All That Is Bitter and Sweet_ A Memoir - Ashley Judd [135]
My dad took my mother’s hand. (Okay, that in and of itself is like from outer space.) Next, he opened his mouth. Then he began to offer his heartfelt amends. He took full responsibility for himself, spanning the decades they had known each other, and with humility, tenderness, and unmistakable culpability, cleaned up the wreckage of his past.
From that harrowing afternoon in the apartment in Lexington exactly twenty years ago, when he told me he was not my sister’s biological father, when I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that my family was condemned to irredeemable hopelessness … to this. It was only Wednesday of my family week, and the miracles were rolling.
Dad and I still talk about that moment. He says that in it, everything was lifted from him: every resentment, every grief, every urge to get even. But the mercy was not confined to the moment; it has deepened and expanded. He shares about being given great gifts of compassion and empathy for my mother, a new ability to consider life from her point of view and to contemplate how events, such as her own upbringing and the events of 1963 and 1964, affected her.
This recovery thing works, if you work at it.
Not everyone, however, was able to participate on such a deeply positive level, and one family member did not return. The staff requests that all participants not drink alcohol or take drugs—including prescription drugs unless absolutely necessary—during family week. And in spite of the constant reminders from staff to “trust the process, don’t quit before your miracle” and steady encouragement to see my work as something that I had a right to, a necessary stage of my own catharsis and healing, they couldn’t hang. Sadly, I’m told they are one of only two family members ever to bail on the family week process in Shades of Hope’s twenty-five-year history. Maybe my family is just a bit terminal after all. But as Tennie says, as long as they are sucking air, there is always hope. I truly believed what I was being taught: that no situation was hopeless (although at times I might feel hopeless), that there was no difficulty too great to be lessened, and that it was possible for me to find contentment and even happiness no matter how my various loved ones were behaving. And so I took my focus off the disappointment of this loved one’s behavior, dealt with my feelings in a healthy way, and proceeded with my own recovery. Imagine, then, how delighted I was recently when this person called and told me they have a year’s sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Thursday involved more deep work and processing, including a potent chance to offer direct statements about things that needed to improve in different relationships and forgiveness processes. The work was not uniformly smooth. Naturally, the many family dynamics were pinging wildly off the walls. Once, I sank into despair as a couple bickered nastily about an incident they’d had buying materials to make the collages they had been assigned. After twenty minutes, Erica looked at me and asked, “How much more of your family week are you going to let them hijack?” I used my voice and asked them to settle their beef later, reminded them and me that this group was about my recovery, our time was limited, and we needed to move on. But there were also sublime moments of incredible vulnerability and tenderness, such as when my dad cried so hard that he doubled over, once he had offered and I had accepted his amends for having “divorced” me on Winchester Avenue all those years before.
On Friday, I sat knee to knee with loved ones while they each told me five things each one “liked and loved” about me. My God, after having each pitched in seemingly inedible and rotten ingredients, we were actually partaking of that corny stew that had simmered and boiled all week, sharing in a rich meal love, laughter, and fellowship.
I kept the papers on which, in easily recognizable handwriting, were itemized some things each one liked and loved about me. What a far cry this “inventory” is from the