Admiration

From the distance I could hear the faint sounds of dogs barking and someone loudly cussing them out. That was my sign; my sisters and I had exactly thirty minutes each day to be free, to sit on the couch and relax or talk on the phone with friends, which weren't many since we weren't allowed to go anywhere, but those were the thirty minutes we valued the most. And once the dogs barked the freedom would end.

For years I heard the same bedtime story every night, the one where my parents would argue for hours until one of them got hurt. I couldn't stand to hear it any longer, and I guess my mother couldn't either, because one day she gave up on him and quit on us. That's how it all began; when my mother walked out on us, my father's life seemed senseless. Soon after he started drinking.

He started going to a bar called Bazzi Bar once or twice a week, and soon after that he became a daily customer, or should I say an alcoholic? From work he would go straight to Bazzi and after being there for a couple of hours he would run to where my mother had been staying. Sometimes she refused to come out and see him, so his strategy was to scream until the whole neighborhood was out wondering what was going on. When she came out and didn't give him the attention he demanded, he would act violently towards, sometimes leaving my sisters and I to witness it. Even considering who he was and doing what he did, he loved her, and I think deep inside he still had some kind of hope that she would come back, but she never did. ...

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...r and laid him on his bed. And that where he laid for the next three days until he met his grandchild.

I gladly say that Dad was one of those people with alcohol dependence that sought

help and after interning himself in a clinic for six months, after twenty five years of alcoholism, he has now been sober for twenty five years. Today, I think of him as the person I most admire. He's a living example that no matter how bad the situation may be, you can still turn it around and kill what's killing you. We hope those who were like he was, and we love what we do. He has three grandchildren who bring a smile to his face just by being there. He has three daughters who never lost hope and quit on him.