Love & Courage

by Jagmeet Singh

  Chapter Sixteen

  LOTTERY TICKET

  Since moving into his apartment, my dad had developed serious heart and stomach issues. A few times, they got so bad that he needed to go to the hospital. Each time, he was so incapacitated that he couldn’t even remember how he got there; we assumed he had his neighbours to thank for calling an ambulance. He would go into the hospital, where doctors would stabilize him and warn him that he was pushing his luck. After a couple of days in care, he’d be strong enough to be discharged. He would leave, only to end up drinking again. I couldn’t understand what it was that made my dad swallow a bottle of vodka after hearing a doctor say, “You may die if you continue this.”

  My dad once told me that he drank to slow down his overactive mind. His thoughts had a habit of going into overdrive. Sometimes, that worked to his advantage; his obsessions made him a good study. I remember how, during better years, he’d spend hours in the corner of the living room with medical books, marking up and underlining the text as if he’d be quizzed on every single word. At first, he reached for a bottle to slow things down. Somewhere along the way, though, that easy outlet became a chemical dependency. Somewhere further along, it had started taking over his life. Now, it seemed that dependency claimed him almost completely.

  For a stretch of time, my mom was the only one who visited him. After being called to the bar and getting my first job in my professional career, I was working long hours. At this point I was responsible for a mortgage on a house, all the bills, and most of the other expenses to support my mom, dad, and brother. My sister was established and pitched in regularly, too.

  The morning I left Mississauga to pick Dad up for our court appearance, my mom warned me, “He’s not doing too well.”

  I parked outside his apartment and looked for him in the lobby. He wasn’t there, so I was about to head inside when I spotted him, alone on a bench in the park across the street. He didn’t know what to do with his time. He probably didn’t like being in his apartment because it was a reminder of things that were difficult to accept. Consequently, he spent a lot of time outdoors, sitting in nearby parks or bus stops, never far from his neighbourhood liquor store. Windsor was a small place, so I often wondered what it was like for former patients and colleagues to see him looking as rough as he did. The reality is they probably didn’t recognize him. I barely recognized him myself.

  My dad had lost thirty or forty pounds. His hair and beard were growing—not because he was returning to his faith, but because he had stopped seeing a barber. He wore layers and layers of stained clothes, and his pants were held up by a belt with new notches poked in it. To this day, whenever I see someone looking rough on the streets, there’s often a split second when I think about my dad.

  “Let’s go inside,” I said gently. “Maybe you can take a shower before we go.”

  He was slow to register, looking back at me with those glassy eyes I’d seen too many times, despite the fact that it was only late morning. It was hard to believe this was the same man who’d once taken so much pride in his appearance, who’d taught me that, as racialized folk, we couldn’t afford not to look good.

  And yet, there were remnants of my dad’s former intellect in that body of his. On the highway to Toronto, I chatted about anything and everything, trying to keep him focused.

  After what felt like a long drive, Dad and I finally arrived at the court. We waited outside the bankruptcy hearing room. The cubicle-laden office reminded me more of an office storage room than a courthouse. There were stacks of cardboard boxes piled in the corner between me and the brown door behind which our fate awaited.

  The trustee in the bankruptcy court had challenged the full discharge that I’d filed for my father. The trustee argued that, given my dad’s earning potential as a specialized doctor, he should be able to work and pay off his debts and interests in a relatively short period. I was there to convince the judge of a different view.

  “My father has been out of work for almost seven years,” I protested. “There’s no guarantee he would be able to return any time soon. At his age and with his condition, he may never practise again.” No doubt it was hard for my dad to sit there and hear my pessimistic defence, but truth hurts.

  I pressed on. I told the judge that when debt is amassed as a result of illness—and make no mistake, addiction is a serious illness—courts have ruled in favour of full discharges. I made the argument that having a massive debt weighing on people makes it even more difficult to recover. Financial stress is crippling, and I knew that until my father’s debts were fully discharged, the odds were stacked against him.

