My Father's Eyes

I am a daddy's girl. I have always been a daddy's girl. Da-da was my first word, I never went anywhere without holding my daddy's hand (right up until I was about 14), and I always thought I was lucky to have the best dad the world had ever seen.

When I was little, dad used to call me 'Velcro,' because I was always attached to him. He is massive, 6"5 and pushing 250 pounds, and I used to love to curl up in his lap and bury my head in his chest. It felt like such a safe place, warm and soft. He smelled like Irish Spring soap, cigarettes and Polo cologne. He has a deep voice and a hearty laugh, and sitting in his lap you could feel his whole chest shake when he spoke. I look almost exactly like him, always have, and I remember being very proud of looking like him. Whenever people commented on my green eyes I would tell them with pride "they're my dad's eyes. They're just like his." Dad was always the funniest person I knew, as well. He could make anyone laugh without even trying. One more reason to be proud. Everyone wanted to be friends with my dad; the funniest, tallest, cuddliest man in the world who had green eyes, listened to the Cure and wore Red Chuck Taylor All-Stars when he picked me up from school.

My dad didn't live with us when we were young, but we saw him every weekend and sometimes during the week. He took us shopping and out to dinner. He bought us bikes and let us shift the gears of his pick up truck while he drove. When I was 13 years old, I begged him to let me live with him and eventually he did. My mom insisted that as soon as he had to enforce rules he would cease to be the great hero I believed him to be - but she was mistaken. I still thought he could do no wrong.

Living with dad was just what I hoped it would be. I woke up each morning to the smell of hazelnut coffee brewing and the sound of dad ironing my school clothes. He took time off from work to make sure he never missed one of my field hockey/basketball/softball/lacrosse games. He made scrambled eggs, french toast and bacon for dinner and never pestered me about doing my homework because he knew I would have it done. When I was 16, he let me have his car and bought himself an older less expensive one. He picked out my prom dresses, listened to me go on and on about my day at school, and didn't shout too much when I broke my curfew. We would stay in together on a Friday night and watch movies, snuggled up on the couch as if I were still six years old. On the day I graduated from high school, he gave me the refinished hope chest that had belonged to his grandmother and we cried - him holding me so tight I thought he would break my ribs. When he dropped me off at college later that year, my grandmother said he had to pull over several time on his way home because he was so upset. On my wedding day, I practically had to hold him up during the father/daughter dance as we both sobbed our way through Into the Mystic. I'm not saying he was perfect, but I loved him. He was my daddy.

Then things started to change. I know - things are supposed to change. I am an adult now and my father has a life of his own. But in the last few years, I began to notice that the man who had never had a drink in front of me before I was 18 was suddenly drinking all the time. When he came to visit me three years ago, I could hardly get him out of the pub - and the visit ended with me confronting him and him leaving in the middle of the night without a note. The day before my wedding, I stayed in his hotel room. He came in at four in the morning, so drunk he couldn't even talk, and passed out in his clothes with the lights on. An hour before my wedding, my husband had to usher him out of the hotel bar to get changed when he found him doing whiskey shots in his shorts and t-shirt. No matter what time of day it is when I phone him, he is never in work and always seems out of it or tired. Yes, I suppose when I think about it I have known something was wrong for a long time now.

Last night, my sister AJ called me. She had pre-warned me that it was going to be 'heavy,' so I braced myself. She told me that dad has a drinking problem (no shock there), that her fiance had seen dad doing cocaine (OK, shocking - but maybe he just did it that once...), and that our uncle has confirmed that he has a problem with drugs (Oh. Shit). No, I wanted to say, not my dad! Not my perfect dad with the gold-green eyes who listens to the Cure and smells good and wears red Chuck-Taylors. Not the man who held my hand at a Red Sox game and told me that the greatest thing he had ever done in his life was have my sister and I. Not the man who held me up and told me to smile as I walked down the aisle to my husband. He wouldn't do that! But unfortunately it has been so long since I have seen that man, so instead I just sighed and said "I had a feeling."

I had a feeling? How could I have had a feeling and just let it go? For ten years I have been working with people with addictions. I know the warning signs, I know the destructive results, I know what they need to do to get help. I had a feeling? Was I just going to wait until he was too strung out to function? Wait until he, like his own father, became so ill that he forgot the names of his children and grandchildren? When did I think it would have been an appropriate time to say or do something? When he drove home drunk some night and killed someone else or himself? No, no action necessary here. I had a feeling, but hey - he's a grown man right? I am sure he can handle it.

And poor AJ. Poor AJ who until now has managed to live in her happy little bubble, unaware that her parents were human and fallible. Poor, poor AJ who still secretly thinks our parents might get back together, who plans to fix all of our parents' financial problems when she finishes school and gets a job. For once, not only did I fail to shield her from the mess that is our family - I am taking a back seat and letting her face the music first. Because if I am really, really honest with myself, I am not sure I would confront him if she weren't going to. How can I? How can I tell him I know that he has become exactly the thing he has fought so hard not to become? The thing he has hated his whole life? How can I let myself acknowledge that the man who called me Velcro and picked out my prom dress and told me I could be anything I wanted is spending all his money on drink and cocaine, can't hold down a job and has been lying to us? I know that I have to do it, but I am not so naive that I don't know what I am about to lose - and that is the most frightening part of telling him that I know what's going on.

My friend once teased that my life was like an episode of Jerry Springer. After this I am starting to think he is right. "I love my manic depressive mom and coke head dad - but I had to get away because I got an eating disorder and became a neurotic perfectionist" could be the title. Or maybe "Every time one of my parents finally manages to stop screwing up their life, the other one starts screwing up theirs - and I am so selfish all I can think about is how it affects me." Maybe if we all went on TV and duked it out we could finally get some resolution to it all. Maybe if I hadn't seen this coming for so long I could be as sad and sympathetic as AJ seems to be. But right now I have to say I am more mad than anything. I don't know who I am mad at, but I am definitely pissed off. Pissed at my family for ignoring the signs, pissed at myself for seeing the signs and doing nothing about it, pissed at my grandfather for setting my dad up for a life of addiction, and pissed as hell at my father for taking away that man who smelled like cologne and cigarettes who used to let me climb up his legs to do back flips and danced with me in the kitchen.