It was Memorial Day weekend twelve years ago that my mom called me to pass along the news of my father's death. He was sixty-six years old.

For a long time, I did not really mourn my father's death. And even to this day, when I think about it, I do not mourn him. Over time, however, I have come to mourn the loss of a life he never really got to live. When my father was 16 years old, he lost both of his parents. First, his father died of a heart attack, and one year later his mother died from alcoholism. I cannot imagine how those events shaped my father's young life, and I often wonder how much different his life may have been if one or both of his parents had lived.

Instead, my father sought out excess - excess money, excess status, excess everything. And from that want or need, he also stumbled down the path that so many in our family before him have stumbled - he stumbled into alcoholism and drug addiction. Enough was never enough and as I grew, so did his addiction.

I hadn't spoken to my father for over three years by the time he died, and I had expected the call about his death many times over the years. After the call from my mom, I didn't weep or mourn the loss of my father. In my mind, he had left me many years earlier. I believe that addiction follows you life after life until you are able to resolve the problems that cause the addiction in the first place. So, when my father died, what I was most sad about was the thought that he would have to go into his next life and face addiction once more. Perhaps he will have more tools in his arsenal to fight the addiction next time, and perhaps he will finally free himself from the chains that bind him. I hope that is the case and that he will find whatever it is he seeks.

This Memorial Day, I remember my father. I remember the good, the bad, and the ugly. He wasn't a perfect man by any means and we definitely had our moments. But I hope he finds peace and maybe we will meet again in another life under better circumstances.