Journal of a Living Lady #235
The secret is out. My Buddy is a drunk. Please don’t stop reading now. I need to explain.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, who knows Buddy outside of our routine existence would have thought that Buddy had a problem with liquor. He appears to be an up-right citizen, an all-around, old-fashioned, patriotic good-humored guy. This former Boy Scout is kind to widows, gives to the poor and goes to church every Sunday.
As his wife of nearly forty years, I should have known sooner about these recent drinking episodes. He kept quiet about his frequent disappearances. Was I ever fooled.
He has never needed a spousal leash and I never imagined he was having squirmishes with the law. Buddy doesn’t care for crowds, so I thought my sweet Buddy was doing early Christmas shopping when he was gone for an hour or two.
Thinking back, the clues were all there. The marks on his wrists from the metal handcuffs. The Miranda speech which he mumbled in his sleep. The blood-shot eyeballs.
It all came to a head last week when I arrived at the accident scene. Policemen were yelling to the crowd to get back. Ambulances were wailing. I made my way through the somber crowd. A TV anchorwoman was reporting that a drunk driver had crossed the line and hit a car with three teenagers head-on.
Apparently one girl died at the scene. The other two teens died later at the hospital. I was there when the doctor came out of the emergency room and gave the news to the distraught parents. It was an emotionally wrenching sight.
A school friend had invited one of the girls to a church youth service earlier. Her sister reluctantly went along too, but openly scoffed at that “religious stuff.” The tragic accident happened on the way home.
Of course, Buddy was only playing a part in a drama. The moving audience, small groups of about twenty people, was led through the stationery scenes.
The play depicted the consequences of living apart from God. One sister went to heaven. The other did not. The point of Judgment House was to be prepared for eternity. Ready or not, our turn will come someday.
In the course of five nights, Buddy staggered the line, had lights shone in his eyes, and was locked up 125 times. By the end of the each night, he was truly exhausted. I became his designated driver. We didn’t want any authentic encounter with the police on the way home.
I am glad this was just a drama, though a realistic one. My husband isn’t a drunk. Nobody was killed.
For many, alcohol and drunk driving is a serious actuality. I have many friends who have lost their children in tragic accidents. I know the relief of hearing the car pull into the driveway late at night. It hasn’t been that many years ago that we had teens living at home.
Children rarely know how much we worry about them, especially when driving. Now that Charlie and his wife, Tori, are expecting their first child, they will truly understand the universality of parental concern. I can’t wait to see Charlie become the protective father of his first-born son. What goes around comes around.
