What follows is a story from my past. I often have thought that I was deprived of the finer things of life coming from a rural heritage where making ends meet was daily challenge. As I write more, I am discovering the richness of my early experiences and I am appreciating the abundance of my current life. The person below was truly robbed of his riches and potential abundance. I knew him.

Emil had been constantly drunk, more or less, since of the age of sixteen. He had accidentally killed his father, who in a drunken rage loaded his shotgun with the intention of doing away with his wife and several children. Emil was the oldest.

The source of his father’s drunken rage will never be known. Men worked or talked about work, they did not mention what was bothering them. Perhaps the frustration that comes with much responsibility and meager resources lead to the gradual and lethal erosion of his fragile capacity to cope.

Fifty some years later, when less drunk himself, Emil could still hear the crack of the bat on the back of his father’s head and see him drop instantly to the floor. It was as much as his senses could bear so he never allowed himself to sober up completely.

Not since the shock of what he had done began to wear off and he discovered the bottle of whiskey, half of it remaining, that had fueled his father’s anger. The warmth that spread through him with just a couple of swallows, was an overwhelming relief from the intensity of his realization of what he had done.

Emil returned to that bottle frequently over the following days. He nursed the last few drops out of it and also found others not well hidden around the house and farm buildings where he had lived and worked all of his young life.

What had been his home up until then was now a constant reminder that the nightmare in his sleep was real when he awoke each morning. The headache, fuzzy mind, and upset stomach quickly became a way of life, as did the “hair of the dog that bit you” from the bottle now hidden in his closet that got him out of bed each morning.

No one in his family ever spoke to Emil about what had happened. It was all too horrible and everyone was trying to forget it. His mother fell into long periods of silence, moving and speaking only as much as necessary to provide basic child-care and housekeeping.

She spoke least of all to Emil. He had saved her life and killed her husband with a single blow. Unraveling the mix of conflicting emotions she felt had to be overwhelming. She coped by trying to remember all the good things about the man she married and had lived with for years. As she drifted repeatedly into those thoughts, she erased her last horrifying image of him and blamed his absence on Emil in the form of a simmering resentment.

Emil left home within a few months. He just walked away one day, leaving his chores undone and his uncle, who had taken over the farm, to do the fieldwork. How could he stay there any longer?

He stopped at a farm further down the road and asked to work there for a small wage, room and board. The neighbor, who knew him to be a responsible, and hard working youth, was only too happy to have the extra help.

“How’s your mother?” he asked politely.

“Not too bad,” Emil replied, a common answer drawing little attention, allowing him to keep his talking to a minimum in order to avoid any further hint of slurred words and telltale breath.

Pleasantries over, Emil went immediately to work. Over the years of working for others, he managed, when less impaired, to become a jack-of-all trades and master of none which provided him with at least a subsistence income.

I first met Emil when he came to our farm to “cut” the little male pigs. He performed basic veterinary practices for farmers who did not want to pay veterinary medicine prices.

I remember watching him dispatch private parts from loudly squealing little pigs with a very sharp pocketknife and no anesthesia. Unless, of course, you counted what was coursing through Emil’s veins. I am sure he never felt a thing for those pigs. I, on the other hand, was frightened and stood back against a wall with my hands held protectively in front of me.

When Emil was finished my Dad paid him with a bottle of whiskey rather then cash. He figured he might as well save Emil a trip to the liquor store especially since cash was less of an incentive to keep him working than the promise of a drink at the end.

I became a special person to Emil, the youngest son of his benefactor, a man who would seat himself at the bar, order a drink and say, “give Emil a shot and a beer chaser.” I later realized that my Dad, who I had always seen as hardworking and unfeeling, had compassion for Emil, and that was his way of showing it.

Whenever Emil saw me he would say, “There’s the caboose,” indicating my birth order status, put his arm around me, breathe his liquor breath into my face, and give me whatever pennies, nickels and the odd dime he managed to dig out of his pocket.

Emil always knew who I was, long after I had my own money. And I always said hello to him, even when he could hardly hold his head up off the bar and it took a considerable effort for him to recognize me.

“There’s the caboose,” he would finally manage to slobber.

I now know that whatever sensitivity and feelings for others I can claim comes partly from my Dad. We shared a kindness for Emil.

Emil lived to be ninety but he died when he was sixteen. He was like a fresh garden cucumber that became a pickle in a jar for all those many years. In fact, people said he lived as long as he did because he was so pickled. His last months were spent in a continuing care facility where there were no shots of whiskey with beer chasers served.

Emil was finally completely sober. People said he sat alone and said very little. I wonder what he remembered accurately of his life, probably very little after his mind blurred at sixteen. And why would he want to pick up where clarity left off when he no longer had an escape from it? Time, by itself, does not heal all wounds.

I hope that Emil spent his remaining time remembering what he could of the good things he knew of his family, and especially of his father, so that he could finally let go of that last horrifying image.