There’s a strain of addictiveness running through our family genetics.  My maternal grandfather started drinking during the early days of the Great Depression and crawled ever deeper into the bottle.  He lost everything except his wife and children. They spent the rest of his life taking care of him.  He died from a stroke, complicated by pneumonia when I was only a child.  Like twins, it skipped a generation and popped back up in my oldest brother.

Eddie discovered alcohol when he was barely into his teens.  As he got older, he stepped through the gateway to marijuana and pills.  He admitted freely that he had a problem with addiction.  In fact, one point of pride for him was the fact that he avoided cocaine.  He said he heard how addictive it was and knew, based on his history, it would hook him for life.  So, he just refused to try it.  One of my sons was unable to be that strong, he has served jail time for cocaine possession.  He’s been clean for more than 3 years now and he says he still craves it at times, so maybe Eddie was right.

Alcohol abuse is more accepted, but it can be just as destructive.  My brother never owned anything except his clothing, tools, and an old truck.  He loved kids, but never had any of his own.  In fact, he mostly lived with our parents his whole life.

He was fiercely loyal to his family and friends, he had a strong sense of honor.  Even at the worst of his addiction, he was reliable and always did all he could to keep his word.  He had a real talent for drawing, but no training.  He just dabbled with it, sometimes to amuse the children, at others just for himself.  He never tried to build it into anything for profit.  It may have been a private dream but, if so, he didn’t express it.

Instead, he painted houses and hung wallpaper all his life.  No matter how much he drank at night, he always got up and went to work the next day.  He might be mellowed out on pot before he got there, but his hand was so steady he could paint window trim without tape and never leave a spot on the glass.  Everyone knew he was the best and local contractors would gladly provide him with transportation back and forth to the job.  He didn’t get his driver’s license until he stopped drinking at the age of 47.

He died eleven years ago of liver failure made worse by a Hep C infection.  He was only 55 years old. If you didn’t know him,  didn’t know how much he was respected and loved, you’d think his life was wasted.  It wasn’t, it was just crippled.  He meant a lot to many people, but he could have been so much more.

Most of us have lesser addictions: over-eating (which he also had), gambling, smoking.  But the specter of alcoholism haunts us.  We fear it so much, that some of us expect anyone who takes an occasional glass of wine to eventually succumb.  We warn all our children to be careful because, “Alcoholism runs in the bloodline.” In spite of the warnings, they all drink, some with more control than others, because alcohol is so pervasive in our society.  Young people are actually pressured to over-indulge.  “Holding your liquor” is a requirement for acceptance at many levels of society.   I can only watch and pray that they will be able to control it, at least as well as Eddie did.

Look at the photo above. Do you see how much we all look alike? The noses, eyes, face shapes, and smiles? I am amused whenever one of my granddaughters says someone told them they look like their mother and they don’t agree. I understand because I used to feel the same way. I thought I looked mostly like my Daddy and I was proud of it. As I got older, the mirror showed me my mother’s features.

I used to say that my three oldest children looked more like each other than either myself or their father. My two younger daughters looked so much alike as children that they could have been twins if not for the three and a half years between their ages. As they got older, their features changed and the resemblance lessened. Now their faces are growing back toward each other again. I see myself more in them also. There was a time when I thought my oldest daughter was the one most like me, but that too has changed.

Even though I, like them, hate to have my picture made and seldom like photos of myself, this picture has become one of my favorites. In it, I can trace the resemblances of three generations and, since I see my own mother in my mirror, add that resemblance back to the fourth one. I find it especially meaningful this week as we move toward Mother’s Day.

Yesterday afternoon, my middle daughter started the celebration for this year with a bouquet of beautiful yellow roses. She gets some such for me every year because she knows yellow roses are my favorite. It has become a tradition for us. She brought them early this time because she saw them in the store and thought that particular bunch was especially beautiful. She said she was afraid, if she waited until Sunday she wouldn’t be able to find others as nice. There will be other tokens, phone calls and cards, but this gesture is a memory that I will cherish because it says she wanted to give me the best possible.

I love my all my girls (and my boys too, but this is about the feminine side) and am very proud of them. They are strong, independent, and successful women. They have raised beautiful daughters who are on their way to becoming the same. I only wish my own mother was still here to enjoy them with me.