We all go through traumatic events in our lives. The death of a parent is especially hard when they are taken away from you early in life. It’s unfortunate the following events transpired the way they did.

All the hard work in life was finally stating to pay off. I had a well paying job in a dental insurance company. Some friends agreed I could rent their house from them. But secretly my alcoholism and gambling additions were ruining my life. Then I got a phone call.

It was a nice Sunday afternoon when my phone rang as I was watching a NASCAR race on TV. To my surprise it was my mother. My mother and I didn’t get along and we haven’t spoken to each other in quite a while. She just wanted to remind me of a meeting with my father in regards to my personal finances on Monday. I agreed to be there Monday evening after I got off work.

Typically when I go for a visit, my parents leave the door unlocked. This particular day they didn’t, which I thought odd at the time, but simply put it out of my mind. To my surprise again, my mother answers the door inviting me in and asking how my day went? That type of behavior from my mother was unheard of but again I didn’t think anything about it. She ask me to sit down in the family room so we can talk.

My mother proceeds to tell me my father is not coming. She continues to say on Friday, she went upstairs to their bedroom for something. She found my father “bleeding out” on the bed and immediately called 911. The ambulance crew came to transport my father to the hospital. My mother wasn’t happy with the ambulance crew because they left everything on the floor in the bedroom. My father passed away Saturday evening from acute liver disease or commonly known as cirrhosis

My whole world came crashing down.

After hearing the heart retching news, I asked my mother if she had called my sister which she said, “No I haven’t”. She had not called any of the family. First we called my sister who lived in San Diego. Then we had to call my uncle who lived in Chicago. My uncle was going to immediately get on the next flight to come to California to stay with us.

My mother was a retired register nurse partially disabled due to a broken hip. She was living in a four bedroom house and didn’t know anything about my father’s finances. I would leave the finances to my uncle to figure out. In the meantime I agree to move back in the house with her to help out with anything else she needed.

My uncle arrived from Chicago the next day. As a financial advisor himself, he immediately dove into my father’s financial status. He uncovered another disaster. First there were three mortgages on the house (of which two my uncle said were ‘fishy’?). Apparently all five credit cards with lines of credit the the tens of thousands were all maxed out. But on the other hand, my father did work for Southern Pacific Railroad as an executive automotive businessman so my mother was entitled the railroad retirement. There were also a list of stock options my father had invested in over the years. After all that was discovered, my mother simply said she was going to sell the house and asked me to move in an apartment with her.

With that I’ll end because what transpired afterward for the next four years was another disaster. My own alcoholism took over my life after my mother left to live with my sister. In November 2006, my mother passed away. Finally, in December 2007, I started my own recovery from alcoholism.

Honestly, I though I would NEVER forgive my mother for things that transpired in my life. It wasn’t until my first sobriety where I finally began the process of forgiving my mother for her part in this whole process. But I had a HUGE part of play too. I needed to address those issues too. After help by my sponsor in AA and years of therapy, I finally began to heal myself.

I won’t forget an evening when I was attending a local AA meeting about resentments. Typically I would just listen because I was working in the chemical dependency field, therefore we were discouraged from “sharing our stories”. Despite this, I proudly raised my hand to speak. I stood up summarizing the story told here. I openly cried and started the process of forgiving my mother that night. One of the many miracles that came with my sobriety.

My father’s death is like remembering 9/11 – I will never forget!