HERE’S TO YOUR HEALTH
This week HTYH is the final segment of Keith L.’s story.
Just prior to my brother’s death my wife and I went to see him and my father was there with some old pictures.
My father was always humble to a fault and he showed us pictures that I’d never before seen. Some of them were of him when he was a young man still playing baseball. Dad played on the Ohio State championship baseball team.
I said to him, “Dad, I heard you were a good ball player and that your team won the Ohio State championship. Was that during your senior year?”
He said, “I was, and actually we were the Ohio State champions four years in a row during high school.”
I said, “I heard you were offered a professional contract?”
He said, “I was offered three of them but my parents were sick and they needed me at home.”
And, that’s the way he was, he gave up his dream to be with and honor his sick parents.
I knelt down before my father and took his hand in mine and said, “Dad, is there anything we need to say to one another?”
Dad said, “No son, I know you love me and I love you and that’s all that needs to be said.”
I kissed my father, and as I was leaving he said, “There is something I want to say. I’d like to thank you for being the kind of man you turned out to be!” Your friends in Alcoholic Anonymous have taught you to become one of the finest men I’ve ever met in my entire life.”
All my life I sought my father’s approval and affirmation and because of God and Alcoholics Anonymous; I finally got it. No words in my vocabulary can describe how much his words met, or how they made me feel.
A few months later my sister called and said Dad wasn’t going to live much longer so my wife and I went to see him. We stood around his bed and prayed and then I knelt down next to him, held his hand to my heart and prayed the “Our Father.”
I whispered in his ear, “Dad, it’s OK to go now. I’ll take your place and pray for everything you’ve prayed for.”
And when that prayer was finished, he squeezed my hand and left this world.
I walked out the room and said to my wife Julia, “I’m not supposed to be like this. I should instead be down the street trying to drink enough alcohol to come here and face this situation.”
Of course, I’m supposed to be like this because that’s how Alcoholic’s Anonymous taught me to live and I owe everything to the God of my understanding and A.A.
This year, when I celebrate 33 years of sobriety I will have been sober the same number of years God’s son walked this earth. I have been freely given absolutely everything that any human could ask for!
I was in Fort Wayne 12 years ago and some of the best A.A. around is right there in Indiana; it really is, and I am grateful to have been there and shared my experience, strength and hope with you.
May God Bless you all!
The End
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