Tribulations Essays - 9, DraftZoro 4 Eva, Nicola DOnofrio

Tribulations He always loved his gin in the morning, noon, and night; it came to him like water and it was impossible for him to leave home without it. No one could ever sway him from his essential life fluid. It wouldn't matter whether you cried, pleaded, or begged on your two knees, he would not stop. He only started to drink this much when he was 35 and I was about 9 at the time, no one could explain this drastic change in him. Before, he used to drink often but now, it's just crazy how much he drinks. Also, when he did this he stayed more to himself than usual. His routine was mapped the same way day after day- go to work, come home, drink, eat, and sleep. Talking became alien to us because my mom and I was angry at him for not wanting to take care of himself better and he was angry with us for putting so much pressure on him to find out what's wrong. Anyone was lucky if they see a smile on our faces at any point because there were barely any happy moments and there was constant fighting. Arguments took over any type of talking we had to have with each other. After a while, it didn't matter if we tried to talk because it seemed as if we all fixed our schedules so we only had to spend as little time as possible with one another with the exception of having someone in the house in case of an emergency when he became sick. I could see the pain my mom was going through around this time. She was such a cheerful woman who always used to come home with a smile no matter how hard her day was. Now, all you saw was sadness as if someone just killed her soul. She seemed like she wanted to cry each time she stepped into the house. Her mind seemed to drift when she came home like she was in a coma. I knew she didn't want to live this life anymore by the way she dragged herself into the house, by the way she talks with dreariness and by her glassy eyes whenever she loked at me. For almost a year before we found out about his illness, we had to cope with dealing with the continuous pains he used to have around his stomach area. During his sick spells, he constantly vomited and basically screamed for his dear life because of the strain it was putting on his heart. His screams were so loud our neighbors once had to come over to see what was going on with the thought that someone was being tortured. The doctor said he didn't know how he was still alive today because he barely had a liver to live on and with the continued strain on his heart, he should be dead right now. He never wanted to go to the hospital even though we tried to sign him in but without the persons' consent; there was no way for the hospital to keep him. The last time we tried, we rushed him to the hospital in the middle of the night because he was coughing up blood, which was the first time then. The hospital took him in and kept him overnight. Our doctor wanted to keep him there to try to help his symptoms and we acknowledged for the permission to keep him. But apparently, my father had no intentions on staying because when my mother and I came home from work the next day, we saw him lying on his bed nonchalantly watching television with a drink in his hand. Then came December 29th, 1991, he's been in the same condition over the year and grown worse. His skin color has gotten pale and his body weight dropped a drastic 43 pounds. He was barely capable of talking or walking on his own two feet. My grandmother, who was his mother, could barely stay with him for an entire five minutes without crying because all anyone could see in his face then was the pain he had gone through. Today and throughout the night, we didn't get any rest because his pains got stronger and stronger. He was vomiting blood and actually had blood tears from his eyes. His eyes became bloodshot and his veins were outlined through his skin through the stress it was causing on him. We had