The redemption I witnessed in my son had many false starts. Not understanding addiction at the time, I was the victim of my own naiveté. I didn’t understand the nature of addiction at the time of Tim’s struggle and how it toys with the lives of others not directly captivated by its influence. We were all drawn by the current of its ebb and flow but only by virtue of our connection to Tim.
I would see his attempts to break free and mistake the momentary liberation for freedom from the force that over and over drew him back. Retrospectively, I am reminded of the protracted labor of his mother during the time of his birth that ushered him into this world. Like my naiveté regarding his addiction, I knew nothing of the complications that can occur during a pregnancy and just how dangerous it can be for both mother and child.
My wife and I were still living in Mineral Wells at the time, located about 50 miles from Fort Worth and I was working a small business I owned with a high school friend. At about 34 weeks, I was called home from work by my mother:
“Guy, you need to come home. Dawn is in labor and her water broke.”
In a panicked state of confusion, I explained the situation to my business partner and promptly left.
I drove to my parents’ house assuming the worst, which is the effect naiveté has. Our fear of the unknown is nourished by the shaking of our lives when we are shattered by threatening news. I began to fear the loss of my wife and child at the hands of something I was incapable of understanding and, with it, the certainty of the plans I had made of a life with them, which began to dematerialize during my drive home.
When I arrived, my wife was clearly in pain and I felt an alien sense powerlessness as I helped her to the car and embarked on the hour’s drive to St. David’s Hospital in Fort Worth. Time moved at a snail’s pace as I counted the mile markers one by one, sensing every contraction as I sat next to her—certain the very worst outcome was at hand.
After our arrival, I sat in the waiting room staring at the floor craving word of her condition, as my parents characteristically also sat quiet, time standing still for all of us.
An eternity passed. And I waited, the oppressive silence hanging heavy like a great suffocating cloud—and then, without announcement the doors opened, ushering in the doctor. I looked at him expecting the worst, expecting the words I didn’t want to hear.
“She’s going to be fine. The baby’s fine. She just needs rest. The amniotic sac was somehow compromised and began to leak, which caused some cramping. She was never in labor.”
Confused I looked at the man in the surgical coat with the mask resting against his Adam’s apple.
“She’s fine, son. Trust me, but she needs lots of bed rest. We’re going to keep her here for observation overnight. Assuming that nothing changes, and that’s what we expect, we’ll discharge her tomorrow. Then I want her on bed rest for the duration of her term and if there are any more problems, bring her back here immediately.”
For the next six weeks we waited, making do. And then round two.
As the frozen air impinged on our mobile home that January night, Dawn announced again that she was going into labor and, once again, we made our way to St. David’s. And again there were complications. Dawn was misdiagnosed as being in labor, but after hours of irregular contractions and her amniotic sac remaining intact, the doctor became concerned about the fatigue of labor, and made the decision to break her water.
The irregular contractions, however, continued. Over and over at irregular intervals her body alternated between contractions and spasms. I held her hand and looked on as she labored, knowing that I could do nothing but remind her to breathe. The minutes turned to hours.
Growing impatient, the doctor ordered Pitocin in an attempt to induce a productive labor, and on it went. The contractions refused to be marshaled by my wife’s body, electing instead to randomly push and then constrict in a way that I imagined was excruciating.
Then, in a single moment, the delivery righted itself. The contractions became regular, stronger, and closer together and within a half hours’ time my son was introduced to the world with which he would collide two decades later.
Like the inordinate winter cold that chose to assert itself on the night of Tim’s arrival, the ebb and flow of his birthing contractions seem so telling of his addiction and its nature. The vessel rises for a moment and you fool yourself into believing that this is the moment. You tell yourself that he has finally lifted himself from the storm and you believe he is winning out over the addiction. But it’s a lie you tell yourself.
It was late in the season of his life. We all had no idea, but his time was running short and, sadly, once again, in what we now know was the autumn of his life, Tim demonstrated the apex and valley of the addiction vortex.
In her early twenties, Rachel had decided to move in with my wife and me for a second time. She had been living in Fort Worth and wanted to pursue a college degree at the University of Texas here in Austin. Her plan was to enroll at Austin Community College, earn a two year degree, and then transfer to the University to pursue a degree in linguistics or journalism.
Tim and his girlfriend, Jennifer, accompanied Rachel, bringing a small trailer attached to a pickup truck, the trailer containing the sum of her belongings. That night, the night he assisted Rachel with her move to our home, was just one more such occasion. A moment of hope followed by bitter disappointment, which would eventually be followed by hope yet again.
I watched the three of them when they exited the truck and I saw Tim for the first time in many years. He was tall, lean, and muscular. His smile was infectious, and I forgot how much I missed him. This little boy I had held in my arms on that cold, January day in 1982 was now a grown man helping his sister move to a place where she could pursue her dreams, his past sins notwithstanding.
We moved her things into the guest room and I began preparing dinner. We talked. There was music. I didn’t press him for details about his life, preferring to move forward gently.
Later that evening, I awoke at 1:00 a.m. and decided to check the house. I looked in on Rachel’s room and heard the sweet sound of her breathing. I smiled. I went to Tim’s room and cracked the door. I saw Jennifer’s silhouette, but Tim was missing.
Confused, I closed the door. I ventured outside thinking he might have gone out for a smoke.
Nothing.
Out of desperation I checked the driveway, to find the car my wife had purchased earlier that day was missing. The pieces began to fall together as I went back to my bedroom to awaken my wife.
“Tim is missing and so is your car. Wake the girls.”
Moments later we, all of us save Tim, were in the living room and no one had a clue as to his whereabouts. I called 911 and explained my situation and an officer was dispatched to the scene.
Left to wonder what venture known only to Tim was leading him in the middle of the night to take a vehicle that wasn’t his to an unknown location for what purpose only he knew, we simply waited.
It wasn’t hard to guess. The unacknowledged elephant in the room asserted itself and none of us dared to mention it. But we knew. We knew the awful truth that Tim was not satisfied to be with family, get a good night’s sleep, and sit with us over breakfast in the morning. He was driven instead to seek out prior connections for the purpose of acquiring the substance stamped with his name.
Pot. Coke. Meth. Whatever it was, he didn’t find it, but the substance called to him and insisted that he seek it out, and this is what I didn’t understand about addiction prior to this incident. The circumstance doesn’t matter. The addict will have his way and you will have only the choice of tolerating his behavior or shunning it and in the shunning of it you will shun the addict himself.
He showed up moments before the police arrived and I begged my wife, Heidi, not to press charges. Heidi and I agreed on a restraining order and we so informed the officer upon his arrival.
A restraining order against my son. That was our solution. It now seems so impotent and the frustration of that moment is so clear, as though it happened yesterday. I assumed something different when he arrived. He was strapping, young, and charming—something of the Tim I knew. But I sadly discovered that the Tim I knew, was not within my reach.
…
