My dad took his first drink when he was 21-years old.
He took his last drink 21-years later.
In-between his first and last drink he never stopped drinking.
This may be weird to you, but I’m gonna say it: I do not know what a normal dad smells like.
My dad was not a normal dad: he smelled odd.
His breath was an amalgamated concoction of air, nicotine, and alcohol.
His skin had a gummy bear feel to it. When you rubbed his skin, it felt kinda gooey.
He was also a mean drunk. When he got drunk, he got angry and if he
was not sulking in a chair, he was yelling at his children. I do not
recall ever hearing the word “love” in our home.
Perhaps someone said, “I love you,” but I do not remember it. Love
was not something I knew about. I had heard about it through television
and rock songs, but I did not know what it really meant or how it was
supposed to be lived out.
You wouldn’t know this either, but I’m gonna say this too: I never called my dad, “dad” or “father.” Even as I type the letters d-a-d, I’m reminded that those letters still seem a bit odd when I relate them to my father.
We had a nickname that we called him, but I’ll spare you that
information. It took me about 10 years after he died to refer to him as
“dad.” The D-word was not an appellation we used for him.
These circumstances were not unusual for me because my life was
wall-to-wall dysfunction from birth until I was born the second time at
twenty-five years old. To refrain from calling my dad “dad” was just
part of the deal. If you don’t know any better, then it becomes the
unchangeable and assumed norm.
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