A Dad’s Story

It was hot! Hotter than I expected it would be. I found myself sitting cross-legged on the dry dusty ground beneath a tree that was providing just enough shade to keep me from melting. “How can it be this hot in Colorado??” I thought. Having grown up the entirety of my then 10 years in the South, the Colorado I knew in my mind was one of snow-capped mountains and cool people in cool clothes skiing down the slopes. This was not that. This was mid-June somewhere outside of Colorado Springs at a Cub Scout Camping weekend.

I was finishing up the first week of a two week visit with my cousin Jamie. My mom had put me on a plane and let me fly up from Houston by myself. She thought it would be good for me to enjoy a couple of weeks in Colorado with my cousin. We planned it so that the trip coincided with the annual Cub Scout Jamboree being held that weekend.

The Jamboree was nearing its conclusion. It had been AMAZING! The scenery was incredible. There were canoes and rivers, tents and campfires, bow-and-arrows and .22 rifles with plenty of targets to shoot at; all of which was set with the backdrop of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. It was a ten-year-old’s dream. But for all the good that had happened at the beginning of the weekend, the end of was soon to be one of the more difficult moments in my life.

The tree I was sitting under was serving a dual purpose. The shade was helping me stay cool in the surprising Colorado heat, and it was just far enough away from the crowd that it provided perfect cover for the tears that were flowing uncontrollably down my face. I was distraught. My emotions had come over me so quickly I barely had time to think to get away from everyone and seek refuge under the tree.

It felt like my whole world was closing in on me. My head was in my hands and I was sobbing. As I’m writing this I can feel the tears welling up again. The feeling of that moment has stuck with me some 40 years later, and the accessibility I have to those feelings today is unsettling. It hurt. Terribly. Not knowing what else to do I just sat in it as the thoughts in my head consumed me.

So, how did I get to this point after such an otherwise incredible 3 days of fun? Per the camp’s tradition every Jamboree weekend ended with the much anticipated Father/Son Obstacle Course. Pre-race was bustling with activity. It was a sea of kids and dads trying to find each other to pair up for the event. The fathers had not been there all weekend, but had shown up today for the race and to pick up their boys from camp.

The atmosphere was great…for most. I remember watching the dads and young men craning their necks as they strained to find one another through the mass of people. I saw all these squinty faces, searching, then suddenly change as each spotted the other in the crowd. Smiles replaced squints as their faces relaxed and they ran towards one another. Hugs and laughs were being exchanged everywhere you looked.

In the general excitement I had stood up too, as if I was going to start the looking process. Almost as immediately as I stood, I realized my participation in this part of the weekend was not needed. I wasn’t going to find my dad there. It has been 4 or 5 years by now since the last time I saw him and I have no memories of him before that. He and my mom had split when I was too young to have known him and he had made no effort to keep in touch with us; save the time I remember my mom showing me some clothes he had sent to me, I think when I was about 7 years old.

So I didn’t have any one to look for. I didn’t have anyone’s arms to run into or any smiles to exchange. I just had this overwhelming feeling of being totally alone. The weight of the moment was unbearable so I sought cover under the tree to get away from it all.

I watched my uncle and cousin connect and move together to the starting line. Hand-in hand all the father/son teams began to line up in anticipation of the crack of the starting pistol. There was a 30 second delay between groups leaving the start so that they could get everyone through the course. The race wasn’t so much about winning, rather it was an opportunity for dads and their boys to work together to finish the course.

As my cousin and uncle left the start, the questions flooded my ten year old brain. Where’s my dad? Why isn’t he here? Why doesn’t he love me? If he loved me wouldn’t he be here? What would it feel like to hold his hand and run the course with him like my cousin and uncle were doing now? The questions never stopped, and the answers never came. It was a void, there was nothing I could do. So I sat. I watched. I cried.

