared up allow me to explain how my first Christmas  ended up being my last. It was 2007, and the weekend visits were still in tact, and my mom began to trust my dad a little more around me, even though at this point his drug addiction was worse than it had ever been unbenounced to her. She decided to let me spend the night at my dad’s house on Christmas eve, and allow me to get dropped off with her Christmas morning. I had never been so excited in my life. My mom finally let me spend a full Christmas  with him, but it turned out that I got my expectations way too high.

As soon as she dropped me off at his house I couldn't wait to find out what he had planned, but as soon as I got to the door his girlfriend answered, and he was nowhere in site.  I found him dead asleep in  his bed practically choking on air because he was snoring so loudly. I was told that “daddy's just tired” and with that being said I continued on into my bedroom and played with my easy bake oven, thinking absolutely nothing about why my dad was so tired on the only holiday he finally got to spend with me.

Later that evening, sure enough he awoke but strangely enough, rather than going to get dinner, we just sat in the house and watched movies while he struggled to feed himself or even keep his eyes open. At this point I was too young to put the pieces together and realize that my own father placed pills before his seven year old daughter on a holiday, and was as high as a kite off of xanax bars and lord only knows what else.
My drugged out father and my clueless self, sat on my bed while we watched random old movies that had no affiliation to Christmas  in anyway, shape, or form. He had me run to the kitchen a few times to get him some cheese sticks, or potato chips, and other miscellaneous things. As the night continued, I eventually was so bored with myself watching my dad's head fall back and forth and in and out of consciousness, I just fell asleep myself. There was still hope inside of me that Santa Claus would know where I was and that he would find a way to get my presents to my location. The anticipation killed me as I sprung out of bed by seven in the morning on Christmas morning to find one present under the tree and it wasn't even wrapped.

My Dad woke up and helped me open the single box that was under the tree. It appeared to be a jewelry box, a big brown fancy jewelry box, and it turned out to be just that. At seven years old I didn't really have a use for such a big fancy jewelry box, but I made the best of it, and since I was a total daddy’s girl anything he did in my eyes was perfect.

The visit that was seeming to get somewhat better, took a turn down the wrong path.

As we were still laying in my bedroom, just like the night before, he asked me to go out into the kitchen and get him his cigarettes. I hesitated because I was totally against the thought of my loved ones smoking,especially in my own bedroom, but it was my dad, so I did anything he asked. I had brought the cigarettes to him, where he then continued to light one. Suddenly, he grabbed another one even though there was a fresh lit one hanging out of his mouth; he handed the cigarette to me. At this point I knew he was gone. I knew that the dad I knew, the dad that took me to Nana’s house, the chinese buffet, the golf course, or the go kart track every time we were together, I knew he was gone. The man I referred to as my dad may have looked like this guy laying on  my bed, but in no way was he this man laying on  my bed holding a cigarette in my face. I sat there with a million thoughts running through my head; do I listen to him? do I say no? what do Ido? and just then he pulled it back towards him. still no words were spoken. But he began to light it… Then he proceeded to stick the non lit end into my mouth where I took a breathe in, not knowing that that was what could possibly harm me, I immediately took it out of my mouth. As he held it he said to me “Please try it, please just for me. Nobody will ever know.” Before I could respond his girlfriend walked in, looked at the situation, and took me out of the room within a split second. As I  was being pulled away I could hear my dad yelling “Don't take my daughter away from me!” Those words in that stern tone sent me the signal that what just happened was worse than I thought it was. The tension and drama overwhelmed me to the point where I broke down into tears. His girlfriend took me into their room  and locked the door and proceeded to call my mom  and explain what happened. Rightfully so my mom reacted in a very pissed off manner and sent my grandma to come get me right away.

I sat in the bedroom with my dad’s girlfriend until my grandma came and got me. I simply walked out of the house without saying a word to my dad who still had not moved from the spot that he was in.

When I was questioned about what happened, I didn't know what to say. Looking back at it now, the situation wasn't all that deep, but as a seven year old with no ability to make my own responsible decisions it was a situation that I didn't deserve to be put into.

At that very moment none of us knew that that would be our last encounter with him.

December 28th 11:00am my dad passed away in his sleep due to a drug overdose. It was something that I think we all saw coming. I came home from my daycare, and my mom sat me down while she was in tears and said “I have to tell you something” and my response to that was “Did dad die?” and she shook her head yes, and took  me into her arms immediately as I screamed and cried. It was very hard on the whole family, because nor myself, my uncle, my brother, or my mom, were on good terms with him at that time.

Looking back on it now, the last experience I had with him replays over and over and over to the point where it won't stop. But to keep myself from getting upset about it all of the time, I tell myself that that experience wasn't the last experience I had with my dad, because that was not my dad. Physically it was him, mentally it was a complete stranger because I know that  my dad would never do such cruel things to his favorite daughter.

So this goes out to the dad that I used to know, wherever you are, I hope things are great and I hope you're watching us all as we miss you everyday. I love you more than words could explain, but I understand that it was your time, it was too soon for me, but God is funny like that. Don't think for a second that I think of you as a bad man, this world is made for mistakes, and not one person living on it is free from one. Rest in peace.