Acceptance

These are my paternal grandparents, William Sterling Boykin, Jr. and Annie Askew Phillips Boykin. The photo was taken about 1945 at the Shell Island Fish Camp in St. Marks, Florida and is the only photo of my grandfather I have ever seen. I remember my grandmother mostly from my earliest childhood when we would occasionally go get her from her group home in Wakulla County and have her stay with us for a few days. Her memory was really bad by then as she had what is now known as Alzheimer's disease. She lived in a home with a woman who looked after her and a couple of more ladies in similar condition. By the time I was in middle school, Grannie Annie had been put in a nursing home in Medart. My father took us to see her there once when he came to pick us up for a summer vacation. She was clearly unaware of who any of us were and I remember my father crying for most of the drive back to Tallahassee. She died in 1987 when I was a freshman in college and I remember my step-mother telling me how deeply that affected my dad.

Sterling and Annie had seven children of which my father, Charles Holle Boykin, was the baby. Sterling "drank himself to death" in 1957 when Charlie was fifteen years old. I assume this means he died from liver and heart disease caused by years of excessive drinking. Alcoholism is an inherited disease that at least two of the Boykin children suffered from. I recently learned that Uncle Billy, the oldest, was also an alcoholic who was abusive and had been arrested at least once because of it. My father is also a recovering alcoholic but he was not the abusive type. He'd get lit after work and be a relaxed and happy guy. This was unacceptable to my mother and they divorced when I was eight largely because of my dad having no motivation to do anything other than be a relaxed and happy guy. While married to his second wife, he began going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and he eventually quit drinking. At one point he was going to meetings five nights a week and even after fifteen years of sobriety he was still attending two or three.

The Boykin children also inherited the Alzheimer's disease gene. Aunt Kathryn developed it many years ago. I can remember her introducing herself to me no less than three times the last time I saw her. "Hi, I'm Kathryn. And who might you be?" I answered, "I'm Kathryn Holle Boykin and I was named after you!" She giggled like a schoolgirl each time. She was an avid golfer but they eventually had to take her clubs away because she got confused so easily. Aunt Kathryn died in February in a nursing home where she had been since Alzheimer's had robbed her mind and her body had begun to shut down. My father recently went into a nursing home as well. Two years ago, he left the suburban home where he lived with his wife and began to walk into the town of Lexington, South Carolina. He was determined to get to his AA meeting because it was his job to start the coffee. He had no idea where the meeting was. At that time he was in the fourth stage of Alzheimer's and when the police found him he was combative and it was an ugly scene. My step-sisters arranged to move the folks to Virginia where the oldest daughter could monitor them in an assisted living community. There is no recovery from Alzheimer's and its nature is to worsen until death. This month my step-mother moved in with her younger daughter and Charlie went into a healthcare facility where he will likely die.

To have regrets would imply that I could have done something to change the way things have turned out. I have no regrets where my father is concerned. I confronted my issues with him many years ago and placed the ball firmly in his court. And he dropped it. Again. Game over. I hate that we never had the close father-daughter relationship that so many of my friends and other relatives had. I hate that my children don't have a Grandpa Charlie. I hate that my step-sisters have had to deal with the fallout of alcoholism and Alzheimer's disease. But there is nothing I could have done to have changed any of it so I don't beat myself up over it. Maybe that sounds harsh, but that doesn't bother me either.

Because I have educated myself about alcoholism and its effects on the drinker as well as those around him, I understand my father. He spent his formative years with a heavy drinker and that affected him. He was a crappy dad. But how could he have been a better one when he didn't have an adequate model for it? I saw my father cry a lot. And I believe those were tears of regret. During my junior year of college, I went to visit him in Virginia and my step-mother told me that my father cried frequently and told her how much he missed me and my brother, but when she prompted him to call us he wouldn't. When we went to visit him, we watched TV with him for hours. He just couldn't talk to us about anything on a personal level. The last five years or so, our phone conversations were literally about the weather. I think that the emotional distance had gotten so vast that dad just didn't know where to begin to fix it. And he regretted that.

It is hard to hold a grudge against someone who doesn't even remember the conflict, so I forgave my dad ages ago. I am sorry that he never got to resolve the things that nagged him and kept him in AA meetings for two decades. I am sorry that he never learned to reach out and remain close even to his own dying mother. His brother Allen recently asked me if I felt my dad had abandoned me and I admitted that yes, I did, but I am okay with it because I have used that hurt to make myself be a better parent. My father's legacy won't be mine. I choose to remember my dad as the smiling man who never met a stranger and would tell a bad joke to death. Dwelling on and regretting the past is non-productive and I have lots to do.