How to forgive.

My father is an anomaly. He's been this way his entire life from what I've been told. Never really thinking before doing and perhaps that's how he ended up with three children by three different women, all of us coming out with some abnormality.

Mine being mental illness and a skin condition, my brother's being dyslexia and not being about to grow past 5'4, and my sister's being an eating disorder and the possibility of a liver defect that we still haven't looked deeper into because if you don't talk about it, it's not real, that's the rule in my family.

I'm the eldest, being born in 1998 and the first taste of fatherhood my father got. I supposed he didn't like it that much, seeing he only kept me on weekends and didn't fight for much more. Even when I would stay with his mom, my Mawmaw, while my mom was at work, he didn't come around too much. I don't recall a lot about this time, I was too young to remember but what I do remember is when my brother was born. He was my first sibling, 2003, and I remember loving him more than anything else in the world.

I think my dad liked the thought of being a father to a son more or maybe it was that my brother's, Logan, mother was still with my dad when Logan was born. She, of course, left him in the end, a bitter separation that would become a patter with my father, but Logan lived with him for the first few years of his life, unlike me.

He tried with Logan at first, but fathers are different with sons, I learned that quickly. My dad never talked to me the way he talked to Logan. I never heard him talk to anyone the way he would talk to him. He was harsh on him one second then his best friend the next. I think that was just their bond. Volatile and destined to implode, which it surely did, but it was theirs and it was special to them.

Then came my sister, Kennedy. I was 12 when she was born and I believe that's when dad started drinking. Not because of her, because of her mother. There's no way I could tell you about Kennedy's mom while also telling you about my father, this piece would end up being a novel if I did that.

To make a long story short, like the other relationships before, they didn't work out and ended up separating. This time though, when my dad went to court for a custody agreement, a common activity for him at this time, Kennedy's mom got arrested on the spot for hot checks. The judge couldn't give custody to a woman in a cop car so my dad got full custody of her. A first out of three children.

You'd think this would help him get his shit together. Spoiler: it only got worse.

I didn't spend much time with my father once I got into high school. My mom and our family, my step-dad and little sister, lived and hour away and usual weekend trips to see dad's side turned into once a month visits that slowly turned into once every other month visit. Despite not seeing him, I had Logan to keep me in the loop.

Dad's drinking got worse, and worse, and worse as we all aged. I was the only one who had some sympathy for him, probably due to the distance between him, but even then, my sympathy wore thin quick when my dad called me to tell me him and Logan got into a fight. A big fight. One of which I only got the details to years later.

Long story short, Logan left. He cut dad off therefore cutting me and Kennedy off as well.

It hurt. It hurt really bad. There's no other way to describe it besides it just hurt. Constantly. My visits to my dad stopped as well. I knew I couldn't be in the same room as my dad without ripping his head off, or at least yelling at him until I was blue in the face. He ruined the one good thing we had in our cursed little family, I knew I couldn't be there without my brother there.

And it's been that way ever since. It's only been recently have I started coming around again. Not for my father but for my sister, who's now 14, to give her some guidance and affection, two things she doesn't get enough of. Logan got himself in the army, he's currently somewhere in California, far away from the mess my father created in Texas.

I've forgiven my father for a lot of things but not for everything. I think if I forgave him for everything, he wouldn't grow. That's the important thing about forgiveness. Growth. Growth and patience. My father is trying, I think. He's learned to apologize but not to put the bottle down, yet. He's trying to. He's tried once but recovery is never linear, that's something you learn quick when loving an addict.

I wish I could give you a play by play of how I forgave him for all he did to me and my siblings, for all the grief he caused, but I can't. I just remember one day, reflecting on myself, and I realizing there was so much anger inside me towards my dad. At that point, I was 19 and already mad at the world for reasons that are now pointless. I carried so much anger and hate towards not only myself but my father as well.

I was miserable. Truly, it was my lowest point. As cliche as it sounds, learning to let go of that anger and hatred, freed me. It didn't solve all my problems, forgiving your alcoholic father is no prozac, but it did clear so much of the fog and helped me get to where I am now.

I like to think life is like a locked door with the key on the top of doorframe, just out of your reach. While forgiveness isn't the key just out of reach, it's the stepping stool you need to reach the key. It gets you there.