Every parent knows that when the phone rings early in the morning (or late at night) that it\u2019s probably bad news.<\/p>\n
I got that call last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlex died this morning,\u201d Lynn Saltzgaver said.<\/p>\n
Alex is my son. Lynn is his wife. Allison is their daughter, and our (Maria and I) granddaughter.<\/p>\n
Alex had been struggling for the last couple of months with the medical ramifications of too much alcohol for too long. It\u2019s a hereditary thing, as those who know me well can understand.<\/p>\n
I had been out to Colorado a couple of weeks earlier when he was sent to the hospital \u2013 ICU \u2013 for some serious internal bleeding. I don\u2019t need to go into detail, but last week was a repeat times 10. He made it to the hospital, but nothing could be done.<\/p>\n
I could go through the cliches of how parents aren\u2019t supposed to bury their children, how he died too young, the tragedy of a teenaged girl losing her father \u2013 and all that is true. Alex is my only natural child, and the loss is hard to bear.<\/p>\n
Is it stupid to feel bad that my male bloodline ends here?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m blessed to have Aimee, Charlotte and John, Maria\u2019s kids, who I consider my own. Lynn and Allison will forever be my children, too.<\/p>\n
But Alex is dead.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m mad at him. Or more accurately, I am mad at the demon that ensnared him, then killed him.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m mad at myself. I don\u2019t know why or how I missed the signs of alcoholism, and I, of all people, should have been able to do something about it before the demon messed with Alex\u2019s mind and decimated Alex\u2019s body.<\/p>\n
Alex died when he was 47 years old. I got sober when I was 47 years old \u2013 after nearly 30 years of drinking. The difference? I think it was God.<\/p>\n
So where was God for Alex? He was there for him too, and, I pray, He believed Alex had fought and suffered enough. But believing that is hard, especially when I look at Lynn, and Allison.<\/p>\n
I will be forever grateful to Maria for her love and support through this. His death was hard on her too.<\/p>\n
The love and caring response from my work family at Sunstone and my amazing community of church and friends in Long Beach will be forever in my heart.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m still mad.<\/p>\n
Some of you know that I published a book last January. It\u2019s called No Walk in the Park; Newspapers, Booze and God.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the story of my alcoholism and how God saved me to serve the community. My sobriety date is Sept. 13, and this Sunday will be my 25th sober anniversary.<\/p>\n
I sent Alex a copy of the book right after it came out. I waited for a couple of months for a response. I finally broke down and asked him what he thought.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t read it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
That set off alarm bells. When I tried to get him to talk about drinking, he refused.<\/p>\n
I had written the book in hopes that it would help people suffering through addiction to find a way out, and here I wasn\u2019t even able to help my own son.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t push hard enough. I should have forced him into rehab while there was still a chance.<\/p>\n
Except if there has been one thing I\u2019ve learned through my walk in alcoholism, AA and rehabilitation, it is that help isn\u2019t going to work unless the person wants that help.<\/p>\n
And I could not make him want it. Did I try enough? I don\u2019t know. I\u2019ll never know.<\/p>\n
So what I have left is the Alex who was the real Alex. I can picture his grin when as a 12-year-old he figured out how to throw the curve ball I showed him. I can see him in a blue graduation gown at Carbondale High, and a black gown four years later at the University of Colorado.<\/p>\n
I can remember the golf trip where we met at St. George, Utah, (where my dad lived) and he conned me into playing 36 holes two days in a row, all in 100-degree heat.<\/p>\n
I played golf with him again the morning of the day I married Maria aboard the Queen Mary. He was, of course, my best man.<\/p>\n
I have a picture I took of him holding Allison a few hours after she was born, the culmination of a multi-year trip for Alex and Lynn to have a child. I remember a good man.<\/p>\n
If you are still reading this, thank you for putting up with my attempt to express my grief. Death, and even death of children, is mankind\u2019s lot. I grieve with all mothers and fathers who lose their children to disease, war, drugs and more.<\/p>\n
There is no way for me to understand God\u2019s will. I\u2019ll admit, I\u2019m having a hard time accepting it right now.<\/p>\n
But Alex is in a better place, and that\u2019s something I can and will accept.<\/p>\n
God bless you, son.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every parent knows that when the phone rings early in the morning (or late at night) that it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,8462,8461,131,133,132,137,3738],"class_list":["post-459347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-grunion-opinion","tag-grunion-pinch-of-salt","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-the-grunion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}