I‘ve been working really hard this year to think of gifts as something other than the packages we open on holidays and birthdays, something other than the things we excel at.  I've been learning to see the challenges in my life as gifts - and to find the value in one that my father bestowed on me over 25 years ago.

My father was an alcoholic.  I say “was” only because he is no longer alive.  For most of the 22 years that I knew him, I didn’t really know him.  I was torn between wanting to love the man with the enormous grin, twinkling eyes and quick wit, and hating the man who hid behind bottles of Old Crow and valium.  I grew up, like so many other children of alcoholics and drug addicts, conflicted, bruised, and undeniably altered. 

Thankfully, the day finally came when my dad entered endless weeks of in-patient treatment and began attending Alcoholics Anonymous.  No matter what you think of AA, it saved my father and returned to me the dad I had always wanted.  Not perfect, but he was mine.

It was two years later, at 58, that he died of lung cancer and left me with a gift I would not be ready to receive for many years.

My dad had time to prepare for death; he knew for several months that it was inevitable. He was a planner, an engineer and a lawyer who took great pride in his organizational skills and his problem solving.  Planning his funeral was just a natural extension of what he did everyday.  He had the perfect co-host to work with –Rev. James Cardone, the priest at our Episcopal church.  The two of them shared many common traits, not the least of which was a connection to alcoholism and knowledge of real life struggle.  The day my dad died, Father Cardone was standing in our kitchen when we returned from the hospital.  He looked me in the eyes and said “Sometimes life just sucks, doesn’t it.” 

The excerpts below are from Father Cardone’s sermon at my father’s funeral:

 “The day before Ed died; I dropped over to his house to spend some time with him and Jessica.  Ed was in good spirits, but then it was rare to find him not in good spirits.  We talked about many things that afternoon and, of course, we spent some time talking about his illness and his thoughts and plans for the future. The very first thing Ed said to me was, “I want my service to be a service of thanksgiving…one of thanksgiving.” 

“On the back of your bulletins you will find a beautiful and well-known prayer often referred to as the Serenity Prayer.  Most of us have heard it many times, but people like Ed have had to memorize it, internalize it, and live it.  For Ed was blessed with alcoholism. 

To equate alcoholism with a blessing may come as a shock to many people, but it should not to a recovering alcoholic or their spouse and family…We spend entirely too much time lamenting alcoholism as a dreaded disease and a curse – and so it is as a person is struggling with it, and their families and friends are scarred by it.  However, very often a curse is nothing more than the birth process of a great blessing; and so it is with alcoholism.  We do not spend nearly enough time extolling the blessings it brings – of reconciliation, of new hope, of new life.”  

I heard these words as I sat with my family in the front row of the church.  I was old enough to understand it.  I had seen the transformation in my dad. I was thankful for that.  But really, wasn’t this pushing it just a little?  The days we were afraid to get angry for fear he’d start drinking again?  All those years of resentment that had built up with nowhere to go?  The residual damage we all carried around?  You want me to call all of that a blessing?  My 22 year-old self was just not buying it.

Sometime last year it struck me that I had passed a major milestone, I had lived more years of my life without my dad than I had with him. I realized I was still carrying around a lot of excess baggage from all of those growing up years. Years I’d spent tip-toeing around the house trying not to run into my dad, trying to control something that was totally out of my control.  I was more than aware of all of the ways my dad’s alcoholism had dented and damaged me and made it harder for me to be the spouse, the parent, the adult that I knew I wanted to be. 

This is what I knew. Alcoholism made it almost impossible for me to be married to someone who drinks without counting how many drinks that involved.  Alcoholism robbed me of both of my parents as I was growing up and so I have no real role model for my own parenting. There are plenty of times I am sure my kids suffer because of that. Alcoholism turned me into a person who gets anxious when even the smallest situation may feel out of control, it made me feel overly responsible, gave me a constant need to fix and make better. Alcoholism implanted a radar in my brain, in my soul, that seeks out others who may drink too much and then allows me to shield myself before they hurt me.  I probably missed out on some really good friends that way. 

How could anyone ever call this a blessing?  I felt like my mind would explode with everything it held inside. 

Finally, last year, the day came when I knew I had to ask for help and I found it in a wonderful therapist. In her wise and quiet way, she guided me down a different path, with a different view. She has given me the tools to unwrap the gift that my dad left me so long ago, the birth process of the great blessing of alcoholism. 

This is what I know. Alcoholism made it possible for me to develop a level of compassion, empathy, and kindness that I truly believe I would not otherwise possess. Alcoholism made me wise enough to know what I can and can’t give to my children.  Alcoholism made it important for me to ask for help and to accept it, to learn to be ok with less than perfect, to know that I can open my front door when the house is not clean.  Alcoholism has made me reconsider my assumptions about others, to step over the line I had drawn in the sand and stand with those who challenge me. Alcoholism brought me to where I am today. I believe it had a hand in who my husband is and as a result, it gave me an amazing life partner and three loving and energetic children.  It led me on a journey that has ended in the most beautiful place.

 The moment that I really understood that it was up to me, up to the perspective that I chose, my life changed.  And, just like a recovering alcoholic, for me it is a one day at a time process.  Some days, I still think life would have been so much easier if my dad could have chosen a simple add-a-pearl necklace. But my dad was not that kind of gift-giver, and I am learning to understand that I am blessed to be living my life. 

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 My father’s funeral was full of his friends from treatment and AA.  Many asked for copies of the sermon after the service.  Months later, Father Cardone received letters from around the country from other recovering alcoholics who had received a copy of the sermon and were helped by its words.  If anyone would like a copy of the full text of the sermon, you can find it here.

My dad would have been 83 this June. I wanted to write this as a gift to him.