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First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.

Cleaning house is never an easy task. Cleaning out the home of a parent who was a hoarder and suffered from an opioid addiction is considerably messier.

My father had been an avid outdoorsman and a loving parent for the first 20 years of my life. He was fortunate to retire with a generous pension at the young age of 53. But unfortunately, this well-deserved respite fell within less than a year of two other significant events: my parents’ separation and eventual divorce, and a back injury that left him with chronic pain and a poorly monitored prescription for heavy painkillers.

A perfect storm of events.

My dad and I only talk about the weather, but you have to start somewhere

So began the downward spiral that would see him in and out of hospital more times than I could count over the past 10 years of his life. Each hospital visit came with tears from my sister and me, and promises from my dad he would change his ways.

Witnessing a loved one travel down the dark path of addiction produces a wide range of thoughts and reactions in an attempt to cope and process the relationship. Some days I felt unloved, as if my dad had selfishly chosen his substance use over me. On other days, I felt self-blame. Maybe if I was a better, more involved daughter, he would change. I’ve worked as a professional addictions counsellor, so the logical part of my mind knows neither of these thoughts is true. But when you are dealing with your own parent, someone who, on some level, you expect to be a role model who should protect you and be someone you can look up to, logic goes out the window. Emotion tells you this person has let you down by choice, which brings on a range of feelings from sadness to frustration and anger.

It was a Friday night when I noticed a missed call from the hospital in the suburb where my father lived.

“Ugh, not again”, I groaned, and felt my blood pressure instantly escalate. I had been through this routine enough times that I was jaded.

I reluctantly returned the hospital’s call, and could even feel myself rolling my eyes as the nurse explained my father was in the emergency room, and was not doing well. When she encouraged me to come as soon as possible, I attempted to reason with her, to absolve myself of the responsibility of travelling an hour out there.

“I don’t know if you know his background," I grumbled, “but this isn’t the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last." But something in her voice made me feel this time was different. I connected with my sister and co-ordinated our all-too-familiar commute.

During the 10 years before my dad died, I grieved the loss of the father I once knew, while continuing a relationship with the offensive stranger who had inhabited his ever-deteriorating body.

It wasn’t until after his death that we discovered his hoarding: rooms in his home were stacked wall-to-wall and floor-to-near ceiling with an assortment of loose items, which appeared to have been tossed in at random, much like the pit at a local dump.

It took three months for my sister and me, and our respective husbands, to sort through the remnants of his life. We filled two large dumpsters with items no healthy person would have kept: oscillating fans in which every blade was broken; single scuba fins; long-expired foods; dozens of two-litre pop bottles that had been refilled with tap water, as if preparing for the apocalypse.

Some of our friends and family suggested we hire junk-removal professionals to make our lives easier. However, we didn’t want to dispose of everything carte blanche for fear of overlooking items worth keeping. Amongst the rubble we did find many treasures: art work created by my great-grandfather; antique wood and leather snowshoes that perfectly represented my dad’s love of the wilderness and Canadiana; a massive glass camera case he had used to take underwater photos during his scuba adventures in the 1970s and 80s.

Then we found a simple box in which our dad kept every hand-made Father’s Day and birthday card my sister and I had ever given him, from kindergarten up until the most recent year. Every single card. It was the most precious item in our treasure hunt. The box reminded me that despite everything he put us through during the final years of his life, he loved us very much. Sometimes loving someone with addictions, and loving yourself, means letting go. It means accepting they can be the only one who can make a change in their life.

Cleaning out my father’s home was one of the most physically and mentally exhausting tasks I’ve ever embarked upon. I know it led to me being short-tempered with my husband or my sister on more than one occasion. As physically and emotionally draining it was, it also kept me busy during a time when I needed distraction. It gave me the space to place the frustrated energy that accompanies the need to feel like I’m “fixing” an unfavourable situation.

Most importantly, this experience gave me the chance to process the heavy burden of grief I had carried for 10 years, and finally say goodbye to the loving father from my childhood.

Jaclyn Broughton lives in Toronto.

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