Arizona and grandson are visiting for the New Year.  The baby is getting over a cold and was coughing, which got us talking about the age old tradition of parents “drugging” their children with Benadryl or Nyquil – to get them to go to sleep.  Folks of my generation may remember this as quite the practice at one time.  I hope the practice has changed – but I doubt it.  I personally remember the “druggings”, except my grandmother’s choice medication was 5 mg. of Valium.  Yes, folks, Valium.  No, I’m not a drug addict, never became one.  I think it was because of her “druggings” that I now seldom take any form of medication.  I do have an addictive personality, and that isn’t only to vices, but behaviour as well (Valium, Asperger, who knows).  So, I steer clear of whatever vice or behaviour may become a negative – with the exception of alcohol.  So, grandma use to feed me Valium.  What does this have anything to with “family being fucked?”

My father is/was an alcoholic (don’t know if he’s alive, so is/was).  In one of his drunken stupors he decides to confront his wife about her possibly dating someone, although they were separated and heading for divorce.  Being the daughter with the idea in her head that she was her father’s salvation from himself, I decide to go along.  Little did I know what he really had in mind, and he was not the father to keep me from coming along one of his “wild rides”.  We show up to her place of work – an injection molding factory where she worked the graveyard shift.  Ironically, that night he almost sent her to the graveyard.  Innocently, or stupidly, she comes out and gets into the car – where she is greeted with an attempt to slice her throat.  At some point my father unlocked the doors long enough for me to get out and walk down the alley.  I squatted near a puddle of water, stagnated in the road crown, which reflected the light of the full moon.  I prayed for him to stop.  Eventually he did.  I ended up back at home where my grandmother turned to her miracle cure, 5 mg. of Valium, to put me to sleep.

Sometime between then and a few hours later, I was summoned when he returned home.  There he was, sitting on the edge of his bed, scraping blood from the nooks of his car keys.  I didn’t ask.  I simply took him by the hand and led him to the basin.  There I would run water over his finger nails and similarly scrape the blood from them.  Following the Valium protocol and tuck him into bed.  The following morning I rushed downstairs to check on my “poor papi”.  Except, I would find my sliced up stepmother propped up in his bed, being fed steak and eggs for breakfast.  What the hell just happened?

I leave in the middle of the night not knowing her fate and the following morning there she is, wounds cleaned and dressed, being cared for by my father – the very man that did this to her.  Both hands were completely bandaged, as those were the shields she used to keep him from cutting her throat.  Every slice he threw, up went her hands.  When and how she got to the hospital, whether or not they knew what happened, who knows.  No one spoke of it, until now I guess.

Hence, Family is Fucked.  And yes, I realize there is a lot wrong with this picture.  But wait, this is only one of my stories.