The empty Chair at graduation
Watching my brother graduate without our father there is a kind of pain I do not think people understand unless they have lived it. Graduation is supposed to be one of the happiest moments in a family’s life. It is supposed to be filled with celebration, loud cheering, pictures, hugs, and proud parents smiling in the crowd. But for us, there will always be an empty space where our dad should have been but yet he is not because of his choices.
Through the darkness
There are moments in life that divide everything into before and after. Walking through my dad’s funeral was one of those moments. Before the coming days I was asked to speak. I had to make up a speech about a bunch of great things about him. I had so much anger towards my father for what he had done. Now I had to write something amazing about him to be read at his funeral.
Behind closed doors
Some of my earliest memories of my dad aren’t about what he said or did for me, but what he couldn’t hide from me-his addiction. My dad heavily struggled with addiction, and it changed the way I saw him, my family, and even myself. My dad would leave my brother and me alone for hours on end…..