September 15, 2004: I was hanging out after school with my siblings and best friend, looking at kittens. We were still at the school because my mom was on the phone with my dad and we were waiting for them to finish their conversation. I will never forget the look on her face, filled with seriousness and fear, when she hung up with my dad. I was too afraid to say anything on the way home, but realized the possible truth when we dropped my mom off at the hospital. A few hours passed, still nothing from my mom. What could possibly have been so bad that my mom had had to go to the hospital? The phone rang, awakening me from my thoughts. It was my mom. She told me the unexpected truth, her words becoming faint and almost unintelligible. I didn’t want to believe it. It just was not happening.
It was the summer before my sixth-grade-school year. Time for school shopping. School shopping was the best part of back to school. All the new clothes, shoes, books, and binders, made me feel like a new person. Everything was going great. The time came for my dad to take me and my five siblings to the store. But of course, he had been drinking and had forgotten. My mom, the sole income earner for a household of eight, was furious with my dad. An argument erupted between my dad and my older sister, Christina, about something my dad said about my mom. Christina, not being my father’s biological daughter, did not like him very much. Their argument quickly turned into a fight. My dad had Christina on the ground and was strangling her. No one was outside to notice it until I wandered outside looking for my sister. Seeing my dad on top of my sister, with his hands wrapped around her throat, prompted me to run inside. Screaming and crying, I told my mom. My mom went to her rescue. My dad turned from my sister, to my mother. He smacked her in the face and took off, away from the house, after one of his friends showed up.
My mom moved us all, excluding my dad, to a double-wide trailer outside of Alamosa. We were allowed to go and stay with my dad on the weekends. Everything was working out. My dad had quit drinking and was talking with my mom again. What could go wrong?
I heard a click, realizing the conversation with my mom had ended. I could not breathe. Everything was spinning. I fell. I had to be the bearer of bad news to my siblings. My dad blew the house sky high, while he was still inside. As days went by, we waited and waited. My dad was in the Denver Hospital in a motionless coma. Finally, a month and two days later, we received the news. My dad had passed. It felt like my world had ended.
My dad was an alcoholic and drug addict. Though I barely ever saw him sober, I still miss the way he used to hug me, hold me, and sit me in his lap. I miss him not because I have to, but because I love him and because, even though he was always intoxicated, my dad loved me. Addiction always overpowered my dad. The day my dad committed suicide changed my life forever. It made me realize that alcohol and drugs are not as great as everyone makes them out to be. To this very day, I am proud to be alcohol and drug free. With addiction running in my genes, my dad may have saved my life. I will never have to deal with the addiction that claimed his life.