Blah, and double blah.
07/07/2005 03:12 a.m.
I’m starting to fade, to lose resolve in what has become my life. My surly determination gives out on my every so often and I’m left in pieces. My passions are failing me and leaving as unhappy as my problems. I ponder the fact that, although I love this, I may not be very good at it. I’m left with the feeling that, despite my hopes and dreams, I may not be good at anything. I used to think that I was me for a reason and that reason had to be for something great. I look at great people, like Martin Luther King, JFK, Lincoln, Pope John Paul and my Father and I wonder how to live up to their example.

I’ve started writing the story of my father’s life and I realize that I missed out on the truth of his greatness. My father was a hero, I know that. He saved lives and he did so without credit. He will never be studied in books or mentioned in the history of the world, because he did everything anonymously. In a way, I was cheated for listening to him when I did. I’ve lived my life honestly and I’ve been screwed too many times for it not to affect me. I was taught from the start to take the next right step and it seems that I am punished more harshly then most for the occasional misstep I take.

My mother used to say that I would start studying in the summer because I thought that I couldn’t handle the next grade. She said that I would get A’s on everything then get one C and wind up with a B. My brother would get C’s and D’s all semester and get one A and also get a B. It’s true that I always put too much pressure on myself. I had two duodenal ulcers at age 8. I was the kid who worried about nuclear war and cried when the other reindeers made fun of Rudolph. I’m getting off my pity party now and I’m going to post what I’ve written so far. Not much, but it’s the beginning. Maybe the end. I have to find my strength again.



Anonymous- by Alicia Vann

Chapter 1- The Funeral

I sat on an elegant sofa in the sanctuary of the Madison Chapel Funeral Home. My Father lay in a rented casket. He looked peaceful, about ten years younger than he had when he passed away. One could say that the cancer had taken its toll, but the truth is that my father was an old man at twenty. His gray hairs were starting to grow again after chemotherapy in the same thin ring around the back of his head. The walls were draped in exquisite fabrics that my Father would have thought were too ostentatious for the occasion and authentic southern oil paintings with pictures of people who looked far too alive to be in a funeral home. The color scheme was bland, compassionate greens and blues. There was not a bright cheery color anywhere in the place. What the couch had in elegance, it lacked in comfort. It seemed odd to me because the theme of the room appeared to be comfort. Emotional times like these demand an utterly calm ambience. I sat alone.

My brother, Charles Jr., paced in uncomfortable circles as he occasionally spouted wholly inappropriate comments. He didn’t know what to say, none of us did. We were an extremely nuclear family, partially by choice and partially not. We were all we had and our leader was gone. On October 14, 2002, my brother took his last drink. He did it in style and with a bit of dry sarcasm, as only a full-blooded Erickson can. He wound up in a mental hospital in West Palm Beach, Florida after threatening to kill himself and everyone else he could. The police were able to talk him into entering the hospital voluntarily. Although I lived only one county away, I had already crossed the border into tough love. I advised that I would only help him if he remained sober and in treatment. Although, I had resigned myself to the fact that I would never see him again, Charles had made that magical switch that cannot be explained or forced, he became sober on October 15, 2002, exactly 44 years to the day of my Father’s anniversary date.

I understand the anger my sister had for him, to a certain extent. Kathryn was in rare form, dressed in black but with a pink flowery sweater and her freshly died red hair, anything to draw the attention to herself. She was crying too hard not to have tears strolling down her cheeks, but alas, there were none. I guess she thought no one else would remember that she hadn’t even gone to see my father since he entered the hospital on Thanksgiving Day. I silently remembered. It’s not important. I am an American, I believe that everyone has the right to believe in whatever they chose, as long as they don’t interfere with the rights of others to believe in their own convictions. This is where my sister went wrong. She made her comments about my brother being there. She still did not believe he was sober, but he was. More sober than she was. My sister was ranting her feelings about whether or not I should have brought him as she was taking the leftover Dilaudid from my father’s cancer stash. That is my sister and she will never change.

As distant as we seemed sitting in our own corners of the parlor, we were all united in the attempt to get my mother to attend the funeral. She had not left the house in a very long time, as she was left crippled from severe arthritis and Lupus. We had almost gone the route of forcing her into submission, but we relented as she cried that she was in too much pain to go. In less than two months, I would discover that the pain she was referring to was not the physical kind that she was used to battling, as she succumbed to her grief at the loss of my father. She later told me that she felt that if she went to the funeral, she feared that she would fall apart and never recover, a future that was fortold it seems whether she knew it or not. My father was her rock. He cared for her in a way that none of us could. I had always thought that my mother and I were soul mates and her fate was inexorably tied to mine, but it was my father. She could not go.

More intriguing that the absences and quirky family demographic playing out was the number of people who showed up. A few were my mother’s friends, who probably thought that Charlie wouldn’t have anyone there if they didn’t show up, a thought I shared. My father was not the most pleasant of characters, although he possessed a keenly dry wit and a certain endearing charm, he also was impatient and seemingly uninterested in people. There were about fifty surprises though. People who never stated their names and never signed the guest book. Those who did signed only first names with little notes like: “Thanks for saving my life,” “I’ll never forget what you did for me and my family,” and “Peace to a loving angel.” I would have wondered if these people had wondered into the wrong funeral, but for the AA rhetoric that also covered the pages of his book. Some people even signed “Anonymous.”

