Twenty-one years

This day, October 17, 2020, a deep wound that has been open for 21 years was instantly healed, and in the strangest, simple way. I came inside to pee and get a cup of coffee and ran into Rex, one of my brother Will’s friends. I met Rex a few years back at Hellhouse but don’t really know him. He has been staying here at my brother's place, and I just quit my job, so I am now back stayin at my brothers' too. We just started talking about random shit and somehow wound up talking about my dad, one of his friends, and death. I talked about how dad was in a coma and everything, and then he told me a story about his friend's dad who had been in a coma, how he woke up and was unable to remember or walk, etc. After about a year, suddenly something just clicked, and he was back. He had to learn to walk again but had his full memory back just like that. During that story, he said that the man said he heard every word they said to him while he was in the coma; he was just unable to respond.

I started crying because I had asked the nurses and the doctors repeatedly if my dad could hear me while he was in a coma. I was told no, or we don't really know. Nobody would ever just fucking say yes. I remember thinking, God, why can’t they at least lie to me and let me have that little bit of peace? Who would be hurt by that?

.

My life changed drastically during the course of those nine days that led up to the death of my dad. (November 23, 1999). That's the day that my downward spiral began. I mean, I guess the preceding nine days actually set it all in motion, but that day, I will NEVER, as long as I live, forget that day.

November 23, 1999, began a chain of horrible events that left me believing that death was some kind of all-knowing, all-seeing entity with a personal grudge against me. The grudge couldn’t be big enough, or I guess small enough simply to take me, oh no, instead it took the ones close to me so I had to experience this profound loss over and over again. It was agony, and it is no wonder I began to self-medicate.

Self-medicating was made quite surprisingly, very easy by the doctors who were prescribing me the meds. I was being given pain pills for all of the pain in my body from thirteen years of doing ballet and acrobatics, and ten years of bartending, and another ten serving in restaurants, plus even more pain meds from the gynecologist for the horrible cramps I had due to polycystic ovarian syndrome and fibroids. Oh, and let's never forget the three Xanax per day I was prescribed for PTSD from watching my dad laying there lifeless in a coma for nine days, then watching him take his last breath.

It was just me and my grandma, his mother in the room with him. It was absolute torture watching him as he gasped for breath, then exhaled, then it would be a really long time until he gasped in another breath. A couple times it was so long between breaths, Grandma and I thought it was over. Then another gasp and exhale. I could see it was destroying my grandma. It was killing me, but this was her first born child, so how much worse it must have been for her.

Finally, she looked at me and said, “Cozy, you have to tell him its ok to let go, that you will look after your mom and your sisters”. She must have seen the look of horror on my face, but she told me again. She said he couldn't let go until he knew I would take care of everyone and everything. Why wouldn’t he already know that, I had been doing that very thing nearly my whole life. Now she is asking, no telling me that I have to tell him it is ok to die…WTF?!? It was not ok with me if he died! I was not ok with any of this! Not in any way, shape, or form was I ok with any of this. This was my daddy! The man who raised me, who taught me the importance of being independent, and not relying on a man. The man who taught me to change my own tire and to always keep a job and who sacrificed for all of us, who was the buffer when mom went crazy. He was my goddamn world! No, not by a long shot was I in any fucking way ok with this.

However, it was agony, and since hospice had taken over his case, this was inevitable; so prolonging it seemed the greater of two evils, and I did not want him to suffer any longer. In my head I was having a whole conversation with myself, saying “wait just a damn minute here, I thought he couldn’t hear us anyway” and most important, “how am I gonna get through this? I don’t fucking want him to die!” but there I was, having to just listen to my grandma, who I had always turned to for advice, because she is the wisest woman I know. This is her son, and this has to be the hardest thing she has ever had to go through, so if she says this must be done, who am I to argue? So I said, as best I could between sobs, “Dad, it’s ok, I promise to take care of Mom and Christy and Carol.” Then I laid my head on his shoulder, still sobbing, and as I said I love you, he took his last breath. I remember every single thing about that day, every word, every smell, every sound. That painful moment is the defining moment in my downward spiral which has led me to this very moment, all these years later, trying to put my life back together and running into a random friend, who would give me the relief, and peace I had begun desperately searching for so long ago. I bet he didn’t even realize how that random conversation changed my entire life.

Twenty-one years, I have been walking, no sprinting, because I do not run, down the path of self-destruction, and one random, five minute conversation in my brothers kitchen, with one of his friends, just gave me the peace and answer I had so desperately needed all that time. I am still just God-smacked. This event is evidence to me that everything truly does happen for a reason, and wherever you are is right where you are supposed to be.

I did begin to wonder though, if maybe my life would have been completely different had I known Rex and heard this story back then? Maybe I would not have become a heroin addict, maybe Mike would still be alive, maybe my son would have never become an addict and wouldn't be in prison right now. Maybe my daughter would still be talking to me and I could see my grandchildren, maybe my sisters and I would still be in each others lives and not at each others throats. That last one I highly doubt. Those judgmental bitches would've found something to tear me apart about. It became their mission in life after Dad died. I never cease to be amazed at how quickly, and profoundly things can change. The fact that things constantly change, is actually the only thing in life that you can truly count on. I have to just trust that right here, right now, I am exactly where I am supposed to be, and there is some reason, some greater good for me having gone through this and all the horrible, tragic events that followed. Maybe someday I will be in another kitchen and get those answers.

Maybe things still would have spiraled out of control, I guess I will never know the answer to that one. I will have to be satisfied with the peace and relief that conversation gave me. Finally, relief from some of that excruciating pain I have carried for all these years. At least part of it can be released now. I can let it go, knowing my Dad did hear me and knows how very much I loved, and respected, and appreciated him.

My life has never been the same, and maybe it is not supposed to be. I resist change, just don’t like it at all. Maybe this tragedy that forced me to change was designed to do that very thing. Maybe because this and all of the terrible and tragic events that followed were meant to be. I have been to hell and back a couple of times, and don’t get me started on the strongly worded conversation I had with God about how he let me down and now I hated him; but I emerged on the other side of all of this a little better, wiser, more forgiving, compassionate person. I hated God, then mended fences with God, then questioned God, and I am on the path to spiritual awakening and understanding more and more about why we are here.

I have spent my life, especially the past 5 years or so, trying to help others in any way I could. I even took a dope case for someone I cared about and took my first and hopefully last trip to jail . I have learned so much, and evolved spiritually and emotionally and I began to embrace the gifts I had been given that I had blocked off, most likely out of fear.

I am no longer afraid of very much at all. I hesitate to say I am afraid of nothing, because I feel like I am tempting fate, or throwing down a challenge to the universe, and honestly, I don’t need anymore challenges right now. I am just now beginning to put my life back together. A whole lot of terrible bullshit has happened. I have seen, and done things and been through things that just twenty-two years ago, I wouldn’t have believed possible.

People often say, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. That is a true statement, however, I have no need or desire to be able to bench press a Buick! I am not sure who it was that said, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions,” but whoever said it, is one smart mofo. I had the very best of intentions for my life, and for the lives of my children, and one incident, one tragic moment actually, paved the road to self-destruction and eventually, the ninth circle of Hell, but that is another story entirely.