| Sunny Side Up June 12, 2002 �2002, by Kathleen Gibson Admitting to the family curse I never knew Roy, though I�m married to his son. I�ve heard that he was big like his son, and like his son, full of music and laughter. He worked at Stelco and he and my mother-in-law raised five children in a five-hundred square foot house on Twenty-Seventh Street East in Steeltown, Ontario. He was an alcoholic. Mom never talks about Roy. In the almost twenty-six years that the Preacher and I have been married, she�s never complained, never cried in my presence, and never remarried. My husband doesn�t talk about him either. He said once that when he got old enough he fought back, and his father never hit him again. He also talks about a certain ball game�the only one his father ever came to, after telling him that he�d never amount to anything. Rick slammed a home run during that game. His father never said a word. Addiction runs in families, say those who know these things. There�s an addiction gene, and it passes like a curse from generation to generation. It doesn�t have to be alcohol�it could be drugs or pornography. Food or cigarettes, gambling or work. The gene isn�t fussy, it just wants control. I don�t know much about addiction, but I�ve watched it topple families. Lived with its residue in the life of a man whose father didn�t live long enough or upright enough to show his sons how to be a good husband or dad. They�ve had to figure that out by themselves. One chose not to try either. One has successfully�humbly�fought his own battles with alcohol. And one became a minister. A very human minister, who admits he struggles with food and overwork��acceptable� addictions, only we don�t like to call them that. Shame on us. It�s Father�s Day on Sunday, and I can�t help but wonder who will father the poorly fathered. Those who�ve had their birthright stolen by any addiction that robs them of a Dad who�ll stand up straight and cheer at their ball games; who�ll come home at night instead of trying to fit in one more�drink, meeting, spin of the wheel�. Who can replace what addiction steals? The relationships it destroys? It robbed me of a father-in-law, my husband of a father, my children of a grandfather,. Roy died when the Preacher was sixteen�choked at lunch on a lambchop; too drunk to cough. There�s help for addicts and their families. AA, Al Anon, Teen Challenge, and the church, for starters. They talk about a Being who wants to take firm and loving charge of that addiction problem. A �Higher Power�, some call it. But as a faith columnist I�m allowed to tell�his name is God and he�s desperate to give his children back their birthrights. So maybe they can stick around long enough for their daughters-in law to wish them Happy Father�s day, and for their sons to be proud to call them Dad. You can respond to this column at [email protected] |