This Memoir is about Self-Deception gone mad. It marinated within my son, David, from the age of four. It was how he dealt with adversity, low self-esteem, relationships that went sour, and lack of acceptance. Resilience was his best friend.
David's ability to deceive himself through resilience displayed itself in one form or another for over five decades. This Memoir recounts the intimate events in both of our lives from the Sixties to the 2000s.
The Sixties were formative years in David's life. He was born in the sixties while I served as an Air Traffic Controller in the United States Air Force at Incirlik Air Base, Turkey. His mother was two months pregnant when I left. David was ten months old when I first saw him after being reassigned to Wurtsmith Air ForceBase in Michigan, Our life was beautiful at Wurtsmith. We enjoyed a wonderful family life on an airman's scant pay until... I was reassigned to Vietnam. David and his mother would remain at Wurtsmith until I returned. David was devastated when he saw me board the airplane. He cried, held on to my leg, and begged me not to leave. He felt abandoned. That feeling became part of his psyche. The Vietnam war had lasting effects on our family that changed the course of our lives. David would suffer the most. The Seventies became the decade of freedom and transition. I was discharged in 1971, and we returned to civilian life. We moved to New Wilmington, PA, so I could return to college to complete my degree. College held little to offer me. I was offered a position as a sales representative. I quickly became a sales manager, managing sales teams throughout New England, requiring us to move five times during the Seventies. David learned how to be resilient during these moves to new towns and school systems. He had no desire to assimilate within the educational process because he was not interested in assimilation. He craved acceptance. Our newly found freedom from the regimentation of the Air Force unleashed itself in the Seventies. We became enthralled with the party scene. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll became our prime entertainment and continued into the Eighties. We were blinded by the light by thinking that David did not know what we were doing at the wild parties we craved. We had lost our compass. The Eighties resulted in significant changes to our family. David learned about the great equalizers - drugs and alcohol. He learned he could be the bad boy in high school. His resilience enabled him to adjust while his use of alcohol and drugs soared. His charisma attracted classmates who were interested in partying, not college. David liked beer and reefers, and the crowd he hung out with considered him to be their hero. He graduated from high school and married his girlfriend. Following in my footsteps, he joined the Air Force and took her with him to his duty assignment in Arizona.
The Eighties brought me great opportunities professionally, but my marriage's foundations were wracked by continuing the lifestyle we indulged in during the Seventies and ended in divorce. The Nineties and 2000s were defined by the stabilization of David's life, his second marriage, and the business he built. I remarried in the Eighties to the wrong woman for the wrong reasons. That marriage ended in the Nineties. Fortunately, I met and married a woman who became the love of my life. Our love strengthened each year of our marriage. David's second marriage ended, but his resilience enabled him to endure. He continued to struggle with alcoholism and finally established his business in a fixed location. He became a success, and his business flourished. As his business success increased, so did his interest in alcohol and drugs. He deceived himself into thinking that his resilience was his Angel. He was wrong. As his addiction increased, he thought he was resilient and could recover. His alcoholism ended with his tragic death at fifty-one years of age.