My junior year of high school, shortly after my 16th birthday, my brothers and I found out my dad was a crack cocaine addict.  I had driven my brothers home from school, which was weird because my mom worked at the school.  We all traveled to and from together almost every day.  We walked in the door and no one was home.  I checked our voicemail and there was a message from my dad.  It said, “Brenda, I don’t want you to worry about me.  I found a place to stay tonight.”  I didn’t think anything of it.  My dad was kind of an impulsive person.  He owned a business in a different state and traveled frequently.  So, I started my homework.

Shortly, after that my mom came in with one of my dad’s best friend.  They looked frazzled.  They were rushing around the house like they were looking for something and I casually said, “There is a message from dad on the voicemail.  I saved it.  He said he found a place to stay tonight.”  They stopped and looked at each other like they had been caught doing something wrong.  They talked for a little bit longer and then my dad’s friend said, “Call me after you talk to them.”  Now I was starting to get nervous.  The “them” was obviously us kids.

My mom closed and locked the door to our house that was always open.  We all sat in the living room for a family meeting without dad.  She told us that dad had been using drugs for a year or more.  She then went on to tell us that she didn’t know where dad was because he left the rehab facility that he was taken to that morning.  She explained further that we are not to have contact with him until he goes to rehab.  She was changing the locks, the code to the garage, bank accounts and credit cards.  She gave us instructions of what we were to do if he showed up at school, the front door or called on the phone.  We were to tell him that we couldn’t talk to him or see him until he got help.

I had led a pretty sheltered life at this point.  My family struggled financially all of my life, but my parents made us feel like we were royalty.  We went to a private Christian school that was housed in the same building as our church.  On a busy week we could be in that building everyday.  Pretty much most of our life was in that building.  Drugs were not really something that was talked about much.  Other than signing a poster every year saying that I wouldn’t drink, I don’t remember a lot of discussion about drugs.  Looking back I’m sure there were people struggling with addiction, but it was not something that was discussed openly.  If it was happening (which I know it was now) I didn’t know about it.  But here I was with a dad that was using crack cocaine.

We didn’t know where my dad was for 9 days.  We could trace him a little bit.  We didn’t have cell phones that could pinpoint your exact location.  We would get clues from our friends and family.  After my mom cut him off financially he started calling people asking for money.  The request would always have an ounce of truth.  It is how we learned he was in a car accident and had been to the hospital.  His head went through the windshield.

The story of how he came home is not mine to tell.  I will say, however, that my baby brother is the hero of that story.  In 7th grade he had the bravery and clarity of mind to know what to do.  So after a long 4 months in treatment, my dad came home.  He was was clean, but our life was never the same.

He was diagnosed bi-polar while in treatment which helped explain a lot of my childhood.  He had a closed head injury effecting his short term memory because of the car accident.  He was no longer working and put on disability.

Socially things had changed too.  In some ways my world got smaller.  I felt very alone most of the time.  I knew that God was in control and had a plan for my life, but I didn’t feel like anyone I knew could relate to me.  There were so many nice people, but most of them were adults.  If there was someone my age that had a similar experience, they did not come forward.  For awhile, I was going to church alone because no one in my family was going.  I cried as I got ready for Easter Sunday by myself.  If things were getting better with my dad, then why was I so miserable?

One of the main answers to this question I would learn from my dad.  His closed head injury not only effected his short-term memory, but also, his ability to filter emotions and words.  If he felt it, you saw it.  If he thought it, you heard it.  It was hard to deal with sometimes, but as I felt my world was getting smaller, his was getting bigger.  He always had the ability to make a friend, the man didn’t know a stranger, but now he was connecting with people on a different level.  There was something about it that was incredibly appealing and yet also unnerving.

It would be over a decade later before I would learn about Brene Brown and her research on vulnerability, but when I heard her speak my dad came to mind.  In her book, ‘Daring Greatly’ she says, “Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.  Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.”  My dad’s word for vulnerability was transparency.  He could have easily hid from the world when he came home and maybe he did for a little while, but he had work to do to stay clean.  He couldn’t do that from the comfort of his couch.  He had to leave.  He had to be brave.  So he made it to Tuesday morning Bible studies, he went to program meetings, he started driving the bus for senior citizen trips around the city and he continued to make friends wherever he went.  In all these places he called people to be transparent.  He called people to be honest.  It would drive people crazy, but it also had a huge impact.

Years later, at his funeral, we learned from several people how my dad’s call to transparency effected their lives.  Grown men, with tears in their eyes, sharing how their lives had changed because of my dad’s insistence that they be transparent.  The stories involved families, spouses and businesses.  We also heard hilarious stories of how my dad insisted to buying drugs in a Christian way, whatever that means, and mooning people.  It was kind of a crazy funeral full of laughter and relief.  Everyone there was so thankful that they knew my dad, but grateful they didn’t have to worry about him any more.

His death is a post for a different time, and there was so much more I learned from my dad, but the lesson of transparency keeps coming back again and again.  It’s the foundation of all relationships.  It’s really uncomfortable to continuously be admitting my faults to my little guys, but it is having huge rewards.  They are learning that it’s safe to share their feelings.  They are learning that we can be angry with each other and still love each other.  They are learning they can have a voice and still be kind.  They are learning they can be sad and find comfort.  They are learning that adults are not perfect and we have to apologize too.  We are working hard on having a home of transparency.  No secrets.  No shame.  It’s hard.  Really hard.  But I know it’s important.  We can’t have connection without vulnerability, so we keep being uncomfortable.

I think back to those days of working through my dad’s addiction and how lonely I felt.  Maybe the problem wasn’t my lack of peers to share in the experience, maybe it was my inability to be vulnerable at the time.  I was afraid that vulnerability would lead to more loneliness instead of connection.