A letter to my alcoholic Dad, who died whilst I was giving birth

Megan Ace - 15 Feb 17

Dear Dad,

Your drug and alcohol addiction, which lead you to your final destination and ‘great escape’, for me, made the arrival of my son, terribly hard to comprehend. 

After a very long and complicated birth, I too, was to experience the all-consuming drug, which had been your consumer, your master for so many years. I thought about you and for the first time, understood how it must have instantly transported you into what you thought was a happier place. 

After my adoring, doting husband and my incredible mother, your ex wife, had gone home, I embraced my son with the warmth of a thousand suns and I thought of you. How proud you’d be of your only ‘darling daughter’ and your brand new, unspoilt grandson, merely hours old. In the face of sheer exhaustion and an overwhelming feeling of love, so raw, it’s painful, I decided to share my news with you. Having not seen you since very early on in my pregnancy, I compose my message and send you the text. A text which you would never receive. A text which when your phone bleeps beside my mother’s bed, she once again, would have to absorb my hope. 

Unbeknown to me, you went into hospital as I did, during the early hours. My fatherly-like bothers and mum had asked my husband if he thought I should know of your situation and he, quite wisely, said no. Another impossible decision your addiction has made one of my loved ones make. 

I found out that you were upstairs, breathing via a machine the morning after I had given birth. The wonderful nurses and midwives gave me the option of them taking me up on my bed to say my goodbyes and to hold your hand, for one last time. What devoted angels. I felt so lucky to be in their overwhelmingly precious and selfless care. 

Sadly, my youngest of two brothers, your second son, was not to be so lucky in finding his peace with you. Travel, timings and the fact that his wife had given birth to their second son, your forth grandson, a mere four weeks’ earlier, made it an impossible task for him to say goodbye (although the wonders of FaceTime, really are underestimated!). As my biggest brother, your eldest son, on his broadest of shoulders wheeled me to your bedside, I cannot for the life of me recall what I said to you. Only how I wish you could have met our King of a son, or at least known that he had arrived safely. I know you would have cared deep down inside, even if those battled demons wouldn’t have allowed you to show us. There was of course humour too in that moment. How we find that in the most surreal situations, never ceases to amaze me.

As I get ready to give birth once more, I’m thankful that I won’t have to endure the emotional ordeal of your death again. But I also know that none of it was your fault. Even through so many years of turmoil, manipulation and guilt, I have no blame. I’m sorry that you have missed out on so much – your three children, five grandsons and now a 6th grandchild on the way, and I’m sorry I couldn’t have saved you. I witness such wonderful qualities of yours in all of your grandsons and I know how much they all would have been just as absorbed in your magical stories as the three of us were, and how richer their lives would be if you could have played a role in them. 

I wish that you could know of your inheritance track which has been passed to my son and of the ‘angels guarding him while he sleeps’, just as you promised they always did for me. I wish you were alive and I wish you hadn’t been an addict. 

Angels guard you, Dad. X

P.S. It’s a girl.

Megan Ace

Interior designer, theatre/ event producer. Recipes, honesty, bargain spotter and the luxe. Mama of 2 beauts.

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