As I walked through the parlor and listened to the small groups of three or four people talking about how my father’s life had effected them, I was amazed by the stories I heard. Was this the same man I knew? Coarse and grumpy on his better days, my father demanded a new level to the word anger. Even his final moments, he let us know that he didn’t want to be bothered. My brother and I arrived at the hospital after a twelve-hour drive from Florida. We were told that my father was already passing. He might be able to hear us, but he couldn’t respond. We entered the room. I was sad and babbling. “Everything’s O.K., Dad. You be at peace now. Mom is going to be fine. O.K. And we’re all here, O.K. Charles is here and he’s sober. You’d be so proud. Kathryn’s here. I’m here, and we’re all going to take care of Mom. Don’t worry. O.K. Everything is going to be fine, O.K. She coming to Florida to live with me, O.K. Don’t worry. O.K.” My father lifted his head slightly and said, “O.K.” It was just a little stern. I know that if he had the energy, he would have said, “Shut the fuck up. Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep.”

It was always good not to bet against my father. People have done it for years. Whether fueled by spite or what he explained to be the fact that no other human being should ever have control over your life, my father was not one to give up on other people’s terms. When he was first diagnosed with esophageal cancer, my father was given four to six weeks to live, at best. My father lived ten months, partially just to piss them off. Here they were again. “He won’t be able to respond.” My father’s, “O.K.” was his last “fuck you” to the medical community that had told him he was finished in his early twenties.

I was alerted by the inappropriate sound of laughter coming from the crowd. My mind was racing back and forth between reality and memories. The intriguing crowd was growing in size and diversity. There was an elderly woman who looked better suited to be at a Republican fundraiser than at services for a died in the wool Democrat with liberal social tendencies. She was in a wool embroidered couture suit and she was accessorized in diamonds that were monetarily valued at more than my father earned in his entire lifetime. She spoke softly about the man who listened intently to everything she had to say and told her to look for value outside of material goods. He told her of the value of the soul. She talked about how she had stopped drinking and was extremely depressed at the fact that her life had not changed. As she was talking, I remembered having the same conversation with my Father.

I had just moved home from college after failing to obtain a job. My life had always been planned. I studied hard, made excellent grades, and most importantly, avoided drugs and alcohol. I never wanted to be a problem or a burden to my parents. I wanted to be “the good kid.” And I was, so good that I was unprepared for the realities of failure. I had spent the better part of my college career abiding by my childhood pledge to be the one who didn’t fall prey to the trappings of the party life. There was, of course, one notable exception. This moment of indiscretion would be the beginning of the end of the great divide between my father and myself, an Amnesty International letter writing party.

I went to the party at the secondary dorms of the University of Central Florida. Here the greatest liberal minds were meeting to decide what letters to write to release some political prisoner in some far off place that I had not heard of. It was not that I did not believe in what they were doing; I was just completely naïve as to what they were talking about. They were all babbling about things and I could not partake with any sense of intelligence. It was my college roommate, Julie’s, 21st birthday and they had alcohol. Vodka and lemonade, beer and some fruity wine coolers drowning in an ice filled bathtub were, for the first time in my life, very appealing. I remember the Vodka and lemonade tasting very much like lemonade. I drank it swiftly and with intent. Nothing. I felt nothing. The beers were gross and I had to follow them with wine cooler chasers. Three of each before I suddenly realized that I could not feel my arms.

I noticed this only because I was banging them against the wall. It was entertaining, but I started to realize that each cell of my body had some sort of force field around them that was preventing them from working in their proper fashion. My mind would tell my legs to move as if to walk and yet, they did not. Or they moved in a direction of their own choice rather than the one my body was going in. Things like walls, tables and beds were now the only obstacles to my hitting the floor when there was a lack of cooperation from my limbs. It was decided that I’d had enough when I started telling the liberal Amnesty Internationals what I really thought of them. Julie, who drove me that evening, was not too far behind me, although she appeared to have bit more self control, was not able to drive me home. I hitched a ride from Julie’s boyfriend’s younger brother who was visiting his older brother to see if he should go to school there. Most of that trip is blurry but I have a rather distinct memory of peeing in the street. I went home. I don’t think Adam’s younger brother ever came to school there.

I woke up the next afternoon, somehow wrapped in an unfamiliar blanket, with a bucket next to my head and a note that read, “Please see Resident Assistant 5025. Amanda” Its never good to get a note like this. I racked my brain to try to remember what had happened. Nothing. Some fuzzy blurbs about my key not working. Faces. Four of them, laughing. My bed, or so I thought, and there I was. It was later explained that I had got off the elevator on the wrong floor and the gentlemen in the room let me in after hearing me put the key in the door. Than they watched as I stripped to my grape underwear and laid in their bed. “Hm, I don’t really remember that,” I explained to Amanda. She knew me. I had never done anything like this before. That was probably the only reason that I was not kicked out of the dorms.

My one experience in tow, I called my parents and advised them of my exploits. They were surprisingly supportive. I had the talk with my father. “Is it possible to be an alcoholic after only one drinking episode?” He replied, “It’s an interesting question. If you believe that Alcoholism, as well as any other addiction, is a disease, then you have to say that you could be an addict without ever having taken a drink. The drink is the symptom, the mind, body and soul are the illness. Either way, the fact that you had your first black out the very first time you drank is a pretty good indicator that you should not drink.” I had some thoughts at that point like what is the difference? If the demons chase you no matter what then why bother holding them back? “Until the symptom is gone, there is no movement forward. The symptom holds the control and everything continues to weaken. It’s not rocket science but it also isn’t easy. You could never drink again and be as miserable as you are right now. It’s up to you.

I avoided alcohol for the rest of my college career and even became a Rehabilitation Technician for Project Detox. They only had a part time position. I guess, more than anything, I wanted to have something in common with the man I felt that I had failed to impress my whole life. It wasn’t for me. I just couldn’t help the fact that I wanted to slap all the residents of the treatment facility and tell them to stop.


I am currently Sad
I am listening to The poor excuse for an air conditioner.