  The judge agreed with me and granted my parents a full discharge. I felt a wave of relief when he gave his ruling. It lifted a heavy burden from my parents, one that my mom could never carry alone. I hoped my dad would take this financial clean slate as a restart for his mind and body, too.

  The last time I saw my father drunk is a memory I’d rather forget. My mom and I drove to see him in Windsor on a cold day in 2007. I was still building my new practice and was busier than ever, so it had been many months since my past visit. My mom was checking in on him semiregularly, however, and each time, she reported back that my dad was in worse and worse shape. I’d heard her warnings, but they couldn’t prepare me for the man waiting in his apartment.

  My dad’s addiction had robbed him of his broad-shouldered, sturdy body and replaced it with the shell of an emaciated old man. He had dropped to 110 pounds, skin and bones, and he needed a walker just to move around. His hair was matted and clumpy, as though he hadn’t combed it in years. He almost looked like he could be my grandfather rather than my father.

  My dad had stopped being a regular father a while ago. But still, there’s some part of us that sees our parents as parents no matter what. He was my dad, so somewhere in my mind, beneath the layers of dirty clothes, he was still a superhero. Seeing him so thin and frail disturbed me—it seemed far too real a reminder of our mortality.

  “I’m sorry,” my dad said, his words cracked and meek.

  I put my arm around him. “We just want you to get help,” I said.

  I scanned the apartment. No recent pizza boxes, just what I’d seen the last time I’d visited—takeout containers, crinkled paper bags, and empty bottles. Cigarette butts and little wads of paper that I assumed were crumpled liquor receipts were sprinkled across every flat surface.

  “We should probably help him take a shower,” my mom suggested.

  I took a deep breath and lifted my dad off the couch. I was shocked at how light he was. I carried him to the bathroom and sat him on the toilet to remove his clothes. I helped him into the shower, but his legs were too wobbly to stand, so I eased him to the floor of the tub, where he crumpled up over his crossed legs. Embarrassed, he tried to make small talk as a diversion.

  “You’re a lawyer now?” he asked.

  “That’s right, Dad,” I said with a forced, awkward grin.

  “You like it?” he asked, with red eyes and quivering lips.

  “I really do,” I said. “Now let’s get you cleaned up. Give you some shampoo here, and you can scrub yourself down with some soap. Your nails are a little long—why don’t we snip them?”

  I dried him off, and as I carried him to his bedroom, I saw my mom filling a black garbage bag, making a futile effort to improve his conditions. I looked for some clean clothes in his drawers. There were wads of paper all over his bedroom, too. Why is he keeping all these receipts? I thought, as I picked one out of an open drawer and flattened the edges on his dresser. It was a lottery ticket. They all were. A hundred or more of them strewn about his home.

  I had never seen my dad buy a lottery ticket in my life. His life had been a lottery ticket. From a humble farm in Panjab, he’d become a successful professional before his addiction had led him to lose it all. He’d been out of work for almost eight years, so I assumed the lottery tickets were his last-ditch efforts to support his family again. To b
e of use to us the only way he knew how: through economic means.

  Deep down, I’d always known that my dad couldn’t help himself, that this was an illness. But it had been hard to hold that perspective when we were dealing with the day-to-day realities and hurt caused by that illness. Washing my dad in the shower that day was the first time I believed the truth of what I’d intellectually understood. It was the first time I could start to forgive my dad’s mistakes. There was no way anyone would wish to live in such horrible conditions, to deteriorate to the brink of death and try to regain their self-worth at a-hundred-million-to-one odds. No one would want this suffering. No healthy person would choose it. This was rock bottom. It had to be. I prayed it was. I had always been confused about how I could love my dad when we were so hurt by him. But in that moment, all of my confusion fell away. There was only love—the love of a son for a father who had tried his best but fallen sick with a disease.

