To the person with a drunk for a dad

The childhood memories I have of my dad are somewhat distorted.

But I do remember the vivid sounds of keys rattling outside the front door of our house almost as if someone were scrambling to break their way inside.

My body would tense up and, reacting on their own, my legs would start to move and I would find myself running towards the bedroom that I shared with my three older brothers.

I would jump onto the bed, grab the closest pillow, shut my eyes, and pretend to be asleep.

I would wait nervously on the bed, and with each passing second, the pacing of my heartbeat would increase as the blaring sound of footsteps echoed across the hallway, one-by-one, creeping their way into the bedroom.

Once inside, I would hear the footsteps travel slowly back-and-forth across the room. And as I waited, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach would form. Then a sudden silence followed as the footsteps came to an abrupt stop. I would start to sense prying eyes carefully watching me and despite my body wanting to desperately move, all I could do was hold my breath and remain still.

The footsteps would eventually gravitate towards the bedroom entrance. The lights would turn off then a loud bang would be heard as the bedroom door slammed completely closed.

In the darkness, I would hear the footsteps start to make their way past the hallways of the house and I would know they had reached their destination when they hit the kitchen tiles. The scrapping of wood as if someone were dragging a chair across the floor would then follow. Finally, a loud thumping noise would let me know that someone or something had finally settled down on one of the kitchen chairs.

Moments later, I would be listening to the muttering sounds of a drunken man trying to recount fractures stories of his past. Stories of a man who, despite struggling to come to the United States, somehow managed to find a way to put food in the mouth of his wife and his four ungrateful children.

On-and-on he went, confessing his truth to an empty room – or perhaps, I often thought, he was speaking to an unknown friend.

A long pause would follow then the loud sound of snoring would fill the inside of the kitchen before making its way into the room where I still lay, alone on the bed, carefully listening.

These were the childhood memories of my dad that I carried with me throughout the years and it was the words that he spoke during these drunken rants that I absorbed the most.

Unknowingly, I created a fragmented version of my dad that I held on for many years. One of a man who only thought of me as a burden and who, I genuinely believed, could never care for me or love me because he didn’t have the capability to do so. And out of that twisted interpretation I had of him, the idea that I was not deserving of love came to be.

As I entered adolescence, the arguments between my dad and I grew, and eventually we drifted apart.

By my early twenties, I got accepted into a college in San Francisco and I took that opportunity to move away and desperately look for the love and affection that I never received at home.

I went searching for it in random bars talking to random people. In the dark narrow alleyways hidden by the crowded clubs nearby. In the cramped backseat of a car with any stranger who invited me. In the pitch-black rooms surrounded by countless faceless bodies. In the most intimate of places. In places that I knew better than to look. Yet, after every encounter all I ever found was just a bunch of nothingness.

After two years away, I returned back home more broken than ever.

And when I needed advice that a father could provide, I reached out to my uncles, cousins, and men who were older than me, but the answers to the questions that these people provided me always felt so shallow.

Questions of what a man was supposed to be. Questions of who I was and where I needed to go in life.

I was lost during that time in my life.

Yet, those stories that I heard my father unintentionally share when I was a child about his struggles and the way he described my brothers and I as ungrateful children kept lingering in the back of my mind.

And it was during a regular family party, and after a few drinks, that I built up enough courage to confront him about the memories that had haunted me as a child.

After pacing back-and-forth around the kitchen for who knows how long, I called him over and gestured for him to sit next to me away from everyone else. I felt all the years of pent-up anger suddenly emerge within me and I found myself feeling more confident and somewhat prepared for my encounter with him.

He stumbled his way into the kitchen and he would have fallen if I hadn’t grabbed him by one of his arms and carefully guided him to sit down on a nearby chair.

As he slowly began to slouch, I couldn’t help but take a real hard look at him. I was caught off guard by all the wrinkles on his face along with the extra strokes of white hairs covering the side of his head. He looked much older than I remembered. I could see the weak body that he was left with after decades of drinking alcohol which caused me to instinctively turn away from him.

All of sudden, I had forgotten all the words that I was going to say to him, but before I could get the chance to regather my thoughts, I heard the sound of his drunken voice.

I turned around and saw that he was staring down at the kitchen floor.

All I could make out were the words, “I miss my son,”

My body tensed up. I wasn’t sure if I had imagined him saying those four words and if those really were the words that came out of his mouth, I wasn’t sure which son he was referring to.

I grabbed one of the kitchen chairs and quietly sat down.

He turned to me then and upon seeing the tears in his eyes, my anger quickly subsided.

“I’m sorry,” he continued to say, “I’m sorry for letting you down.”

I didn’t say a word. And it wasn’t because I didn’t have anything to say, it was because I didn’t think a response was needed. I gave him a half-smile and continued to listen.

“I lost one son, I don’t want to lose another one,” he said before crying uncontrollably.

Not knowing what to do, I kept my distance as I watched him cry. After several minutes, I let out a long sigh and moved close enough to him that I could smell the familiar stench of alcohol covering his body.

“It’ll be alright,” I said to him half-heartedly.

We sat there not talking long enough that he was able to sit straight on his chair. He wiped his tears and got up gently. I followed. We stood there staring at each other, not knowing who would break the silence.

“Can you forgive me?” he finally asked pitifully.

I wanted to say no. I wanted to let him know that him not hugging me or him not saying that he was proud of me led me down a path of me trying to desperately seek validation from anyone who showed me any amount of attention to the point of me not caring if I was being used or not.

I wanted to say that it was because of him that I was so angry all the time and why I was always getting drunk to the point of blacking out.

I wanted to yell at him the way he yelled at me whenever I did something wrong as a kid.

I wanted to say that I hated him.

I wanted to say so much, but before I had the chance to say anything, I felt his arms around me.

Once again, I didn’t know what to do. It was a hug that I had wanted from him for so long, but I all I could feel in that moment was just utter confusion.

He let go of me.

“I don’t want to lose you, mijo,” he said before kissing me on my forehead, “I didn’t want you to leave but you disobeyed me…but it was the right thing to do. You’re my son…I’ll be proud of you no matter what you do…no matter what happens.”

My body relaxed for the first time in years. I reached out and hugged him. The tears rolled down my eyes as we both stood there hugging each other.

I wasn’t crying because everything between us was resolved. I was crying because he finally acknowledged that I did something right for once, and for me, that was a start.

Before long, he started apologizing for always coming home drunk, for pushing me away, and for never showing me any love.

I don’t remember how long we hugged for or what we talked about next.

But I do remember as we hugged, thinking back to those childhood nights, as he was drunk, snoring loudly in the kitchen with the lights turned on. And I can remember slowly walking up to him, trying my best not to wake him up, and covering him with my small blanket.

And I can recall thinking that he was my father and I didn’t want him to sleep in the cold.