I Do: There she is...

I came home from work today and my 8 year old daughter said "Mom's drunk again."  So matter of fact.  Nothing to it.  You’re eight years old and a bi-polar alcoholic mother is what you got.  Sometimes it's pretty rough – in fact a lot of times.  Sometimes there's a day of sobriety or almost sobriety that makes you think, “hey this isn't so bad, we can survive this.”  But then comes the mood swings, the irrational behavior, the emotional and sometimes physical abuse of the children and I can only be there when I can be there.  We're each learning to live it out in our own ways. 

    The Princess is handling it pretty well all things considered.  She has her Grandmother, my mother-in-law, who lives with us.  She's been sleeping in Grandma’s bed since shortly after coming home from the hospital.  Grandma or Abuela as we call her, makes all the difference in the world for my daughter.  Not so for the Wild Man.

    The Wild Man, my 13 year old son, gets the bonus package.  He’s not only dealing with his Momma but he also gets the added benefit of the roller coaster emotions created by the onset of puberty.  A young man with an intense personality, he is pressed against the crumbling edge that drops precipitously into absolute anger, resentment, and rebellion.  Lots of behavior issues that we work through one day at a time.  

    The College Man has some issues that I know from experience will bring forth a harvest probably in his 40's.  But for now, away at college, he's in pretty good shape. 

    Abuela loves her daughter.  Not many would stick it out with us when they figured out there's no end in sight.  We've been through rehab a couple of times and all kinds of meds but no matter where we go - there we are.  Abuela is an old school first generation immigrant who’s emotions swing pretty hard.  She looks like she's aging a little more quickly now but she still seems to be hanging in there. 

    And me, I don't know.  It's really hard to see myself.  I know I struggle with the anger.  I'm extremely irritable at home.  I try not to be but I catch myself in the middle of it all the time.  At work, I believe I've managed to keep the SECRET, the jail time, probation, the innumerable hospital stays.  But at home it's all out in the open.  In sickness and in health, for better or for worse.  That's what I always remind myself.  I can guarantee you this is sickness, this is worse.  But it's what I signed up for.  I just didn't know it when I stood before God and man and swore that I would keep her until "death do us part." 

    Without my friend Jesus I don't know what I'd do.  He has been a friend that sticks closer than a brother, I can attest to that. 

    I'm learning from Him.  He's been around and he's developed some practical ideas that work.  A lot of times, he just listens and a lot times, that's all I need.  On occasion he'll offer an idea or two and when I'm ready to try them, they really help.  One thing he's shown me is how not to quit.  He won't quit on me with all the messes I've made and he's teaching me how to do the same with others. 

    Another thing He’s showing me is how to see.  He sees the end from the beginning.  He's not stuck in the here and now like me.  He’s showing me how to see my wife yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Most times I can only see her in the now.  All the anger, all the behavior that makes me cringe or when I come to and find myself shouting, like some out of body experience.  Is that really me? 

    When I look in the now and see the physical effects of a decade of alcohol and prescription drug abuse, when I see the behavior that puts us all on edge or over the edge, I sometimes think “that's not my wife.” 

    Oh man, but sometimes, sometimes I can see her when we were first married some 26 years ago.  So young and achingly beautiful, it makes my chest hurt to think of her.  Then later in our marriage, presenting me with babies one at a time.  Babies like no one's ever had before.  Babies that are untouched, perfect, arrows loosed in hope to the end of the century.  I remember and I just smile. 

    When I’m free from the now I sometimes imagine what she'll look like when we're at the end, when it's all over.  In my mind’s eye were still together maybe holding hands.  Old, wrinkled, and bent over and when we look at each other, there's a knowing look.  A look that comes from a knowledge that says "I know what you're made of, you won’t quit.”  Despite our flaws, so many, so manifest; despite all the failures, overwhelming; but through it all we didn't quit, we clung.  Oh some days I quit and some days she does too, but rarely on the same day.  But through it all, I imagine we clung to each other, we clung to my friend Jesus - and we made it.  Yea when I see her like that I think "there she is" "there's my wife."  “The one I was made for and the one who was made for me.”