Phone conversations fascinate me, now. Well, conversations with my Mother & Father. For a very long time there was no phone for me to call anyone; when I did manager to wrangle up some time to dial someone, it was usually to someone I should not have been associating with… or, even worse, I would call someone in a drunken black-out, not knowing that I did so until months after the atrocity had been committed.

Now, things are starting to change. I still need to learn & accept there are boundaries which should not be crossed on who I talk to, & what is said.

This mornings conversation with my mother, on the other hand, was, to me anyway, a delight. It was the type of conversation that left me full of pride & longing & embarrassment. Pride at how wonderful Parents can be. I was just informed this morning that my Mother & Father are now grandparents to two more wonderful & beautiful children. Children that are in no way related to them through blood or law or obligation. They are simply connected through them by love – love via the grapevine.

Let me explain:

The two new babies are the siblings to My parent’s biological grandson. And in no way would my parents deny a child over Domestic Grey Areas concerning paternity. The two new babies are the Brother & Sister to their grandchild. That is it. And that is all. They are Grandma & Grandpa to those babies, & will be so, I hope, until the end of their days.

There is the Pride part to this three part prose piece.

Longing follows as the close second runner-up.

I should not have to reiterate my struggling condition in maintaining a semi-decent form of stability where I can be around Family, but for those of you just joining the show, I am Alcoholic. A non-functioning, difficult alcoholic, at that. In has been a long time since I have been in the right state of mind to be around people that are even quasi-descent, let alone radiantly admirable. In listening to my mother share her time with her three grandbabies & my father, there was a pulling in my chest… a kind of ripping from the meat-hook recognition that I missed out on a great deal of essential, precious & finite moments & memories that cannot be recaptured… & my absence – my required absence, at that – was something necessary. And will continue to be necessary for many more moments & holidays to come.

Mark Twain once wrote something along the lines that Man is the only animal that blushes – or needs to. That’s bullshit. I have seen both dogs & cats in shame… my own own shame & embarrassment is bellow that of a dog or a cat. Mine can be controlled. Mine can be avoidable.

It is of no fault of my upbringing, my Social Class, or anything else that led to my drinking & drug use. I know the reasons for it. And I am not about to go into a long rant about it, now. What is important now is the recognition of my wrong-doing. THAT is what caused the embarrassment when hanging up the phone with my Mother this morning. That my Mother & Father have such an abundance of Love & Graciousness that, even with being blessed with three blood-born, law-bound grandchildren already, they have opened up their hearts to two more.

My inequities are vast & troubling. But they do not resonate from familial influence.

It is not a competition. But I am far from being presentable enough to be blessed with those Magic Moments. And that is not from any restriction I have been given.

It is a personal choice.

Somethings have to be earned.