The Four Gifts

The tears are streaming down my face as I’m driving north on the 101 heading to the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona. It’s one of those warm December days that we have in Phoenix. We are known for our heat in the summer, but the other 9 months are amazing and it’s one of the reasons I love living here. The big blue skies, the rugged mountains surrounding the city, giant saguaro cacti and most importantly the weather. I suffer from seasonal depression, but in Arizona it’s almost non-existent. I can’t get enough of the sun. Sunshine is my medicine; it rejuvenates me. I’ll have the top off the jeep when it’s 115 degrees outside with the AC on just to bask in the sun as I drive. It feels like I’ve been on vacation and just haven’t seen him in a few months. It seems unreal. I don’t even know how to begin to process what happened.  I was in the height of my drug addiction and in psychosis when he died at the end of September. I missed his funeral, missed supporting my family during his unexpected death and I haven’t even begun to mourn. I don’t know how. I arrived at the cemetery and as I walked to his grave, I felt like I was having an out of body experience. It’s another moment where I am physically present, but mentally and emotionally somewhere else. I’m remembering the good and the bad about him. How much he loved me and my love for him. He was one of my biggest supporters and was a defender of mine. I wonder if he hadn’t died, if I would have made it into rehab. He saw the best in me, and I knew it. I used that to manipulate him when I was using drugs. I had to come clean about my addiction after his death, because I ran out of money, and it was either be homeless or turn to my family for help. If he had lived, I don’t know if I would have had the courage to face him and tell him I relapsed. I believe I would have kept going driving myself further into insanity. At the rate my drug use was escalating it likely would have been my name on the headstone instead of my dad’s.

My dad was an only child born in a steel town in Pennsylvania and 100 percent Czechoslovakian. My mom would often remark that my dad was used to getting his own way because he was all Czech and an only child. It was an easy explanation to justify his sometimes aggressive and domineering behavior, but I’ve since learned that is probably from a multitude of reasons of how my dad was raised. My dad was honest to a fault and took everyone at their word. He didn’t have the ability to read the nuances of social interactions. He said what he thought regardless of how it was received. He felt it was his duty to correct those around him.  There were often hurt feelings at the other end of his words. It didn’t matter if you were family, friends or an acquaintance. Manners were important to him and instilled in me and my two brothers from an early age; hold the door for the person behind you, say please and thank you, write thank you notes, no hats at the table, chew with your mouth closed, no cussing or name calling and golf etiquette. Our mom was to be kept on a pedestal; we were not allowed to raise our voices or disagree with her. This we did behind his back. He defended her always and would come down hard on us if he found out.  Now the same rule did not apply to him. Over the 58 years they were married he would often raise his voice and lash out at her, most of the time when he was drinking, and it would send her away in tears. She answered him with the silent treatment. Eventually, he would apologize, almost overly remorseful, like he didn’t know what had come over him. An automatic response to situations that triggered him.

After graduating from high school my dad enlisted in the Navy and was stationed on an aircraft carrier. After 4 years he left the Navy and moved to Los Angeles to live with a favorite aunt and uncle. His dad was an alcoholic until the day he died. His parents were tough on him.  He never shared with me stories of a loving family and I got the impression that there was not any emotional support for him as he was growing up. My dad was not a fan of any type of chicken. Up until a few years ago I thought it had to do with being served undercooked chicken while he was in the Navy. It turns out he had a pet chicken as a child and it disappeared. Apparently his mother had killed it and served it to him one night for dinner.  Now I don’t think this was done with any malicious intent, because my grandparents grew up in large poor families and I’m sure chickens were food and not pets, but obviously it impacted my dad. I asked my dad 5 months before he died if he had ever reflected on any of his decisions over his life and how it might have impacted me and my brothers. He said no. It hurt, I wanted him to take accountability for the pain I was suffering, I blamed him for how I was feeling and for not providing emotional support for me over the years. I realize now that I was wrong. I would have been better served to have compassion and have understanding that his childhood affected him in a way he never understood as I understand how mine affected me. He did the best he could. I expected better, but I’ve learned when I place expectations on other people, it is me trying to control their behavior instead of accepting them.

My dad loved chocolate chip cookies. The hard crispy kind; just those. He was particular about them as he was with everything he ate and did. He was obsessed with his next meal and going to the doctor. Whatever meal he was at, he talked about the next meal and what he wanted to eat. I never noticed it growing up, but over the past few years he became more and more focused on food. He never denied himself anything. He managed his health by taking pills and going to the doctors. That was his solution. High blood pressure; take a pill, high cholesterol; take a pill, hip pain; take a pill, pain in his thumb joint; see an orthopedic doctor. If he didn’t get the answer he wanted or if the doctor was unable to determine the cause, he went to another doctor. The idea that the food he ate or lack of exercise might be the cause of his problems, never crossed his mind.  If I brought it up to him, he would explode and shut down the conversation. He was not going to change and did not want to reflect on his behavior. It was the same with alcohol. I can’t say if my dad was an alcoholic, that would have been for him to decide. He did however protect his alcohol consumption over the years. The topic was off limits. He drank unhealthy amounts at times and was the source of most of the problems between my parents. However, the love he had for my mom was greater than his love of alcohol and when push came to shove over his consumption and behavior around it, he would lay off it for a bit. That is the difference between him and me. Once I started drinking, I couldn’t stop. It didn’t matter to me who was going to be hurt.

