Loving the Unlovable

The message light on my answering machine was blinking. I'd been away all day at an AA service function and was exhausted. Almost absentmindedly, I flicked the machine on to hear who had called. I don't think I'll ever forget the feelings that rushed through me as I listened. It was my dad. He'd been missing for a month and I'd been trying in vain to find him. The message he left was that he had ninety days of sobriety in AA. He'd waited to tell me until he had some time because of how harsh he'd been toward my joining AA almost nine years before. Whenever I'd visited him and gone to AA meetings, he had not been supportive.