My Life
Originally published on December 23, 2005
If you had asked Charlie what he wanted to be when he grew up, he wouldn’t hesitate to tell you he wanted to be an astronaut. In fact, we almost believed he would follow through: he took astronomy classes every chance he could and he would go to NASA.com every week. He would go to the library on Sundays and read about space and space travel for hours. If it weren’t for Charlie’s passion, I would have never gotten my homework done all through high school. Those visits to the library were a godsend to get out of the house from mom and dad’s yelling.
Then the divorce papers came in and dad left. Mom flew into a deep depression and almost drowned herself in wine for months. My mom’s side of the family tried to come to our aid, but it didn’t help that my grandmother would just complain about what a bum my father was, and that my mother was better off without him. That’s when Charlie stopped going on NASA.com every week.
Then we spent the weekend with dad and I thought it went well. When we came home, mom was in the hospital for an alcohol overdose. She had drunk five too many glasses and ended up passed out in the alley behind the bar. At least she didn’t try to go home. Mom was then diagnosed with alcoholism and was sent to support groups. She went over the weekends and during the week we all worked. We saw her less and less, and saw dad more and more. That’s when Charlie stopped taking astronomy classes.
Then came the day of the draft. Dad was too old, but Charlie wasn’t. He was a freshman in high school when the draft came. The government was desperate and needed anyone. They thought if they took anyone as young as twelve years old and train them until their eighteen, we would have better soldiers and had a better chance of getting out of the war sooner. Charlie never really understood why he had to go; he just knew that he could see jail for years if he didn’t. I thought it was another Vietnam, and we most certainly didn’t need another one. That’s when Charlie stopped going to the library.
My senior year of college was iffy; since I wasn’t going the library, my grades were slipping and I struggled to keep up with them. I felt like I was holding those plastic “soap” things where if you squeeze it to hard, the plastic rolls and it shoots the thing out of your hands. I was also losing Charlie. It was his personality and dedication was inspiring and he always had the best jokes. Now that he was just words on a paper, he was loosing his preciousness and I was losing more of my family. After Charlie left for training, dad took up smoking. By the time I was almost thirty and Charlie would be twenty-one (we still celebrated his birthdays, it was the only way I could get cake into the house without either parent telling me I didn’t need cake, it destroyed my figure), Dad was in the hospital for liver cancer. I fell back hard on my friends and somehow, I managed to get through it. I leaned heavily on them and thank them everyday for not letting go and holding me fast. I was slipping into the chasm of despair and death and I needed them to help me keep my strength; they didn’t fail me. But Dad kept getting worse. With dad in the hospital and letters of Charlie’s near-death experiences streaming in, I started taking medication for stress. I was afraid there would be no one left.
A lot has happened between then and now, and let’s just suffice it to say, I’m married and have two beautiful twins. I’m off my anti-stress drug and am back to normal health. Charlie’s back, though he’s currently in school getting his bachelor’s in astronomy. Dad’s hung on, but is in the hospital, again. Mom is back and has been alcohol free for seven years. Everyone visits my father every Saturday as a family outing; Charlie and I will go extra times during the week and sometimes slip in during our lunch breaks. Overall, things have improved a lot. And I hope they just keep getting better.
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