I used to call them gemstones.

I would watch him from outside the bathroom door as he stood with his head hanging over the porcelain sink, his bare feet meeting the white tiled floor, generously dividing up the rocks into the palms of each hand. He’d swallow them in heedless amounts. Some as large as a dime, others the size of a Tic Tac. Sometimes, he’d smash them with a single fist. Vigor and thirst. Crushing the rocks into crystals. Like tiny spectacles of glistening sand, they shined. 

As he inhaled the gemstones through his nose, I told myself that they must have smelled like chocolate or peppermint – delicious and sweet. Afterwards, he’d wash his hands and splash cold water on his face, wiping himself clean. 

Back then, I did not know that I was witnessing my father’s drug addiction unravel before me. I knew nothing of his struggles and inner demons, derived from the battles he fought as a young boy living in an abusive home and fighting the war in Vietnam.

All I knew was that this man was my dad.

The same dad who spent thirty minutes putting together the game Mouse Trap, only for my twin brother and me to knock it all down in thirty seconds. The same dad who taught me how to shoot hoops and play rough like “one of the boys” and who took me to Blockbuster Video every Saturday afternoon. The dad who used duct tape to fix everything, including my bike. The dad who always made sure every Barbie doll had her own deep and unique voice. The weird and goofy dad who loved decorating for Halloween and singing Christmas songs in July.

When I was seven, he bought me a boom-box so I could listen to my Britney Spears CD, and he bought himself ear plugs for the nights I spent blasting, “Hit Me Baby One More Time” on repeat. He encouraged me through my tomboy phase and even taught me how to play flag football. I was the only girl in the league and my father’s face beamed with pride.

He was always just my dad. Until suddenly, he changed. 

He became a dark, empty vessel. A body to keep the couch cushions warm. He kept company with old Twilight Zone reruns and late-night television hosts. He stopped eating. He stopped moving. I would leave for school in the morning and come home in the afternoon to find him still sunken into the same chair from the night before. He was my dad, but he had lost all interest in being my dad.

By the time I was ten years old, he had become angry and callous. Often, it felt like he sought out reasons to yell at my siblings and me. When his neck turned red and his hands reached for a dish towel, that was our cue to hide. My twin brother and I would scoop up as many stuffed animals as we could carry and settle ourselves behind closed closet doors until it felt safe to come out again.

Our home transformed, changed colors, when my dad got sick. From bright, cheerful yellow, it morphed into stormy, bleak gray.

Depression and addiction are not quiet diseases. They erupt like a volcano, spilling over into the lives of everyone else around them. They don’t stand quietly at one’s front door, knocking, waiting patiently to be let inside. They kick the goddamn door down. Demanding to be seen. Demanding to be felt. And my father, consumed by both, couldn’t be the person I needed him to be.

At eighteen I removed the lingering fragments of my father from my life, accepting his limitations as a dad and grieving the loss of a parent who is still alive. It took me many more years to stop placing blame on the man for being consumed with drugs, and instead place blame on the drugs for consuming the man. Most days, I am still learning how to forgive the things I cannot forget. 

When I start to feel unsettled, as I sometimes do, I try to remember the little girl who found magic in the most tragic of places. The little girl who held onto hope through the tumultuous tide. The little girl who turned pills into gemstones.

__________

Jessica Ross lives in Bethpage, New York. She holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in writing, literature and publishing from Emerson College. Her writing ranges from personal essays, to screenwriting, and children's literature. She is in the progress of finishing her memoir, in which she covers themes such as identity, family, trauma, and the challenging role that healing plays in growing up.