Leaving Cloud 9

by Ericka Andersen

  On a good morning, if the night before hadn’t been too awful and before the addiction kicked in for the day, you could find her sketching on loose-leaf paper with a pencil. The things she loved the most—the faces of her children, dogs, flowers, wineglasses—were outlined with a deft, steady hand. There were brief moments of such mornings when she thought she might be able to get through the day without drinking. But such thinking quickly dissipated. The out-of-control, overwhelmed, just-can’t-deal-with-life feeling typically strengthened its grasp as the day wore on and drove her back to her substances of choice.

  And those “good” mornings were relatively rare when Rick was growing up. More often, Sylvia would be passed out when he and his sister woke. They would tiptoe into the kitchen and pour themselves a bowl of stale sugary cereal: Froot Loops, Cap’n Crunch, Cocoa Puffs. Sylvia knew that’s what they loved and tried to keep the pantry stocked, but no one ever remembered to close the inner bags to keep the cereal fresh. Somehow there was always milk in the fridge—never sour, but often without the cap. Breakfast in Rick’s home growing up was like so many other aspects of his life. His mother would try and fail and try and fail—their home swirling in the chaos of lost motherly ambition.

  She could be a nurturing person sometimes, he told me, remembering her affection during a number of ear infections that caused him a lot of pain. Even though he hated them, the infections brought out the mom Sylvia could be. On those days he would lie on the couch and watch cartoons all day or enjoy the new coloring book and crayons his mother would bring home. Rick would drink Sprite all day and to this day names Sprite as his favorite beverage. When he talks about those precious moments, he smiles, and a hint of enthusiasm creeps into his voice. The good times are amplified in his mind, nostalgia rose-tinting the scenes.

  In those happy times, he recalls, Sylvia’s drawings and paintings could be found strewn throughout the house. Her talent burst through the drab of the rest of life, proof of life radiating out of the rot like a ray of sunshine. Rick brought home his fourth-grade school photos, only to find a replica drawing of them on a sketchpad the next day. Sylvia had been able to draw an identical picture from hand.

  None of those drawings survive today. Rick’s only physical reminders of the family he grew up in are in the few photos he’s managed to salvage. He keeps them in a box of treasures he has carried with him—along with some letters and his grandfather’s World War II pin and American flag.

  One photo he has shows Rick’s mom as a preteen. In another she is hovering over Rick’s nephew at a birthday party. And there’s one of Sylvia as a smiling teenager. It’s faded, full of innocence, jaded with hope, and mostly sad to look at now—overshadowed by the wrecked woman she would become. The brief bits of his life and childhood are buried in distorted memories, relived over and over until reality blurs with the fiction of sometimes false nostalgia.

  Outside of these few photos, there are almost no pictures of Rick as a child. Only two fuzzy, faded photographs remain in his possession in that small, sacred box. Rick has uploaded them to Facebook. He used to look at them quite often, remembering that innocent little boy with so much love and potential, every gift ready to be unlocked with love and parenting—the claws of his own mental illness, his mom’s addiction, abuse, and neglect not yet having stolen much of his soul.

  There are none of his father. While many children are curious about an absent parent early on, Rick never even thought much about him—at least not until high school. When he got older, he occasionally felt like he had been abandoned by his father, especially after he became a father himself. Rick can’t imagine having a child and not wanting to be in that child’s life, no matter how difficult the mother is. As an adult, when he reached out to his father, the effort was for little gain and he ended up disappointed with the short-lived interactions they had, for a variety of reasons. Not that he expected them to be best friends, but meeting his father was something he could have done without in the end, only adding one more layer of pain on top of the preexisting scars.

  There used to be more pictures, but they are gone, stuffed into a storage space that has long since been cleaned out. The way most people cherish their photographic memories—especially those from a time when no online copies or ways to store them existed—it’s hard to believe Rick could lose them this way. But he did. Sylvia gave him all the family photos in an angry rage one day, claiming she wanted nothing to do with him or the memories of her children. He’s not exactly sentimental about the years of serial neglect, so he just stored them away without ever looking at them. They were quickly forgotten amid the sobering realities of his ongoing life—the military, marriage, divorce, cross-country moves, depression, and drinking. And now they’re gone.

  It’s sad to imagine a stranger pawing through that box, flipping through poor-quality snapshots probably littered with R-rated scenes involving children—joints, liquor bottles, cigarettes, powders—the seaminess of a life gone wrong on full display. Whoever found the box—did they wonder about the kids in the photos? Did they recognize the drunken smiles on the adult faces, the fear and insecurity in the eyes of the children?

  It had to be there somewhere on those little faces, the desperate need for someone to rescue them. But who was the neighbor or the “guy of the month” in their mother’s life to call out abuse, to say a mother wasn’t worthy to care for her children?

  People minded their own business. People didn’t want to get involved. Sylvia managed to clean up her act long enough to convince the Department of Child Safety to give her another chance. So those photos probably spoke ten thousand words that Rick and his sister could never have said at the time the pictures were taken.