My dad met my mom at work in Los Angeles. She was a secretary in human resources. He tripped over a box outside her office and fell in love. They were married in 9 months and my oldest brother was born 12 months later. He attended junior college at night for 4 years and then went on to University of Southern California where he received his bachelor’s degree. College was important to my dad, and he was proud of his accomplishment. He didn’t always wear his wedding ring, but his college ring was always on his right-hand ring finger. There was never a question whether me and my brothers were going to go to college.  We were, but what we majored in and where we went was our choice.  We joked we would major in basket weaving, it didn’t matter to him, he knew there was value in attending college and he wanted the best for me, my brothers and a better life for us.  He worked for the same company for 33 years and as his position grew with the company he took on the responsibility of making sure every year he hired 2 college graduates. He would mentor them and watch over their careers. It didn’t matter if they excelled past him, he wanted them to succeed. He was loyal to those he loved. He was the center of his enormous number of cousins and his high school class. He kept them up to date with each other. He would talk on the phone for hours to them, sending emails with updated contact information for everyone and clipping out articles, recipes or anything that he thought someone would be interested in and send it to them. He would save magazines for years and then on a trip, pack them in his luggage and bring them to a friend who might have once mentioned they enjoyed the same magazine. He enjoyed doing little things for people. However, he expected a thank you or an acknowledgement of the thoughtfulness and if he didn’t receive it, he would say something to you.

A year or so after my mom and dad were married, he purchased a semi hard, red plastic, white capped ketchup bottle. This was his baby. All ketchup dispensed in his house from that day until the day he died came out of that bottle. The bottle is from the 1960’s and I can only imagine what it was made out of. He loved ketchup and dispensed it with perfect precision. Every bite was covered, and the needle nose allowed for accurate squirts on bacon strips, fried eggs, and with a little extra squeeze a nice pile could be added to his plate for dipping. The only food off limits were vegetables and steak. I would tease him that whatever he ate was just a delivery method for the ketchup. He bought Heinz in bulk and when the red bottle was empty, he would wash it out meticulously and refill it ready for the next round. When we went out to eat, he ordered the ketchup bottle with his meal and if it didn’t arrive before his meal, he would be visibly agitated until it arrived.  It didn’t matter what restaurant or who he was dining with, if ketchup went on what he ordered, he covered the item like he was at home. When I was a kid, I was out to dinner with my favorite aunt. We had gone to a buffet and when I got back to the table, I mixed all of the food together with the mashed potatoes. She looked at me and said, “There is just some things we don’t to in public when we eat.” I thought of that statement often when I would see him slather his plate in ketchup at restaurants. My dad didn’t get embarrassed about anything, especially his ketchup use.

Christmas of 2019, I drove my parents to Telluride, Colorado to meet up with one of my brothers and his family. My parents had been there several times over the years. Mountain village, where we were staying has an altitude of 9,500 feet. The air is thin, and it usually takes me several days to adjust. This trip was different. My dad had difficulty breathing and couldn’t function when we arrived on December 23^rd. We put him on an oxygen machine, but he was barely coherent. I drove him and my mom back early Christmas morning. It took until we got back to phoenix before he began to feel normal.  Within a week he was at his doctor looking for a reason. His doctor ran a CT scan and found out he had an aortic aneurysm in a bad location. He was off to the heart doctor and eventually to a heart surgeon. The surgeon told him based on the location, the size and his age that it was best to watch it. He didn’t know how long he had had it. It could have been 20 years or just formed. He recommended not to lift anything heavy, not do anything strenuous and to come back in 6 months. Over the next three years there was no change in its size until July of 2022.  At his yearly check the surgeon told him that it had grown in size and that there was a new experimental surgery that was less evasive and didn’t require open heart surgery, but he would have to be put on a bypass machine during the surgery. There were risks associated with the surgery, but the doctor felt confident that he would pull through it. My mom and dad discussed it among themselves and decided that he would proceed with the surgery. Going back 2 and half years when my dad was diagnosed with the aneurysm, he changed. He stopped living and was gripped in fear. An unreasonable fear it seemed from the outside and one I couldn’t understand until recently. He sat and read all day, did very little around the house. He wouldn’t even lift a gallon of milk or empty the dishwasher.  My mom rarely left him alone. He was afraid that if the aneurysm would burst when she wasn’t home, there would be no one to call 911. If she did leave him alone, we found out he would unlock the front door so that if an ambulance was called, the paramedics could get into the house. He also only drank on rare occasions after the diagnosis.  So, the surgery became a way for him to get back to living. The risk was worth it.

