Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Daddy Disclaimer

When discussing my father throughout this blog, I use big hairy words like narcotics, addiction and overdose.

Because this isn’t a book where a reader can chronologically follow the story and be privy to all of the battles won and lost, the growth and the healing, I feel the need to provide this “Daddy Disclaimer.”

I’m not airing my dirty laundry here. I’m airing his.

To be sure, my father has made some serious misjudgments throughout his adult life, but he is still a living, breathing creation of God who deserves honor and dignity. After years of living in a drug-induced fog, he has emerged more clear-minded and more knowledgeable of how much he has to apologize for. The healing has begun. 

He has – incredibly – released me to tell my family’s painful story and has done it with a grace, humility and open-handedness that has blown me away.

And so the least that I can do is include this disclaimer when I discuss the harder times so that you will know that whatever the situation I’m recounting, I still love my father and he is still one of the sweetest, most tender men I know.

He’s on his own journey. So let’s extend him the same grace and forgiveness that we ourselves need every single day.

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