  And what was the history that led to the creation of those lost photos in the first place? The ones with the sad faces and the false frozen smiles? One with very little hope or respite ever surfacing throughout the decades. A generational pattern of unstable men, alcoholic mothers, likely undiagnosed mental illness, drug addiction, rage, gender stereotypes, serial marriages—all of it played out in little corners of the American West that you don’t hear much about. It’s Rick’s family’s story, but it’s not unique in many respects.

  Just like the poor in other places—Appalachia, for example—poor children living in southern Arizona are stuck in the mud of their ancestors’ making. They’re born into a mold that’s already hardened and nearly impossible to break through.

  In the kind of small towns Rick grew up in, the places where a military base and alcoholism kept bars in business and family lives were often in tatters, the backgrounds of those lost photos from the past might look eerily similar to those taken today. Towns like that exist in a kind of time warp, with a few more hotels and restaurants but very little in the way of actual culture or community. There are probably thousands of kids in those towns with photos just like the ones lost in that storage shed.

  It’s easy to understand why Rick so easily forgot about the pictures of his childhood. The forgetting was possibly intentional, one simple way to let go of awful memories and move on. He kept the few that mattered to him most and let the rest go. If he could do nothing else, it was one way to show how he felt about his mom and the childhood with so few happy memories. He didn’t need a picture of his mom with a vodka in her hand at Christmas, anyway, because that picture is painfully seared into his memory forever.

  Sylvia always loved Christmas, a holiday that had sometimes descended into far too much drinking in her family growing up. Nevertheless, the magic there for her as a kid survived into adulthood, and she wanted to make it special for Rick and Jenny too. Mornings were always better than nights in their house, so Christmas morning was one of the best parts of the whole year. They knew there would be at least a couple of presents—that she really did want to make them happy. There were G.I. Joe action figures and Transformers castles, new shoes and candy he recalls from various years. For a few hours, at least, they could feel almost like normal kids. Some of
Rick’s favorite times were making stars and ornaments out of crepe paper with his mother. Those memories stand out like light posts because the clarity of their sober normalcy is so piercing.

  But Christmas is, of course, a time for celebration. And what would that be without a few drinks early in the day? So the happy Christmas morning inevitably degenerated into a boozy afternoon and evening. Bottles were emptied. Random people showed up. Things got loud. The innocence of Christmas morning would be all but demolished as Sylvia once again corrupted happy memories.

  And those moments come back to haunt Rick all too easily. In present day, dining with acquaintances at holiday parties, the crisp pop of too many beer tabs or the glug of one more shot of whiskey, and no longer is he a guy enjoying the holiday season with his wife. He is easily transported back to scenes of drunken strangers in his home, light spirits turning into anger or violence in front of him. It can be mentally traumatic at the wrong moment and makes social situations tense. He avoids them most of the time.

  He remembers one particular time as a child. There was a menacing male figure in the kitchen, and Sylvia called Rick to show the man what he got for Christmas. He didn’t want to go. He just wanted to hide. But he had no choice; he had to go talk with the man, to put up with the condescending tone drunkenness can bring out in people.

  Voices and attitudes teetered on the edge of sobriety as the man and his mother allowed themselves to disappear into the warm escape of alcohol—one sip, two sips toward what could turn into an explosion later. And Rick hated it—hated the bottles and the cans, the smell of it, what it made people do. He wished he could just throw it all out. But he couldn’t. There was nothing he could do.

  Alcohol is never simple to those who grew up around alcoholism. It’s always part of the Christmas pictures, even when you can’t see it.

  For Rick, it’s more than just Christmas. In fact, living out normal social interactions requires him to put on a false face of normality when he is actually shaking on the inside, afraid that the insecure, sensitive man he is will come out. He describes it as being like a mask. To the outside world, he’s a masculine, friendly guy—but all of that is just a thin shield for the deeply wounded person inside. His hurt runs deep, his foundation is shaky, and his reality is sometimes skewed. And that makes him hesitant to reveal his inner self to others. It’s taken him a long time to see that each person wears a mask to some extent. We are all imperfect, and it’s okay to let that shine through.

  He still has a long way to go in recognizing that he’s not the only person in the world who is quiet and introverted, and that there are many people who would be compatible friends for him if he’d let them in. Building relationships is uncomfortable for him, and he doesn’t trust himself to keep that cover of “normal”—whatever that really is—in place.

  All these dynamics make social interaction feel like a minefield for Rick. “I try to make light conversation and ask a lot of questions,” he says. “But sometimes people are not receptive. They give yes or no answers or no elaboration. That always makes me feel self-conscious, like I’m being annoying, which makes me not want to even try.”

  The inner dialogue of someone with social anxiety is like a train wreck of overanalysis and fear. It may take years for him to come to terms with the fact that he is exactly who God made him to be.

  Sylvia had a fun side during her times of sobriety. Even in the first few moments of drinking, she’d often behave normally, gathering those first rays of alcohol buzz in joyous relief. Before the drunkenness came, merriness abounded, but only for a short time.

