He always loved his gin in the morning, noon, and night; it came to him like
water and it was impossible for him to leave home without it. No one could ever
sway him from his essential life fluid. It wouldn’t matter whether you cried,
pleaded, or begged on your two knees, he would not stop. He only started to
drink this much when he was 35 and I was about 9 at the time, no one could
explain this drastic change in him. Before, he used to drink often but now,
it’s just crazy how much he drinks. Also, when he did this he stayed more to
himself than usual. His routine was mapped the same way day after day- go to
work, come home, drink, eat, and sleep. Talking became alien to us because my
mom and I was angry at him for not wanting to take care of himself better and he
was angry with us for putting so much pressure on him to find out what’s
wrong. Anyone was lucky if they see a smile on our faces at any point because
there were barely any happy moments and there was constant fighting. Arguments
took over any type of talking we had to have with each other. After a while, it
didn’t matter if we tried to talk because it seemed as if we all fixed our
schedules so we only had to spend as little time as possible with one another
with the exception of having someone in the house in case of an emergency when
he became sick. I could see the pain my mom was going through around this time.
She was such a cheerful woman who always used to come home with a smile no
matter how hard her day was. Now, all you saw was sadness as if someone just
killed her soul. She seemed like she wanted to cry each time she stepped into
the house. Her mind seemed to drift when she came home like she was in a coma. I
knew she didn’t want to live this life anymore by the way she dragged herself
into the house, by the way she talks with dreariness and by her glassy eyes
whenever she loked at me. For almost a year before we found out about his
illness, we had to cope with dealing with the continuous pains he used to have
around his stomach area. During his sick spells, he constantly vomited and
basically screamed for his dear life because of the strain it was putting on his
heart. His screams were so loud our neighbors once had to come over to see what
was going on with the thought that someone was being tortured. The doctor said
he didn’t know how he was still alive today because he barely had a liver to
live on and with the continued strain on his heart, he should be dead right now.
He never wanted to go to the hospital even though we tried to sign him in but
without the persons’ consent; there was no way for the hospital to keep him.
The last time we tried, we rushed him to the hospital in the middle of the night
because he was coughing up blood, which was the first time then. The hospital
took him in and kept him overnight. Our doctor wanted to keep him there to try
to help his symptoms and we acknowledged for the permission to keep him. But
apparently, my father had no intentions on staying because when my mother and I
came home from work the next day, we saw him lying on his bed nonchalantly
watching television with a drink in his hand. Then came December 29th, 1991,
he’s been in the same condition over the year and grown worse. His skin color
has gotten pale and his body weight dropped a drastic 43 pounds. He was barely
capable of talking or walking on his own two feet. My grandmother, who was his
mother, could barely stay with him for an entire five minutes without crying
because all anyone could see in his face then was the pain he had gone through.
Today and throughout the night, we didn’t get any rest because his pains got
stronger and stronger. He was vomiting blood and actually had blood tears from
his eyes. His eyes became bloodshot and his veins were outlined through his skin
through the stress it was causing on him. We had no choice but to take him to
the hospital, he didn’t have much choice since he couldn’t talk through his
screams. When we arrived at the hospital, we checked him in and he ended up in
the intensive care unit. After one day, the doctor’s ran tests as to what was
wrong with his condition and came to my grandparents and mom with the results.
The doctor told them that my father had an advanced stage of liver cancer, which
had spread through his liver for at least 18 months before we found out. We saw
the effects of the cancer had on his stomach when they showed us a picture of
it. His stomach’s lining didn’t exist anymore; there were remnants of white
spots, which was what remained of his stomach. The doctor said since his stomach
was so distorted, it affected the foods he took in. My father knew about it
before we did since he went for a checkup about over a year ago, and I guess it
would explain why he pushed us so far from him and started to keep the bottle so
close to him. My dad was a drunk but he was a drunk that was a fighter. It could
sound stupid but that’s the way he has always been this way. He’s a person
that could never give up at anything he did. When he knew he loss a game, he
kept playing that game until he won his opponent in Nintendo. When he got these
pains, he had to hold on to something to relieve the pain, which was usually my
hand. If I saw into his eyes, I always saw my old father that was fighting to
hold on to us and would not give up; I guess that’s why he’s still pushing
himself today. I hoped he would stop after he came from the hospital but he
didn’t. He stayed in the hospital for two months and promised he wouldn’t
drink anymore or at least try to stop. We believed him and hoped he would start
taking the treatments. He cut back his working ours when he went back out and
was suppose to go to the hospital every Friday to get his treatment. It was a
lot of fun to have a family again at the time, we actually started to talk to
each other and updating each other as to what is going on at work, school, and
in the family. Everything seemed to be relaxed and normal between the three of
us but that didn’t last very long. From what I know, he started to drink again
after 3 months. How did I find out he was drinking? Well, that was interesting
for me to find out. I came home from junior high on a half-day and no one knew
about it. The time could have been around 12-12:30pm, the time when my dad
should of been at the hospital taking care of himself but to my surprise and
disgrace, I found him at home having drinks and blasting music like there was no
tomorrow. He tried to explain to me what he was doing but he couldn’t even try
to do that because he kept saying things what a normal drunk would say at this
moment- gibberish. He was awake when my mom came home from work and she figured
out what happened as soon as she saw his face and without a word she walked back
out the house. He could have done this for any amount of time and we would never
have found out since he’s always asleep when we came home. Up to today, I
don’t think he still knows what he has done to me and my mom. I realized from
that day that I could never trust him again. I could see how he hurt my mother
just by looking in her eyes. She felt betrayed just like I did, he played us
both for fools and I don’t think he regrets it to this day. My reason for
saying that is simply because he hasn’t even made an effort to show some type
of remorse of what he did. He killed a part of me that day which has stuck with
me and because of this our house has returned to a state of war. No one has
spoken to each other since we found out. It has become like three strangers
living under one roof who are stuck with each other whether we like it or not.