Day 259. You wanted to understand your father better.
Ask your uncle about the family alcoholism, please turn to page 33.

Now you feel you know too much. You sat with him at dinner, silent, because you don't know what to say. Your father told you that on the day of his graduation, his mother took too many of her sleeping pills that she had forgotten that she took them earlier in the evening, and died in her sleep. But that it was an ambiguous death. There was no investigation into the cause of her death because it was such a respected family, and that the family doctor arranged for this non-procedure. The same doctor that lied to the federal government and made sure that your uncles weren't drafted into the Vietnam War, was good for the family closet.

You wanted to understand what made the man who, when his thirteen year old daughter blacked out drunk wet from a shower with still some of her soaked clothes on, didn't say a word. Nothing. You wanted to understand his denial. and now you hurt so much for that little boy that you feel completely ashamed of yourself. That you held onto a resentment for the way that he treated you when he was drunk, the yelling and the degradation of being embarrassed because your dad was too drunk to drive you home and his college buddies would take you from the glam LA cocktail parties instead, was so horribly selfish.

You had forgiven him before you heard this story. You didn't need to know. You wonder if his parents ever told him as often as he tells you how much he loves you. You wonder if they ever said, "I'm so happy you're here." You don't know what to do with the attention, you falter when he says it. You say that it's good to be here and it's wonderful to relax. What should you say? You want to be able to take away that hurt and tell him that you'll be okay, that he's doing a good job. That you won't drink, and you won't turn into his mother and abandon him. That you love him too.