December 11th, 2017, was the day my father physically died—he had died mentally years before. When my mom told me that my dad had passed, I mourned the person he was before his addiction. The dad who would practice his haircutting skills on me through beauty school, the one who would let me stay up past my bedtime watching Annoying Orange videos, and the one who had the potential to be so much more. I mourned over the milestones he would miss, my graduation, my wedding, and everything in between. At about 12 years old, my mom told me that he had asked to see me about 3 days before he died, and she refused. I was so mad at her for weeks for robbing me of a final goodbye. It wasn’t until about two years ago that I finally understood why she was so hesitant to allow him to be near me. His addiction had fully changed him as a person for the worse; he would become so angry over little things and was completely consumed by substances. She wasn’t trying to spite me, she was trying to protect me from the massive pain that he had caused us.
Eventually, my father overdosed and left my mother to have to raise me alone. My mom tried to give me everything as a child, attempting to fill the hole that my father had caused. However, caring for a child financially on your own is an enormous struggle. I knew from a young age that I would have to pay for college on my own, and it never bothered me because she had given me so much throughout the years that I couldn’t possibly ask for more.
After high school, I plan to earn a nursing degree and dedicate myself to caring for those struggling with substance abuse. I want to make a difference in the world by helping save the loved ones of people like me. I don’t want other people to have to go through what I did, and I want their loved ones to recover like I always wished that mine would.
The loss of my father has allowed me to understand that addiction is not a moral failing, and people struggling with it need a support system to help them. It is not something that they can just overcome overnight. The addiction completely overtakes their minds and makes them do things they would have never done before.
With all of this being said, the loss of my father has made me a stronger person. I have become stronger because of him and have persevered for so long because of him. Everything I do is for him and to make him proud. For so long, I walked around scared. Scared thinking people would be able to look at me and know that my dad died from an overdose. I thought it made me ugly, and everyone would look at me differently. When I would be asked what my father did for work or what I was doing for Father’s Day, it left me panicked and unsure of how to respond. Should I tell them he’s dead or should I just answer like he’s still alive? was a question I found myself thinking frequently because I always knew that if I told them, the first question would be, “how did he die?”
Now, I do not allow all of the bad to define me as a person. I acknowledge that he was taken by an overdose, and I am not embarrassed by it. Through my grief, I have found resiliency. Resiliency to fight for the ones lost, the ones who are struggling, and the loved ones who are struggling. I understand that addiction is something anyone can experience, and that is how I fight back against that illness for taking half of my world.