  Still, love alone wouldn’t heal my dad’s sickness—he had to want to help himself. I brought him back to the living room in cleaner clothes. It was impossible for the three of us to talk about normal things, but we were too defeated to confront the harsh reality: my dad was slowly killing himself. So we sat in silence.

  “Do you want us to bring you to the hospital?” my mom finally asked. He shook his head no. “We can get a doctor over for a house call.”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”

  There wasn’t much more to do after that. On the way out, I grabbed a half-full bottle of vodka off the kitchen counter. I unscrewed the lid and was about to pour it down the sink, just like my ten-year-old self did in the basement of our Windsor home. But my mom took the bottle from my hand.

  “Leave it,” she said. “He’ll just buy it again. He wants to drink, let him drink.”

  “He’s going to die,” I said.

  “Either he will die, or he will go to a hospital to live. We can’t force him—it’s his choice.”

  Two days later, my dad called us from the Windsor hospital. He’d called the ambulance himself.

  My dad had been to the best addiction rehab centres in North America and yet, after each discharge, he quickly abandoned every lesson and good habit for another drink. So when we visited him in the hospital, we were pretty skeptical when he said, “Take me to a treatment centre.”

  “You don’t have insurance to cover the costs like before, so our options will be a little limited.”

  He nodded. “That’s fine,” he said. “Anything will do. I’m ready. I want to live.”

  Those four words gave me pause. For the first time, my dad appeared to understand that his addiction had reached a point of life and death. I squeezed his hand and said, “We’ll see what we can find.”

  Windsor had a well-respected, publicly funded rehab centre called Brentwood Recovery, just a few blocks south of my dad’s apartment. After my dad was discharged from the hospital, I helped him get into the passenger’s seat of the car, loaded his walker in the trunk, and drove him directly to Brentwood. I’d gone by it many times and never noticed it until then. It just looked like another motel, tucked between a Superstore and a gas station. As I guided my dad up a ramp to the front doors, my doubts only intensified. If the best rehabs didn’t save him, how would this?

  “Chardi kala,” I said as we entered the nondescript facility. I couldn’t tell if I was speaking to him or myself or both of us. It didn’t matter—we all needed a little rising spirits and courageous optimism, given the track record we were up against.

  Eight weeks later, I returned to Brentwood and found a version of my dad that resembled the one I’d briefly met in the midnineties, after my grandfather died—the last time my dad had stayed sober for a prolonged period of time. In the past, whenever he’d tried to get sober, he’d projected a kind of exaggerated confidence about his recovery. Now, as he walked with me through the centre’s hallways, he spoke humbly about his progress.

  “I’m just trying my best,” he said.

  I put my arm around him. “You look better.” It was true. He’d put some weight back on. He didn’t need a walker anymore, and his hair was groomed.

  He gave me a tour of the facility, showing me his dorm room and his classroom for treatments sessions. He introduced me to an addictions counsellor.

  “You must be really proud of your father,” the counsellor said to me. “He’s come a long way.”

  My dad blushed. “One day at a time,” he said.

  “One day at a time,” the counsellor repeated with a smile.

  As it turns out, my dad had a relationship with Brentwood that predated his becoming a patient there. He used to help out with psychiatric services and provided treatment to the people who needed it. One of Brentwood’s founders, Father Paul, had sent a message to all the staff when he learned my father was in their care. The message was this: Dr. Dhaliwal looked after us when we needed him, now it’s our turn to look after him.

  As we settled into the cafeteria for a cup of tea, our conversation turned to what we’d do after he completed the program in another thirty days. We couldn’t keep my dad in his apartment. It wasn’t about the cost—living alone in that apartment was not a safe place for him. It was too isolating, too triggering, and too depressing.

  My dad was less concerned about where he would live than about what he would do.

  “I want to practise again,” he told me. He was still suspended from practising by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons.

  “I’ll help you with that,” I said.

  “And I need to get my driver’s licence, too.”

