For today’s writing prompt, I have to think a little deeper about this question. It isn’t so much that I’ve lost a material thing, but I think the experinces of childhood.The reason I say this is because my father became very sick when I was child. It was twenty years ago that my father suffered a pulmonary embolism that nearly killed him. My brother and I were home for summer break, hanging out and wathcing tv as per usual. Dad came upstairs to go to his room and then suddenly there was a large thud.
There on the ground was my father, a towering man, collapsed on the floor, vomiting and convulsing. He spend the next 6 weeks in a coma due to an unknown heparin allergy that caused a gangrenous infection. This resulted in the amputation of several of his toes, a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis and impaired emtional function that would result in my mother, brother and I helping to take care of him.
At 10 and 8 repectively, my borther and I would have to help take care of him as he tried to recover. Due to the change in a emotional state, we would often have to make excuses for his emotional outburst. Though I understand what he was experiencin was far mor terrifying than what our wants as children were. We couldn’t go out with friends or join clubs because all of us were extremely worried about him being left on his own for periods of time.
When we returned to Canada, these social problems would continue. Every neighbourhood we’d move to, the slightest interaction with others would lead to outburst of anger of people not minding their business. It was during these times I resented my father the most.Yet, he still managed to recover to the point to where he could actively raise us and maintain a house for us while Mother was working.
It didn’t get any easier when Jeremy and I were going through adolecense. We were so sick of his fixed mindset and pettiness that we would come to constant shouting matches of the smallest things. My father had become and someone with the emotional maturity of a toddler and I honestly hated him for robbing us of our own experiences.
He would go on to have more medical issues as we progressed. So more responsibilties and stresses, I guess that’s why I’m more introverted now. Our family could only rely on the four people in our household. I think realizing this codependency was one of the factors that lead to my alcohol abuse. Not out of spite, but a combination of shame and fear. For we a Black people, in a white society. We would worry that one of his outburst might cause him to be harmed by the police for no reason other than his mind turning against him.
I hated having to walk on eggshells and apologizing for his rudeness. When we moved into our own house ten years ago for a fresh start, the confrontations with the neighbours escalated. I was in my twenties and instead of taking his side, I would go and apologise for him. Fortunately, the neighbour next door understand the predicatment as he too took care of an ailing parent from youth. Still, how much of our youth was lost in caring for a man who wanted to be taking care of us, but was unable to himself.
We are continuing to come to terms with what happened. As adults, we still live with out elderly parents, we’re all able to better communicate what we feel. He learned to express his emotions instead of bottling it up, we now state how we feel and why. We all have been unpacking the resentments we had, slowly but surely, we are all getting better.
We still have only eachother, but it no longer feels codependent, a family of adults trying to live.