Reframing My Childhood

I was texting a childhood friend the other day, and somehow we got caught up discussing high school graduation. I asked him if he remembered my father being asked to leave graduation. He didn’t, so I told about how my father showed to to the auditorium intoxicated.

This was 2000. He’d been addicted to painkillers for about 10 years. According to my older brother dad was screaming. Yelling my name, and stumbling, and saying with a slur “that’s my boy!” He was making a scene, and eventually, he was asked to leave.