Fall 1986 - Transgenerational Patterns
Author: Ken Homer Issue: 2025-09-03
Fall 1986 - Transgenerational Patterns
by Ken Homer
My dad was 42 when I was born, and his dad was 42 when he was born Family lore has it that my grandmother was cold and distant towards my dad. Harsher behaviors were hinted at but never confirmed He may have been an “oopsie!” what is known, is that he was not very much wanted All my dad’s siblings were ten to 15 years older than he was So, all my first cousins were 18 to 30 years older than me Agewise, they were more akin to aunts and uncles than to cousins Most of them had kids around my age
My dad had an alcohol problem–a big one–he came by it honestly Although “honestly” and “an alcohol problem” seems an odd juxtaposition His dad had the same problem And his father before him And all their brothers And all my male cousins on my dad’s side All of them succumbed to the allure of ethanol The dispiritedness that runs so deep in my paternal line Sent each of them to seek comfort in distilled spirits Alas, it proved a fruitless search for it wasn’t the balm for their souls they sought Instead of healing them, their drinking destroyed their lives and livelihoods With a considerable amount of collateral damage done to their families
In 1986, when my dad lay dying, a cousin of mine told me a story about him The story takes place in December in 1953 a few years before I was born My dad was in his late thirties at the time and fully in the thrall of alcohol My cousin said that my dad was at a bar, and he knew he was too drunk to drive He was due at my aunt’s house, so, he called my cousin and asked him for a ride My cousin obliges and picks up my dad who gets into my cousin’s car He told me that my dad was drunk but coherent and they chatted on the way home But when they got to my aunt’s house and walked in something happened When my aunt realized my dad was drunk, she lost it totally and flew into a rage She started to slap my dad repeatedly across the face and she was screaming at him:
Nobody wants you here We never wanted you Nobody wants you Go away! Get out! You don’t belong here!
When my aunt started hitting my dad my cousin said it was like a switch got thrown My dad suddenly started to act far drunker than he’d been on the ride over And he’s crying and sobbing and apologizing and begging her to let him stay But my aunt keeps slapping him and shouting at him to get out And he walks out into the cold winter night–alone
A lifelong smoker, my dad died of lung cancer–his dying process was brutal It was horrific to see him coughing up blood as he wasted away–he lost 60 pounds It tore my world apart to watch it unfold; I really had no idea how to handle it Coping with it sent me down my own alcohol-drenched path in search of surcease I was downing two six-packs a night just to be able to sleep, but it was worse for him In his final weeks the nursing staff told me he was wrestling demons every night He’d cry out in his sleep, yell, and sometimes sob before waking himself up
Now, I never felt unwanted growing up but there was a lot of abuse in my childhood I always felt close with my oldest sister, but I devastated by an incredibly cruel act On Christmas Day 1988 she invited me to come over to be with her and her kids I assumed that meant for a few hours not for a few minutes But after the kids had opened their presents, she told me it was time for me to leave She told me that they wanted to have a “family Christmas dinner” Driving home, wiping away tears, I recalled my cousin’s story about my dad I felt a deep kinship with my father as I felt the bitter sting of being rejected by family
It was maybe two decades later that I made the connection across the generations One day it occurred to me that my sister telling me to leave her house on Christmas So that she could have a family Christmas dinner was a reenactment of the same Dance that my dad and his sister took part in almost exactly 35 years earlier Same family, different generation, same pattern, same devastating consequences My dad was drunk I was sober–history wasn’t exactly repeating but is sure was rhyming Somehow that realization eased the pain of both of those memories for me a little
The burden of darkness that infests the hearts of the men born into the paternal line of My family was passed along to me without my consent and bearing it cost me dearly There is something far bigger than one person with a drinking problem here In generation after generation the hurt and blame are always assigned to the addict Nobody ever looked at the family system that produced generations of alcoholics
There’s a trail of broken men with suffering wives and kids in my paternal line All these wounded men have hurt and scarred those they loved and who loved them A first cousin committed suicide as a result of her father’s abuse Nobody wants to talk about that or the other things that discomfit them Easier to stay in denial, easier to say “We don’t talk about that around here”
I’m the only one who faced the pain, got sober, and did the healing work required But then I dared to speak up and name the hard truths that no one wanted to face My reward was being exiled from my family rendering me powerless to intervene I didn’t realize until long after my excommunication that that too, is a system response So, the pattern continues unabated as my nephews discover that they are powerless In the face of intergenerational trauma and addiction Evolution has a dictate: learning is mandatory, survival is optional I learned and survived my family’s illness, others were not so lucky
Ken Homer • Jan 2024
Related:
- Ken Homer (author)
- 2025 (year)
- Topics: Health and Wellbeing