Don't Know What You Got Til It's Gone, Gone, Gone

As many people realize when it is too late, I didn't know what I had until it was gone. Many people have heard the stories of my childhood, my father had a drug addiction until I was 10 and an alcohol addiction until I was 12. He quit drinking for 10 years, half of which I never lived at home and then started again. When he died 10 years later he was drinking as hard or harder than he had when I was a child. Every child growing up with an alcoholic has different stories, some alcoholics are mean, others verbally violent, some go away for days or weeks, some make promises they never keep and others just sit in the corner getting drunk and you never really know they are there. My father was a mixture over the years, when I was young he was loud and abusive but my mother put him in his place, he was then only verbally and mentally abusive. Most of the time during the week he was a hard working man who took care of his family but on the weekend he was no where to be found. The only time you knew he was home was the yelling of my parents late into the night.

Here is a scary blast from the past for you...this photo is circa 1975...my baby brother is on the right at about 2-3 years old, me at the end at about 4-5, and my other brother on the left at about 3-4. This was a typical family dinner picture and common...my father was always home for supper during the week (at least that I can remember, my mother says that wasn't always the case in these days...more after 1979 or so).

My father used to take us on trips they were mostly weekend trips, but they were memories I will never forget. After we moved to Alberta we used to go to a place called flat top mountain. It was a beautiful place, a short drive from our house on dirt roads but it was a great place. This photo is of my father, two brothers, and the boy next door (who passed away around the same time as my father), oh yes and our dog Rascal...who died an ugly death as a puppy. We used to go here often and I loved the place...the worst part is I have no idea where it is or how to get there, so I haven't been since the early 80s :(

Camping was another thing that my father loved to do, he would take us to different places every year, usually only once as the rest of the year we went to our usual spot. Camping with my dad was amazing as he knew all the tricks to make it like home. He could have the trailer (whatever one we had at the time) up, the tarps hanging, all the stuff set up and dinner cooking before we even realized we were hungry. He had a huge mechanics light he would hang when it got dark and life at our campsite was wonderful...whether it was for the weekend or for three week long holiday it was awesome, and unlike some kids we never wondered when it was time to go home.

There were a lot of bad times with my father, and unfortunately like most people I allowed the bad times to weigh out the good as I grew up. At the age of 19 I moved as far away from home as I could get so that I wouldn't have to deal with my father (or my brother who was turning out to be worse than him) any more often than I could afford to fly across the country to return home. I moved home at the age of 26 and in those 7 years I had only been home twice. Between 26 and 32 I avoided my father a great deal. I didn't want my children growing up knowing a drunk for a grandfather, and then he passed away. I tortured myself for years wondering if I had done the right thing, if I had allowed them to grow up thinking their grandfather was a saint because they only saw him when he was sober...but now that they are older they tell me they remember grandpa being just like their uncle...but that doesn't change how they feel about him. Ariel misses him as much or more than I do, and she knew what he was really like most of the time. I just wish she would realize that how I feel about my dad is how she feels about her's and that when he is gone she will regret all the bad between them :(

A couple precious moments about me and my dad...everyone says that I was Daddy's little girl and of course I thought they were all crazy, but I have a couple memories that show they were probably right.

My father had various jobs over the years but most of them involved driving trucks of some sort (ironic that a professional truck driver dies in a car accident :( anyway when I was about 12 or so my father took me on a ride with him. We had to ride in the truck into the city which was about an hour away and drop off a load of scrap metal. The ride was horrible, the old truck rattled and bumped all the way into the city, the fumes were awful, and I was car sick. My dad drove slow and tried to avoid the bumps and bangs as much as possible, he drove with the windows wide open to avoid the fumes and did his best to keep me from getting sick. He was very thoughtful and it was one of the only times I ever did anything just me and my dad. It was a great day, just him and I in that old clunky truck. I can't remember what we talked about or if a word was said, but it was great to just see that my dad wasn't always a drunken ass, that he was actually a hard worker man, who was great at what he did.

Another of my best memories of my dad was when I was 16, another truck driving story...sort of. My dad had to be away for Christmas on a haul that year. It was the worst Christmas ever. Christmas was a big deal at our house, my parents really couldn't afford to buy us much all year round but they saved up for Christmas. We would spend days baking all kinds of delicious goodies and then have family over. Our tree would be buried in gifts...partly because my mother wrapped every sock individually :) but we always had lots of gifts. But this year we got our 'main' gift before my father left and then got to open a bunch while he was away, and then he brought us back some things when he got back. We missed him so much that none of the baking turned out, and we opened our gifts slowly like the world had came to an end...the only Christmas I remember being worse was in 2002 after he passed away. When he came home the day before we returned to school in January we got to open the presents he had bought for us while he was gone. I still have those gifts to this day, they weren't expensive and they weren't major but they meant the world to me, he bought them for me. I got a doll that came wrapped in its only little blanket, and one that came in a bottle...yes I know I was 16...I had a doll collection and my dad had bought these to add to that collection. They were only 6" tall at most and I bet the two of them didn't cost him more than $10 but they meant the world to me. They sit next to the last gift ever bought for me by him...a porcelain doll he picked up a week before he died to give me that year for Christmas.

My advice on this long post is that cherish the moments because the little things are the ones you will remember when they are gone. My dad wasn't the best dad a person could ask for but deep down he loved his kids and like all other dad's just wanted the best for us. I wish I could have seen that as a child, because I am sure there was a lot more little moments than the ones I remember now :)