I halfway remember my Uncle falling across the finish line as he and Jamie were giving it their all to complete the course. He was a big man, I remember he rolled with an agility I didn’t know he possessed, and somehow came out of that roll into a standing position. He and Jamie were laughing at the fall, both equally impressed at how well my uncle recovered. As their laughter started to subside I saw my uncle squint again like everyone had done before the race began. He was looking for me.

It didn’t take long for him to find me. For as much cover as I thought the tree was providing I might as well have had a neon sign flashing above my head. As he and I caught eyes I saw the smile on his face begin to fade into a grimace of sorts. His lips pressed together to form a frown and his head noticeably dropped as he began to shuffle his feet my way. He knew why I was there long before he could get close enough to see the tears on my face. He was familiar with my dilemma and was coming over to talk to me.

This bear of a man squatted down to get as close to my face as possible. He knew the answer to his question but was kind enough to ask it anyway. “You ok buddy?” I’m pointlessly trying to dry my face as I answer, the tears now just as bad as they were when it started, I give him a silent nod “yes”. He knew I didn’t mean it. He had grasped the gist of the situation and was coming to provide what I needed most at that moment. Love. Then he did what kind men do in a situation as heavy as that.

He extended his huge hand and said, “Hey buddy, you want to run the race with me?”

That memory was a microcosm of the difficulties I faced with both my parents. Between them there would be 11 marriages in total. The revolving door of step-parents never ceased spinning. I would connect every three or four years with my dad, but we never really had a great relationship. They were doing the best they could to raise me, but their parenting tools were broken. Most likely because the tools past down from their parents were broken too.

It created a difficult childhood which resulted in me struggling mightily as an adult. Their difficulties raising me made it easy to turn to drugs and alcohol for relief. At first it worked, I forgot about all those bad memories from my childhood, it’s hard to remember anything for as blasted as I would get whenever I got drunk or high.

I eventually got married and had two boys of my own. It took me failing as a father to understand the lesson of that afternoon in Colorado. The power of that day came back in full force as I was struggling with a disease I could not explain nor control. My own boys, eleven and nine-years-old when I decided I had had enough, were starting to feel the brunt of my addiction. They were not getting what they needed from me, I was quickly turning into the dad I was so mad at all those years ago.

I had begun to see how unfair it was going to be for them. How their life was going to be forever changed through no fault of their own by a man who was too selfish to see the gifts he had in front of him. How could I do this to them? That question kept repeating itself over and over again. How could I, knowing what it felt like to be that kid under that tree, repeat the same mistakes my father had made?

That’s when Grace entered my life. It’s the only way to explain it. What else could take a memory from so long ago, something that had impacted me so negatively for the rest of my life, and morph that experience into the one thing I would use to make sure I would never put my boys in that position?

God did. That’s the reason I’m writing about it now. I know there are dads out there who, like me, desperately want to be the dad they never had. To be present in their child’s life and participate in showing them how to become men. My hope is that this story relates to those dads who are struggling, because I have been in their shoes, and with God’s help, found a way out.

It’s been four years since I last took a drink or a drug. With God at my side I have created a world where my boys and I spend a lot of time together. They are 15 and 13 now, and in a world of cell phones, and YouTube, my wife and I eat dinner with them every night as we hang out and watch TV together. I get hugs from them every day when I get home and recently we all started working out at the gym together. We have real conversations about our lives and they are really GOOD boys that, with my wife’s help, we believe are going to turn into really good men.

So the news I want to share is that it is possible. The minute I recognized that God was in my life, He made it possible to leave the selfishness of addiction behind and allowed me to see the beauty of my life that was right in front of me. He allowed me to take the memory of that day under the tree in Colorado and help me use that as fuel for my fire to trust Him above all. In doing so, I believe I have become the dad I always wanted to be. Now all I want to do is share with other’s how God’s Grace has worked in my life and how I know it can work in the lives of all dads that are struggling with the same disease I did. It’s a beautiful life, and I thank God for it every day!