I was vaguely aware that this was going on last summer as I had relapsed and was heavily using meth and in my own world. I saw my parents maybe once a month while I was using it. I rationalized it by thinking that if they didn’t see me, they wouldn’t know. I told them I was working all the time. By the end of June, I knew I wouldn’t be able to pay my July bills, so I called my dad and told him I needed to borrow money. That work had been slow and the couple of trips I had taken in June to Puerto Vallarta, my 4^th of the year and the trip to DC had tapped out my cash. The reality was I had maxed out my credit cards at $90,000 and hadn’t worked in almost a year. Without question he loaned me money.  Enough that I calculated I didn’t need to go back to work, and I would worry about August bills when August rolled around. I ended up taking out high-rate interest loans to pay for august bills. My credit score was still intact as I was current on all my payments. I was on a bullet train heading for my destruction. I knew it but couldn’t figure out how to stop it. I just kept paying the fare and hoped when it crashed, I would survive.  My dad’s surgery was scheduled for the end of September. I had been worried that it would be scheduled during a trip I had booked to Spain for another bear event in early September. I was self-centered and only focused on what I was going through and wanted. My brother loaned me $10,000 at the end of August. I lied to him about what I needed it for and I took off to Spain. August and September were chaos at their finest and I was in full manipulation mode of those around. I had been in the hospital for 10 days with monkey pox, didn’t know I was in psychosis, I began believing there was someone at the other end of all my electronic devices trying to blackmail me and my mom ended up in the hospital with shingles. I took off to Spain leaving it all behind and returned 4 days before his surgery. My parents stayed in a hotel downtown near the hospital the night before his surgery. I met them for dinner at an Italian restaurant. My dad’s choice. The restaurant was fantastic with white table clothes, candlelight, perfect music and amazing food. My parents shared a $50 dollar sea bass plate that was completely out of the ordinary for them, but there was a mood that this night was different. I am grateful that I was there to share in the special moment and spend the evening with my dad. My sister-in-law was in town to help my mom before and after my dad’s surgery and she was at dinner with us. I spun the story that I would be working during and after his surgery so I would be unable to help my mom with his aftercare. I still believed my family didn’t know I had relapsed at this point, but reflecting on my behavior and their actions, I am sure they knew. They didn’t know what to do with me, so we all played ignorant of each other’s behaviors. If they had confronted me, I would have denied it. I still believed I was in control and could stop, I had convinced myself that I just didn’t want to.

My dad went into surgery at 7 am. I was to see him one last time before he went in, but I was late getting to the hospital and surgery center only let two people in at a time. My mom and sister-in-law were already there. I spoke on the phone with my dad moments before they took him to surgery. The conversation was quick, and I don’t remember what I said other than I loved him. That was the last time we spoke. I remembered from the night before he was so scared. The fear on his face is ingrained in my memory and I find some comfort knowing that he doesn’t have to live in fear anymore. He made it through the surgery, but there were complications. He ended up going back in for emergency surgery on his first night because they couldn’t find a pulse in one of his legs. He also had multiple strokes during the surgery. They kept him on a breathing machine and unconscious so that he could stabilize. I didn’t believe he was going to die. His surgery was on a Thursday and on Saturday evening I went to visit him by myself. I had woken up a couple of hours earlier after a three-day bender and went to sit with him and pray. I left the hospital went to my drug dealer, bought meth, headed to a few gay bars and went home. Sunday afternoon I met my mom and sister-in-law at the hospital. I spent an hour with him and them. I kissed him goodbye, planning on returning the next day to see him. At 3 am Monday morning my phone rang. Three calls in a row. I didn’t answer. I didn’t know the number. I hadn’t slept since Saturday afternoon, and I was overly paranoid. At 6:30 am my mom called. I remember her raised voice as she said, “sit down” and in an almost wail said, “your dad is dead”. It had been the hospital calling me earlier I later learned. He was crashing and they were attempting to notify the family.  My mom asked me to rush to the hospital and pray for him. She was an hour away and I lived only 10 minutes away. I hung up the phone and sat on my couch. I remember thinking this cannot be happening, this cannot be happening over and over in my head. I knew I had an hour to gather myself, shower and get to the hospital.  I made it there 30 minutes before my mom. I am grateful that I was able to spend that time with my dad’s body alone. I cried, prayed and confessed to him. I asked for his forgiveness, for his help by praying for me, but at the same time I didn’t believe that he had really died. I was in a deep psychosis, so part of me was saying that it was a fake body. It was a set up to get me into rehab. I didn’t completely believe my dad was dead until a month later in rehab. The next few weeks I went balls to the walls with my drug use. I saw my mom twice after my dad’s death. One of my brothers flew in to be with her and I was in World War Three with my technology. A date was set for his funeral, the 3^rd week of October. At this point I had told my other brother I had relapsed, and I would go for treatment after the funeral.  I couldn’t stop using meth and continued deeper into psychosis. I went into the mental hospital a week before my dad’s funeral and was in my first rehab group at the same time my dad’s funeral began.  

