My dad and I had a tumultuous relationship. As long as I can remember, we were at each other’s throat. He was not a nice man, drank heavily throughout my childhood and never treated us well. I remember an episode when I was a tween and my parents were fighting in the basement. Mom came up the steps crying. Dad followed her with a loaded rifle, turned it to place the muzzle to his chest and begged her to kill him right there. It was horrifying.

As I went through a box of memorabilia from the family archives, I came across a scrapbook Dad kept from his time at Camp Hale and Camp Pendleton. A Christmas card from a female admirer, postcards from San Francisco, photos of truck inspections and fellow soldiers whose names are long forgotten…all neatly taped onto crumbling black construction paper pages. As I took the post cards out I came across this sketch my dad did. He had talent although by the time I came along, his dream of being a commercial artist was long dead…beaten out of him by whatever demons haunted him. During this time, Dad was in love with Virginia Cunningham. I believe she had some connection in Ravenswood, WV where he grew up but I don’t remember the details. Her family owned a hotel on Laguna Beach, CA. He was a handsome devil…she, the love of his life. She broke things off and broke his heart.

My mom was head over heels in love with a promising young man she met while working in Cleveland. He asked her dad for permission to court her, but he, his brothers, and my great grandfather were living there temporarily for work and he didn’t feel it was a good idea. Mom was crushed and came back home with a heavy heart. When mom and dad met, they were already broken and proceeded to break each other to bits over the course of the next 30 years or so.

I have had a hard time forgiving him for his treatment of my mom and brother and me. But now I can see him through compassionate eyes. He struggled with depression, anxiety, and substance abuse for years. And so did I. I have had to look deep within and examine the similarities between me and my dad. I did not always treat the people in my life well. This has been an important link in the chain of self-discovery. As I whittle through the bits and pieces that are left of my parent’s lives, deciding what to keep and what to discard, I carefully placed the drawings of a hopeful young artist away in a box for safekeeping to remind me there was goodness within his heart, even though it lay hidden from my view. <3