My dad is getting old...

So my dad just left the Radisson. He came to help me fix my car battery and after cleaning the battery it seems to have worked. I hugged and kissed him goodbye. As he drove off in his work truck I couldn't help but be happy. Not in a jump around joyous way. Just in a content way. You see I never though my dad would get old.
Because of all his faults, all his mistakes, all of his vices I just never thought he would make it. He never wanted to get old either. I think thats why he acted the way he did. He was reckless because that is a sign of youth. He was reckless because maybe if he was reckless enough he wouldn't have to live to see himself get old. He once told my grandfather that he didn't want to live to be 30. That he would kill himself before he got that old. He said as much to me too... during my half brother 1st birthday party no less.

It's hard to watch someone killing themselves. It's even harder when it's your dad. I don't want to get into it too much. Just thinking about it right now is making it hard enough to write this. But I remember thinking that my dad would always end up dead in some ditch, in the diver seat of his car or in a motel room. We would get a call from some police officer and, though we would be sad ,we wouldn't be surprised. We wouldn't be emotional wrecks. We would just accept it as the inevitable finally occurring. It made me mad. It made me angry that we just had to sit here and watch him hurt himself. It made me mad that our choices were to write him off or to try continue to help him when there seemed like there was no hope. Have you ever seen your father dig a chuck of his flesh out because he imagined bugs were digging into skin. I have. It's not fun.
I don't know why I am crying so much right now. I don't know if its because I am thinking about all this or because I am so happy that for the first time in my life I don't worry about him. For the first time in my life I don't dread being around my dad. Maybe I am crying because for the first time in my life it seems like this story might actually turn out OK.

When I decided not to go to Vermont for grad school a big part was a letter he wrote me from prison. He told me that he loved me. He told me to do what was best for me. But he said that he hoped I would go to SC so that he could have one more chance to make things better. This was the second time he wrote a letter like this. He sent the same kind of letter to me when I was at UCSB and he was in prison for the first time. He stumbled then, and I feared that he would just fall again. But he hasn't. My dad has actually been pretty good. His trademark anger seems gone. I don't think I even seem him drink anymore, which is a good sign. When he left today with his thinning hair and his grey goatee it was an image I thought I would never see. It was a present from God. All I ever wanted was to watch my dad get old and not have to worry about him. and thats what I have gotten for the last 16 months. I am so thankful for that. So thankful.