I have really never found the activities of Thanksgiving enjoyable. I really can’t put my finger on why. I do know that, when I was married, it meant going to the homes of my parents and, later, the home of my wife’s parents. In between, there might be other stops required for the obligatory "Season’s Greetings" and other frivolities. I always found the whole "artificial" process disheartening and, frankly, boring.

But, this year was entirely different. I was to be joined at one of the required gatherings by my son, who I had not seen (and only rarely heard from) for over 6 years. It was, once again, the tired old story of a estranged father and son who were, after years of animus and trying, vainly I suspect on both our parts, to ignore each other’s presence on earth, reuniting. The ice was finally broken and, suffice it to say, father and son had an enjoyable reunion, at long last.

The story of how this separation occurred in the first place is worth telling if for no other reason that to give other fathers and sons hope that, despite much hatred and hurt feelings, gaping wounds can be breeched and, maybe, even healed. I hope so. For if Ronnie (he is the III in the "chain of Ronalds"; I am the "Jr.") and I can reunite through the harsh and painful trials we have experienced together, then any bridge can be crossed.

I have written of my children before on this site that I suspect much of this will not be new but might, perchance, serve to frame how the conflict began. I was blessed with twin boys, August 29^th, 1980. Their birth was not uneventful but, for the sake of brevity, I will state the obvious: they both made it to adulthood despite prematurity (2.5 lbs at birth), hyaline membrane disease (the lung disease common to preemies), a hereditary blood disorder (courtesy of your truly) and various and sundry other afflictions, not the least of which they were born in an Army hospital. They lived fairly privileged lives (tragically and irreparably spoiled by the father) and did what young boys usually did in their adolescence.

In their late teenage years, things began to sour. With their mother and father constantly waging emotional warfare at home and cohabitating rather than being married, they began to drift into the world of drugs, as children from troubled homes so often do. They both did steroids to "bulk up" and then, most catastrophically, moved on to worse illicit substance abuse. They began to chronically use GhB (gamma hydroxy butyrate). The daily use of this dangerous drug began to affect their behaviors and their school performance. Ronnie was summarily kicked out of school his senior year; somehow, Danny managed to graduate.

To fund their habit, Ronnie began to sell GhB which, at the time, was just hitting the radar of the DEA and it was made a federal crime to sell it a year of so before Ronnie was caught doing just that. He was sentenced to a year in Federal prison but it was suspended if he agreed to mandatory drug testing. He failed enough of the tests that he ended up doing his full sentence in a minimum security Federal facility about 90 minutes from Birmingham.

While he was incarcerated, Danny continued his downward spiral. Without his older brother to keep him at least partially in line - Ronnie was always the "alpha" male of the pair - the youngest twin fell completely into the sewer of worsening drug abuse. I suspect he was using methamphetamine among other things and continued his GhB habit. Despite in-patient psychiatric care and rehab clinics, Danny never pulled out of his dive to oblivion. He died in his sleep in May, 2002.

In my mind, this was when the schism cracked open between father and son. I believe, though we have not reached the point in our new relationship to actually discuss this touchy topic, that Ronnie felt more than a little responsible for his younger brother’s death. I am equally convinced that he blamed me, possibly in equal or greater measure, for our family tragedy because, by now, I had left our family home and was in the process of obtaining a divorce when Danny died. I went to see Ronnie in prison a couple of times after Danny died and the atmosphere was cordial but never approached the closeness we had once shared in better years. I stopped visiting about 3 months before Ronnie’s release - probably, from equal measures of stubbornness and laziness on my part. If I was not going to be treated as his father, the hell if I were going to drive that 90 miles each way to experience what was more like visiting a prison pen pal. Yes, Virginia, there are lousy fathers just like there is a Santa Claus. I was in the former category.

After Ronnie’s release, He made a decision that, I believe, ultimately saved his life. He was smart enough (he always was the smartest in most crowds) to recognize that if he returned to his old home and his old friends, he would very likely fall back into the same old destructive behaviors he had (barely) lived through before. So, unbeknownst to me, he convinced his presiding judge to allow his to serve out his probationary period in Nashville. He vanished to Music City without so much as a fare-thee-well to dear old dad, found a half-way house that actually worked and slowly climbed out of the mire and the muck he was stuck in. He breezed through his drug tests and was finished probation with flying colors. He eventually passed his GED, got a job as a salesman and, according to reliable reports, is doing quite well. He had paid his debt to society and, though he cannot vote (convicted felon and all), he is beginning to put his shattered life back together. I pray he is also getting over some of the guilt he might still feel over the loss of his younger twin.

For the past 3 or 4 years, there was always the rumor that Ronnie would be coming home for Thanksgiving or Christmas but, like a morning fog, when the day arrived he would call his older sister (with whom he has always been close) to offer some excuse as to why he "just couldn’t make it" this year. It was her job to try, in vain, to convince dad that it had nothing to do with me and it was "just one of those things". I would smile, as best I could, hug my daughter and half-heartedly mouth words to the effect: "I understand! No big deal. I am sure it couldn’t be helped". All the time, I knew my oldest son just wasn’t ready to face his dad. Too much pain, too many memories and too much anger lay between us.

To say I was not hurt by this annual snubbing would be a nice lie to tell but a lie, nevertheless. I missed my child and, not knowing what would ever remedy the situation, just allowed it to lay fallow and rotting, like dead leaves. Maybe I would never see him again. Maybe, my faults in fatherhood and failures as a teacher and role model could never be surmounted. I thought of it as a curse: one son buried below ground, one son, figuratively, buried above ground. I began to feel I deserved the dual vacuum that grew annually in my heart and walled myself off from feeling much of anything. I became a bit of a hermit and an "island unto myself". Numbness, after all, is much easier to deal with than pain and failure.

This year, the rumors of a reunion didn’t come, as in the past, from Rhonda but from Ronnie, himself. He called a couple weeks prior to Thanksgiving and proudly announced he would be in Birmingham for the holiday. I told him, half seriously, that if he didn’t show up, I would drive to Nashville and bodily drag him home. He seemed to accept that in the spirit I meant it: that his coming to town was important to me. He swore he would and, this year (sound of cracking ice) he did.

We had a wonderful family gathering, three generations of Ronald Gene Albrights (Sr., Jr., and the III) all embraced for the first time in over half a decade. Dad, recently turning 80 and not in the best of health, seemed 25 years younger. Ronnie III seemed to smile the whole time and, well, yours truly was blessed beyond measure. After all, at least for one day, I had my son back.

And, now, after all these years, Thanksgiving is no longer a chore to dread but a memory to be thought of often and with tremendous fondness. And, I am not too proud to admit, with the hint of a tear of happiness in my eyes.