  Back then, having an intoxicated mom was just the way life was—he had no way to know any different. But as an adult, he can look back on life like a map of the stars and see which moments burned brightly with joy amid the dark canvas.

  He didn’t know what that warm feeling was then, that emotion that made him light up and get excited. But now he knows—it was pure delight. It was this innate craving for what a mom is supposed to be like with her children. That feeling of “all is right with the world” came far too rarely.

  Occasionally he would feel that when Sylvia cooked—meals that remain favorites for Rick today. Fried chicken and potato salad. Fried bologna sandwiches. Hamburger Helper. Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. When he began dating, those would be his standard answers to “getting to know you” questions about his favorite foods and memories as a child.

  Simple loves from childhood resonate with him now, recalling those few moments of happiness that shone brightly.

  To this day, there is still much we don’t know about Rick’s early life and his mother’s place in it. The memories are as faded and incomplete as the photos in his treasure box. His mother’s smile, her laugh, her neglect, her love, and her hate—the full truth of who she was may be forever lost. But what goodness she had is pulled out and cleaned off like gold by a son who still loves her.

  He wants to believe that she was better than she was, that she didn’t do all the awful things that haunt his memories, but his experiences contradict that. Even some things he hated as a kid are things he loves now, simply because they carry a hint of comfort in a life so devoid of joy for so long. Sad, old country music songs that were the soundtrack for drunken nights, the German food he was forced to eat at his grandma’s, Jack Daniel’s on the rocks, which would put the Devil in his bones before he stopped drinking it.

  Similar to the memories haunting him like ghosts are ingrained fears, reactions, and learned behaviors that sometimes return without warning. Though he was sensitive as a kid, he was often quick to become angry, his emotions skyrocketing in the midst of chaos or fear. He could be quiet but could also turn rowdy if the mood struck. And sometimes he seemed incapable of following simple rules—one more reason for authority figures to cast him aside.

  Just as adults weren’t treated for their issues back then, kids’ behavioral problems were often written off, especially in the kinds of communities where Rick was raised. It’s clear that many of his issues stemmed from the instability of his upbringing. But as time went on, other problems arose that were probably rooted and ingrained long before any official diagnosis was made.

  Those problems, too, I imagine showing up in the lost pictures of my husband’s childhood—because the little boy in those pictures still lives in Rick. Until very recently, he would sometimes explode in anger, the torments of his upbringing glaring through his eyes. These instances are nearly nonexistent today but the emotions still reside deep inside of him. Sometimes the child he once was shows up when things are about to change—an adolescent who insists on shouting no when the rational answer is yes.

  But that child, like the photos of Rick’s past, is fading. Through the grace of God, through the love of his family, through the satisfaction of seeing the life he’s built, he is moving farther and farther from the restrictive mold of his past. Gradually, gradually, he is learning the message that all children need to learn—that he is loved, that he is cared for, that he belongs to God.

  And one day, I trust, the beauty of that message will be all that shows in the pictures of our life.

  CHAPTER 5

  STARVING FOR RELATIONSHIP

  In the United States, children without fathers are the least privileged of all.

  Cultural studies show that the first powerful advantage a child can enjoy in life is having married parents. It’s the best weapon against poverty, to start with. And statistics also reveal that children of married parents tend to be less violent than children from divorced or single-parent homes and are less likely to get in trouble with the law. They make better grades, graduate from college in higher numbers, enjoy better marriage rates themselves, achieve higher success, and land better-paying jobs—and the list goes on.1

  Of course, kids of divorced or widowed families that are loving and functional fare well too. But for the child of an alcoholic drug addict with multiple “fathers” and zero stability or support, life is usually an uphill ba
ttle.

  That was the story of Rick’s family when he was growing up.

  While Sylvia was attracted to military men as a young woman, over time her preference changed. Perhaps military types were too straight-laced for her once the addictions took hold. Then she needed someone less rigorous, more adaptable to her lifestyle. Her weakness for “bad boys” was proven by her track record of dating ex-cons. The horrific characters she began to introduce into her children’s lives demonstrates just how much risk she was willing to take in order to find her own personal fulfillment.

  Sylvia enjoyed being rebellious and loved to get drunk. She then would start talking about her troubled life. This sympathy card was at her fingertips when she first met someone. It worked—until the new person figured out her game. And there was always someone new, because Sylvia made sure of that. She consumed people—especially men—as voraciously as she did alcohol and drugs. It was like a compulsion she could not control. At the same time, she seemed incapable of sustaining friendships or healthy family relationships. And in her need and dysfunction, she rarely, if ever, paused to consider the drastic effect her relationship problems had on her children.

  In some ways, Sylvia’s troubled relationships are typical of people in her demographic who often struggle with unstable relationships and social isolation. Without jobs, community, education, or regular social gatherings, it’s only natural to cling to someone who can provide the company you crave. The Atlantic reports that loneliness is epidemic among people like Sylvia—whites in poverty with a high school education or less. According to national surveys, many of these claim to have had “no one” to discuss important matters with over the last six months.2