And when he gets to heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell, “One more father reporting, Sir. I’ve done my time in Hell.”

I awoke late today. First I thought it was Monday. I drifted off again. When I next woke up, I thought it was Sunday. It was near 13:20 hours. Past noon. The nightmare had continued each time I awoke, a relentless, haunting, vile affair which held me in its vise-like grip, and once asleep again, it took me to places I didn’t want to go, where I saw faces I didn’t wish to see.

NIGHTMARES IN REAL LIFE

These things are not rare for me. It happens all the time. Each time I can, usually, find something to rationalize the ugly and frightful dreams. Like last evening when I was forced to take Benadryl. I was feverish, freezing, every joint, every muscle in different stages of aches and pains. I’ve had my flu shot. It’s just a bad cold, I tell myself. I could have gotten it anywhere.

But then, I’m shaken by the nature of my nightmares. I see my parents. I hear them talking. Talking to me. Teasing, taunting, telling me I’m shit, trash, like they told me all my life. The faces of my children are there. Benign. Silent. Impassive. I don’t know why they don’t save me from the horror. Don’t they know I’m being tortured?

It would be wrong to blame them if they refused to come to my aid. After all, did I not let them die? Was I not able to save them? Is a father’s guilt not inexcusable?

DECEMBER 24, 1994

It was cold. You know, really, really cold. I was delivering pizza for Papa John’s. The store closed early, around dusk.

With nothing to do, I wandered around Dundalk. I worked there but was staying with a younger brother in Pasadena. I didn’t want to go there and sit the rest of the night.

I had been dealing with an eye infection, and since I was recently separated, my heart was broken. I was allowed to see my kids on Christmas, but I had no plan to visit. Working for nothing more than gas for my car, I hadn’t the means to buy even one small gift for each of them. And on this, my first Christmas not living with them, I wasn’t showing up empty-handed. That was unthinkable to me.

THE STORY AND THE CURSE

I went to Bayview Hospital in Baltimore after treating my growling stomach to a Wendy’s triple. Which emptied my wallet of my tips. By 23:00 I walked in from the parking lot to the emergency entrance. My eye had this weird infection that clouded my sight. I would wake up to find a white paste on my left eyelid. It affected my vision, made it hard to see street signs and house addresses at night. So I didn’t care how long I’d be there; it needed care and I had nowhere to go the next morning.

The waiting room was full. Parents with sick children, adults with injuries, probably nothing serious, but pain is pain, and suffering is suffering. I checked in and went back outside to smoke.

Continue reading “A CHRISTMAS STORY: A True Story Of Loss, A Curse And The Quest For Redemption” →