Here and Now

Last week my son Rory, my husband Tim, and I refurbished our dining room. It is clean and bright and comfortable. This is the last room in the house to receive a face lift since The Day That Everything Changed." It is a tangible reflection of where we are now.

We didn't know on that day in late April two years ago that the events unfolding would open doors that we had been banging on for years. In fact, we thought, at the time, that the last glimmer of light in the dark world we had been inhabiting was about to be extinguished.

Tim had been slowing slipping away for a very long time, pieces of him being absorbed by the ever increasing amounts of alcohol he had been consuming since he was in his early teens. My children clung to a composed memory of the parts of their father, long since disappeared, that knew them, loved them and took pleasure in their presence. It is a tribute to that early fathering that they never rejected, never walked away, but stood quietly waiting for either an end or a beginning. They are remarkable that way. In all aspects of their lives, their capacity for acceptance and forgiveness is astonishing. They are true heroes.

So on this April afternoon, we came home to find that there was nothing left of Tim. He had, indeed, become quite mad. We thought we were witnessing a stroke in progress or worse and, as we had done many times before, called for help.

Tim was admitted to the hospital, something that had happened several times before with little effect. Now his heart was failing, and his liver was shutting down. We knew that this would be his last admission. He was not coming home. His mind had already gone and it was a short matter of time before his body followed.

But, that is not what happened. It seems that whatever tiny spark of Tim was still dwelling somewhere beyond recognition finally said, "Enough!" After 43 years, the man put down the bottle and never picked it up again. Just like that. Once he came around, he was the worst patient ever to inhabit the cardiac wing of that hospital. After 6 days, they essentially threw him out for being so much trouble (another story for another day.) But he didn't drink again.

His recovery was slow and uneven. At times I feared that what I was left with was even more difficult than what he had been before. However, gradually Tim reemerged. The good days outnumbered the bad. He found lost hobbies and interests and, most important, he found his children - who were never lost at all.

I can't tell Tim's story. I can't begin to imagine what it is like to rebuild a life after more than forty years of destruction. It must be something like waking from a coma. I don't know. I was certainly awake all those years and when I chose to remember, I am a bit awed that I could stand under the weight of so much pain.

I believed I would never forgive. But I didn't have to forgive. In the end, there was nothing to forgive. As that door creaked open and all that light began streaming in, I discovered that it was quite natural to live in the now.

There was always music. I always heard it. But now, that last line of polyphony, those tones needed to close the chords, they are all there. We always danced, holding hands with a fierceness that made our knuckles white and drew blood where are nails dug into our palms. But we were a broken circle. Now we are linked. We dance lightly, fingers touching and the music continues to swell. No doubt there are other movements to come that may not be so bright. But this is now and we are whole and that will do.