At my second rehab, Scottsdale Providence Recovery Center (SPRC), in mid-January 2023 my therapist ran a group on grief. I was still numb to my dad’s death. I didn’t know how to process it. I accepted that he was dead. I had been to his grave, but not being with my family, not attending his service as well as using heavy drugs during his last months alive and during his death, left me in limbo with emotions. I had cried at Christmas and a couple other times, but didn’t know how I was to feel. I felt stuck. My therapist began the group writing the stages of grief on the board and explaining them. However, instead of focusing on them he spoke about the four gifts. We were each to write a letter to someone we lost that we had unresolved grief around and use the gifts as guidance and then read it out loud to the group of 20 people.  The four gifts are, I’m sorry, thank you, I love you, and goodbye. I wrote my letter and read it. I cried the entire time, barely getting through it. Something changed for me after doing that, I felt relief, sadness, guilt, and optimism. I was no longer stuck; I would get through this. My emotions were at the surface, and I could begin to process them, work through my dad’s death. Over the course of the next two and half months at SPRC I have received amazing treatment, especially around trauma. It has changed my life and given me an understanding of myself and my past actions in a way I didn’t know was possible. I had no idea how many maladapted coping skills I had developed over the years to survive. I thought the turmoil I felt inside was how I was going to live the rest of my life. That my responses to trauma drove me without me even knowing it.

Two things happened that changed my view of my dad and my childhood in early March. The first was in a group where someone shared about their own struggle with OCD and how in severe cases it manifested itself in a belief they were always sick and needed to seek out a doctor for everything. They were obsessed with going to the doctor. My dad was very neat and tidy, everything had its place. It was over the top neatness, but it just seemed peculiar. I’ve since learned it was worse than I knew, and my mom was at the receiving end of it, his obsession with orderliness. As the person shared, I heard my dad’s story and realized that my dad most likely suffered with untreated OCD his entire life and he didn’t know it. The pieces of my life with him and his actions began clicking into place. I didn’t know how debilitating it could be to a person and even more so if they don’t even know what’s happening to them. How it drove them. The second happened at church one Sunday morning with my mom. A baby started screaming behind us. I had a flash to my dad and whenever he heard a baby scream in a public place he would turn around and give a death stare. He would be so angry at the parents for not controlling the child. It was embarrassing, it was so bad, but in that moment, I understood it was more than likely a trauma response. His parents were overly strict, and I have no doubt that as a child he had to be picture perfect all the time. A child crying triggered him to his childhood and how he couldn’t make a fuss. Tears welled up in my eyes and an overwhelming sense of compassion for him came over me. He never knew why he did what he did. Trauma from his childhood drove his emotions. It explained why he would get angry at a hairpin and then be overly remorseful. Two different people. I no longer blame my dad for the lack of emotional support I had as a child. He did the best he could. He did what he knew. I feel sad that he never received the treatment I am now getting. I am 51 and I think how much better his life would have been if at 51 he could have received professional help.  I can’t change the past, but with better understanding I can love him even more now and be more compassionate to others.

I love chocolate chip cookies like my dad and like him I have never denied myself those things I love. However, I now understand that I don’t need to live in a world of black and white or all or nothing. Moderation exists in most things, except drugs and alcohol for me. It is finding the balance in life that I am finding peace. I found at recently that while my dad was staying with my cousin last august, he told them that he completely accepted me being gay. He never told me and I’ll never get to tell him I’m sorry. A missed moment for both of us. My dad’s love for ketchup was only second to his love for my mom. After he died my mom was cleaning out his desk and she found a file folder full of clippings. One of them was the text from a song by Garth Brooks, “If tomorrow never comes”. He had circled one of the lines “if my time on earth were through and she must face the world without me, is the love I gave her in the past enough to last if tomorrow never comes”.

Dad,

I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you died because I was high and I that I did not make it to the hospital to you before your operation. I’m sorry I was not around much the past summer because I am an addict and the lied to you about why I asked for money and I’m sorry I wasn’t there for our family after your death because of my addiction.

Thank you for always being there for me over the years and being my greatest advocate. I always knew you were in my corner and that you were proud of who I am. Thank you for telling me I would always be your son when I came out.

I love you and I love you for the kind and thoughtful things you did for me over the years. I love you for loving me.

Goodbye dad. I’m happy you are no longer afraid.