  “I’ll do anything I can to get you back on your feet.”

  My dad looked at his cup of tea. “I want my family back,” he said quietly. I didn’t respond. After a long pause, he said, “Will you help me with that?”

  “Of course I’ll try,” I said.

  “Let me live with you in Mississauga.”

  I shifted in my seat uncomfortably. Neither Manjot nor Gurratan were ready to see him yet. They’d lived apart from my dad for some time and had found a more peaceful existence with him outside their peripheries. The last thing I wanted to do was create another toxic environment that would reopen old wounds.

  “I’m going to have to talk to everyone,” I said.

  This was a decision we had to make as a family, so I took my dad’s request to my mom, Manjot, and Gurratan. My brother and sister were against it, but my mom was more open.

  “I wouldn’t be putting this idea forward unless I was sure Dad wasn’t drinking anymore,” I said. “It seems like he’s really committed to the treatment.”

  I could see my siblings still had their doubts.

  “If there’s any sign that he starts drinking again, he’s out,” I said. “I know this isn’t ideal, but I think we need to try it.”

  After my dad moved back in with us in Mississauga, I was nervous every day. I would constantly check for any signs or hints that he had relapsed. Despite my fears, it seemed he really was better. He dutifully kept clean. The hours he once dedicated to boozing in his bedroom he now spent studying medical journals and poring over newspapers, catching up on a world he’d checked out from for some time. He’d never done that before. I had cautious hope that this was the sign of a new start.

  Not everything was so smooth, though. As soon as my dad showed his face to my siblings, they’d either leave the room or berate him. Gurratan was the harshest in the way he talked down to him.

  “Leave. Get out of here,” he said the moment my dad entered a room. He was angry, and understandably so. His anger grew from a lifetime of pain, but I tried to set a new example that would pave the way to forgiveness.

  I knew that the anger was a dangerous force—something that could result in words or actions that I might regret. I remembered when I was a kid, I tried to take control over my anger. I decided that in any moments of frustration, when I felt the anger bubbling over, I would find a p
ositive physical release. I used to go for a run. I threw on sneakers, ran out the door, and kept running until my lungs burned. If I got tired, I’d hear a voice in the back of my head pushing me: That’s all you got? I thought you were angry. Where’s that anger now? Sometimes, I would lose track of where I went, and only when I stopped would I take in my surroundings. I’d slowly jog home, exhausted and dripping with sweat, but calmer than when I left.

  Still, the situation wasn’t working with everyone under one roof again. There was too much friction and too much unresolved pain. My mom and I had forgiven my dad on our own terms, but my brother and sister weren’t ready yet. I knew that, if it came down to it, I could probably find another place for my dad to live. But I felt strongly that he shouldn’t live on his own. He was committed to reconnecting with his family, even if that was a long journey, and he wanted to get back to doing what he loved, which was healing people. He just needed a little more time to heal himself first.

  Thankfully, my dad had gotten back in touch with his mom and siblings, from whom he’d grown distant. His mother was still in Panjab, but his nearest immediate family was a sister in New York. He needed more time to heal and the situation in Mississauga wasn’t working, so a plan was made to live in Panjab for a bit. I’m not exactly sure who suggested it, but we came up with the plan and it seemed to make sense. My grandmother was visiting in the States, so the plan was to drive to New York so that my grandmother and my dad could fly back to Panjab together.

  I offered to drive my dad down, and Gurratan agreed to come along for the eight-hour drive. I was surprised, given he couldn’t stand being in the same room as Dad. But I think he was slowly starting to believe that Dad had actually gotten better, and the fact that he was willing to live in Panjab to give himself more time to heal and to give the family more time to adjust to him built a lot of goodwill. It also helped that since neither of us had been to New York, we were excited to squeeze a little fun out of the unusual and uncertain circumstances. Why not? If life had taught us anything, it was that you couldn’t wait until everything was stable to find joy, because life was never stable.