Is It Ever Too Late? (standard:non fiction, 1112 words)
Author: Lori	Added: Mar 08 2004	Views/Reads: 3519/2297	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
I've re-worked it a little. It's still the story of my father. I just hope it's more understandable now. Thanks for the tips. As always feedback is greatly appreciated.

Is It Ever Too Late? 

My mother divorced my father when I was five. He was a “bad” man. He did
drugs; woo what a crime that was. He's a terrible man, because he 
succumbed to the pressures he was feeling and fell into the wrong 
stuff. At the age of five, I was forced to admit no one was perfect. 
Not even the one that I love more than anything in the world, my 
father. 

My mother was a woman that didn't believe in doing anything illegal. She
didn't drink her first taste of alcohol until she was twenty-five. She 
used to not take an aspirin if she didn't see it come out of the 
bottle. She was a straight-laced girl. She was the baby of nine 
children. She did no wrong. I wish sometimes that she were still that 
person. But that's another story. 

My father was a Vietnam vet. He was over there for two years fighting
for his country. He was drafted and did his duty like an red-blooded 
american. He was a medic in the Army. He was the one that had to tell 
the men they would live. You would only see the little hole in the 
front. But, my father was the one that had to turn the man over to see 
the huge hole in the back. He came back from Vietnam just like so many 
others, totally screwed in the head. 

To hear my mother tell the story, my father was passed out in the living
room of our house the day she left him. My brother and I were playing 
with all the pills he had strode around the room. She says she had no 
choice but to leave. He had put us in harm's way and that was a BIG 
no-no. 

He didn't fight her on it. He just gave up on himself and us.  He went
on to get married again and had another little boy. My mother and him 
decided it was best if he left us alone. We didn't see him again for 
four years. 

My mother went on to remarry too. Matter of fact, they got married on
the same day, the same place, within a half hour of each other. My 
mother didn't know it for years later. My father never would know about 
it. 

She married the man that I call Daddy. I know no other man as a Daddy
but him. I love him like he was my blood father. But, he's not my blood 
father. And, he can never be that. No matter how much either one of us 
want it. 

My father would call my mother in the wee hours of the morning. When he
was stoned out of his head. He just needed to hear her voice. He would 
ask about us sometimes. But, he really just called to talk to her. 

He would have signed the papers to let Tim adopt us. But, Tim said it
wouldn't change anything. My brother was named after my father. My name 
was going to change when I got married. It was just the thought that 
for a second time, my father was willing to give up his children. 

A drunk driver killed my father eight days before my tenth birthday. My
uncle, aunt, and, him were on the way to pick up some weed when they 
were hit from behind. The man was going eighty miles an hour. They were 
going forty-five. 

My father was thrown 350 feet. He hit a railroad track with his chest.
It broke his neck, his jawbone, and crushed his chest. My father lived 
for an hour and a half in severe pain. 

There are different stories about that hour and a half. Some say that he
talked about his children. Some say that he talked about weed. I hope, 
for my sake, that he said something about us. I doubt that he did. 
Drugs had always been more important to him than we were. Why would 
dying change that? 

My aunt was thrown 150 feet and hit a telephone pole with her head. She
lived with a screw in her head for those eight days. But in the end, 
her brain had suffered too much trauma. It died before her body did. 
She left behind a two-year-old child. 

My uncle was the lucky one. If by lucky you call watching the two people


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