7 of 29

Write now Article Tools

On Saturday, March 19, 1977, my parents - Johnnie and Pam - were wed in a small, quiet ceremony. To say the wedding was rushed and hardly prepared for would be an understatement; the decision to marry had been decided on the preceding Wednesday, the 16th. They were both nineteen, soon to be twenty in that same year.

It was a union of necessity that began under pressured, unhappy circumstances; a foreboding of the misery that the match was to create in the lives of the couple and their future children.

The reason for rushing into marriage was my own impending birth. My mother, on Wednesday, March 16, 1977, had found out she was just over a month pregnant. With my father's insistence, and his family's pressure, my mother - numb and despondent - walked down the aisle and joined her life to my father's. The few wedding pictures there are show my mother looking anything but the happy, blushing bride; in fact, she looks sullen and somewhat stunned.

The only clear thought I believe she had in those chaotic and bewildered few days before learning she was pregnant and becoming a wife was that she did not want to get married. In shock over learning she was with child, she allowed herself to be pushed down the aisle. It seemed the right thing to do, what should be done, and she went to her fate with no protesting.

I believe she tried to make the best of it, yet it was in their very first week of living together as a married couple that my father did not return home from work one evening. There was no call and no indication that anything was amiss; he simply did not show up. My mother's worry and distress turned to anger and hurt when he strolled in a few hours late...drunk.

He had stopped by friend's and stayed drinking with them and saw no reason why she should make a fuss about it. His reason for not calling, he insisted, was why deal with an angry wife before completely necessary? In his mind, she would be angry if he called to express his desire to drink at a friend's house rather than come home and she would be angry when he showed up home, later, so why not wait and deal with it then? This was to be his excuse, quite satisfactory to his mind, for the remainder of their marriage. Even after she promised not to protest, and just asked that he let her know he was alive and safe, he refused to ever call and let her know of his actions or whereabouts.

The best way to describe their marriage was tumultuous - a veritable roller-coaster of high ups and low downs. When they got

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Reflections: Living with an alcoholic?
We want to hear your view. Write now!