EVERY FATHER’S FEAR

EVERY FATHER’S FEAR

Saturday morning did not start out well for me. I was outside tending some weeds when my next-door neighbor came over to me and started to talk, telling me her 84 year-old Dad was dying, and would not last the week!

I left the house and headed out to the store and when I came back, there was a message on my phone. On the message that was somewhat garbled for me to understand, a young man was telling me he was sorry my son had drank himself to death, and that this caller loved TLW (The Little Woman) and me!

Looking at the caller ID, I saw that the number was a Louisiana number, and I figured it was a cell phone from a student at SUNY Purchase. TLW was not home doing volunteer work at the church all day.

THE BIG TROUBLE MAKER: #2 SON

The shock was devastating, as I tried to piece this all together. #2 Son was at college and there are always wild drinking parties going on. Was he dead? Why did the school decide to tell me this way? There is a shock that comes over one when one get news like that, the thought process is not rational or sensible, and a sense of denial takes over. I was heartbroken and enraged that a stinking phone call was all I got in the form of a message on my phone. It was tearing me up that I hadn’t seen him in a while, that I didn’t tell him the things I needed to say over and over again to my son. He was gone, and the finality of it devastated me.

I immediately thought about TLW: how would I tell this? How could I make sense for her and me to deal with this? Would I drive down to the church and tell her, or do I call the church and tell someone to tell her to come right home? I had tried calling the phone number from Louisiana, but it was busy. Then I thought I’d call my son’s cell phone, but there was no answer! I prayed and begged that it would but only ringing and a request to leave my name and number.

I guess if there is a time to panic, that was it, but then I got the idea to call the Louisiana number once more. This time the phone rang!  A lady answered the phone and I told her that someone had called me a little while ago about my son. Did I know who she asked, and I said no. Then I told her name and she shouted out loud my name. I asked her if I could talk to Michael and she said he was sleeping. Sleeping? That didn’t make sense and I figured I may be talking to a large college room, and a bunch of college kids were hanging around it. Then she mentioned my son’s full name and someone took the phone.

“Hello Mr. DelBloggolo?” the voice asked. Yes, who is this and what do you mean my son drank himself to death? He then identified himself and I realized I know the feller. He went on to tell me that 15 years ago he didn’t make #2 Son drink that he got so sick they hospitalized him, that #2 did it all on his own!

To say the weight of the world was suddenly taken away would not be saying enough! He was apologizing for he and my son did as teenagers long ago, and then he told me he had checked himself into a mental hospital in Louisiana, and they wouldn’t release him unless he started on medication, something he was reluctant to do.

I asked him if he didn’t want to take the medication, was not taking it what got him in the hospital in the first place? Feebly he replied that he would star taking it. Then he told me about his mom, how she divorced his dad and was u=in need of talking to someone. I voiced my reluctance and he convinced me to call anyway, that she needed someone to talk to who could help her, and that I was that person.

I don’t know why he asked me, I do think it was a process to rid personal guilt and to start to heal. I hope so.

Then to further my day, I dropped off a few prescriptions at my drug store and told to come back in an hour and a half. I came back in 2 hours and it wasn’t ready!

On top of that, I have a beard trimmer that I decided to clean, which meant taking it apart, and I could not get it back together again! Then once I figured it out, I had one last very important screw to put back in, when the screw decided to jump ship. For two hours I look for the screw. For two hours I crawled on my hands and knees looking, for two hours I swept the floor with my broom and then my shirt with me still in it! Finally I found it.

It’s all TLW’s fault, she left me home alone, she should know better!