The story of how my parents met isn't all that interesting. There's no big romantic scene, he wasn't really a hero. Just a girl getting out of a bad relationship, and a guy looking to get into a good one.
The story of how it went over the years if much more interesting. My parents had just made it to three years of marriage when my father passed, something that haunted my mother till she too passed.
the story of how he passed:
Through-out the ears my mom and dad had gotten along very well. They never had major arguments where one of them had to leave days on end until they both calmed down. Sure they had their fair share of quarrels, but it was nothing an "I'm sorry" and "I love you" couldn't fix. So they never foresaw their marriage falling apart.
My mom and dad were good for each other. She helped him get clean, and he helped her learn to trust. And after three months my father quit doing coke, and my mother had the confidence she needed to go to beauty school, and get herself a job. Unfortunately my father never gave up drinking, and my mom never worried about it.
On my third birthday my mom and dad had one of the biggest fights of their whole relationship, and after twenty minutes of arguing, my dad left. That night he didn't come home till 3 am, and he reeked of vodka and cigarettes.
The next day they talked things out, and everything went back to normal. They apologized, they said I love you , and they stood hugging each other till their arms got too tired to hold one another.
But the night of that argument my father made a friend, his name was Bruce. Bruce was exactly what he sounded like; a big man, with dirty hands, and a grey mustache. He constantly wore a red flannel, and always smelt like cigarettes. If my dad was a balloon, Bruce was the needle that popped him.
After that, every Tuesday Bruce would call my dad after dinner, and ask him if he wanted to go out and drink. And every Tuesday, my dad said yes. And this went on for two months, until they started to go on Thursday and Friday nights as well. Then It was Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and this is when my mom became worried.
My dad would go to work hungover, his boss would call pissed that he was an hour late for his shift. And when my mom talked my dad about any of this, he would just get mad, and say the only time he could relax, is when he was out with Bruce.
It was a Wednesday night when my dad went out, and never came back. A night he never went out on, and a night no one would predict.
That day my mom told him she wouldn't allow him to go out with Bruce anymore.
My dad was furious. He slammed the door when he left, then my mom cried for two hours, before giving me a bath, and taking me to bed with her. My mom knew he was going to a bar to meet Bruce, and because he never told her what bar he was going, she didn't know where to look for him. Not that she really tried to look for him.
The next morning my father was not in bed with my mother and I. She was instantly worried. Every night that he went out with Bruce, even if she wasn't up when he came home, she woke the next day with his arms around her. And even though they argued, my mom still expected him to come home.
Not too soon after she woke up, my mother got a call from the local hospital, saying they found a man in an alley, with only a wallet containing a single piece of paper, which had this number. They needed someone to come down and identify the body.
And so my mother dropped me off at my grandmothers house, and the story goes from there. She walked into a room with bright, florescent lights, and saw my fathers pale body lying on a cold metal table. Instantly she broke down, and afterwards she was never the same.
