Home for the Holidays

Home for the Holidays

Abigale F. Kemp

My father often took my brother and me fishing at Alpine Lake, a reservoir close to my childhood home, and while I looked up to my brother, I was never very interested in the actual fishing aspect of our trips to the lake. I usually stuck to running around and being an annoyance, definitely scaring any fish away if there were any in the first place. One afternoon while my brother and father were fishing, amidst my boredom I decided to catch a fish. I dumped my father’s almost-empty coffee cup into a bush and went searching for minnows. After much trial and error, and realizing that minnows are a lot faster than I thought they were, I caught one medium-sized fish. I was overjoyed. 

On our way home, my father let us stop at the pet store for fish food and when we returned, he assisted me in creating a makeshift fish tank out of a large Pyrex container for my new companion. I made sure to collect plants from the lake to put in the bowl, and I even accidentally collected some small snails which ended up helping keep the ‘tank’ clean. 

The fish was around for a few months. I fed it every day and despite my mother’s concerns about having a fish and a cat in the same household, I managed to keep it safe and healthy the whole time I had it. That was until my father started drinking again. 

One night, my father had too much to drink, which was common for him, but tonight was different. My brother and I had slept in my mother’s room for the past few weeks after my father’s drinking had gotten exponentially worse. My dad had been staying in the bedroom that my brother and I usually shared, but that night, he was wired. He kept coming in and yelling about God knows what, and he was more drunk than I’d ever seen him. At some point, we got him back into the bottom bunk of my brother and I’s bed but at some point, he decided he’d rather be on the top bunk. Around ten minutes later, we heard a loud crashing noise. 

I entered what was once my bedroom, and was now a cold and desolate cave of a room that reeked of Jägermeister, my father’s drink of choice. As my eyes quickly darted to the floor, I saw my father lying in a puddle of blood and water, and my empty fish tank upside down next to him. I began to choke. It felt like my soul had left my body and taken my eyes with it and was watching myself, my father, and the puddle. I took eight steps out of the hallway and into the living room and dropped to my knees. I watched my mom and brother frantically scoop up the fish and the makeshift tank. They filled up the Pyrex and placed the fish in. From the kitchen, I heard my mother say, “Oh, thank God. It’s swimming.” 

The fish ended up living a little longer so we put it in its bowl on my mom’s desk for the night. My father made his way back to bed but later in the night, he came back into the room and spilled a glass of tea sitting nearby into the fishbowl. When I came home from school the next day, we held a funeral in the front yard. 

I soon began to grow a deep, passionate hatred towards my father. The vision of me on my knees in the living room, watching my mom resuscitate my fish, and the feeling that came with it stuck with me and often replayed whenever I entered that part of the house. How could he have taken away my friend, I thought. 

When he finally went to rehab, I refused to talk to him on the phone or visit him. I spent a long time blaming him for his addiction but once I saw how hard he was working to maintain his sobriety, I began to understand that it was not something that he could control. My father stayed sober for a long time after that and as a result, we grew very close. After he proved his willingness to have a better life and to give my siblings and me a better life too, he quickly became my person. 

I stood in the parking lot of a deli in Woodacre, California on Christmas Eve in the year 2020. He had been sober for five years since the fish incident but had relapsed the month prior. Within that month, he had lost everything he had except for his family, but he was starting to lose me too. It would be the greatest Christmas gift I could ever receive, I thought, if he got sober. Deep down, I knew that was never going to happen.  

As I waited with my family for a van to come and pick my father up to take him to rehab for the third time, the anger and resentment I had towards him at nine years old began to boil up from a very hidden place inside my body. I was mad that my father would put us through this; that he would spoil our Christmas Eve because, what? He wanted to get drunk? I began rationalizing the absurdness, the ridiculousness of it all once again, forgetting that in the past five years, my father had become my best friend. I remembered how he had driven me to school each day, bringing me toast on sourdough bread with butter and jam every single morning. I remembered how he was the only person by my side through my struggles with eating, or more accurately not eating. I remembered how he supported me when I was sexually assaulted two years prior. I remembered how he called me every night, even when he was drunk, and asked me to play Coldplay songs on the guitar for him. I remembered how he cried as I strummed the chords of The Scientist, the only noise coming from the other line being his soft, quiet weeps. I remembered it all, and it all made me so angry. I wish I didn’t have to deal with him anymore, I thought. 

I wished that my family could just send him away somewhere where he would be isolated, away from people to hurt and alcohol to drink. I wanted to be free from the false hope, the memories, the wasted time trying to help him, and the fact that deep down, I still loved him for some reason. I knew that if he kept drinking, he’d surely die, and the thought of that didn’t even scare me anymore. 

He came home about a month later, and within a few weeks, he passed away as a result of a traumatic brain injury that he sustained while drunk. I had very little contact with him during the week leading up to it so when my mom told me he was brain-dead, I immediately blamed myself. I did for a long time. Maybe if I hadn’t given up on him, if I kept calling him and playing the guitar, maybe he would still be here today. Maybe it was my fault, I thought. The phrase “be careful what you wish for” began repeating itself in my head for the next few years. 

Throughout the four years that have passed since my father left for rehab that one morning on Christmas Eve, I have come to a place of acceptance regarding my father’s passing. I was angry at him for a long time, but I have come to terms with the fact that he was a wonderful man with awful demons. I had my own battle with abusing alcohol after my father passed away, and part of me grew to understand why he drank, and why he couldn’t stop drinking. Drinking helped me escape the sadness and grief that followed his death, and I suppose that is why he drank too. He never had it easy either, so I honestly don’t blame him for not being able to get through it all sober. I no longer blame him, however, I still occasionally blame myself. 

This holiday season, I flew home from Tucson, Arizona, where I live now, and am staying with my mother. Last night, as I was sitting next to my little pink Christmas tree decorated in white lights and sparkly ornaments, I began to long for my father’s company.

My father loved Christmas. He loved taking me to the Grace Cathedral church in San Francisco to watch the men's and boys’ choir perform Christmas carols. He loved the Christmas section on the seventh floor of Macy’s on Union Street. He loved to see the smile on my face as I peered, head tilted towards the sky, at the tree in the center of Union Square. He loved warm coffee and fleece pullovers from Target. He loved Christmas lights. Most of all, he loved the joy and happiness that the holiday season brought. 

As I stared at the one faulty light in the string of a hundred that I bought off Amazon, wrapped around the cotton candy-colored tree, a sense of ease and comfort fulfilled my soul as if my father was reaching his arms down from the heavens and giving me a great big hug. My father would not want me to be sitting here next to a pink Christmas tree, sulking and thinking about what I could have done. “All that doesn’t matter now,” he’d say. My father wouldn’t want me to blame myself, and he’d especially hate it if I missed out on the joy of Christmas because of it.

I sometimes wonder if my dad can see me right now, and if he can, I wonder what he is thinking. As of now, I think he is proud of me. He would tell me how far I have come since just four Christmases ago. He would tell me that despite what I lead myself to believe sometimes, it wasn’t my fault. He would tell me that he is proud of me for continuing to grow each day that he has been gone. I know this because I can feel the pride within myself. 

My mother has since moved out of my childhood home, and I am in college now, and it all feels like a clean slate, in a way. I flew home just over a week ago, and I am grateful to be spending Christmas with my family. While I am happy to be home for the holidays, what I am truly overjoyed about is that I have the opportunity to celebrate the holidays for my father, pink Christmas tree and all. I am alive, I am healthy, and I am happy. That is truly the greatest Christmas gift I could ever receive.