This time of year reminds me of that night in the truck...

I have a photograph of my husband on my desk. It is not the best photograph that he has ever taken. In fact, it may be the worst. He appears sweaty and sallow. His skin seems clammy and almost a translucent green color. His Adam’s Apple is jutting out from his neck, which it normally doesn’t do. In this photo, he is 30 pounds skinnier than most anyone has ever seen him. He appears weak, sickly even. His eyes show a mixture of absolute bliss and pure panic and fear. His mouth is turned up into a smile that looks as though it could start to quiver at any moment.

When you look at the photo as a whole part, you may wonder if this man had a terminal illness – is he dying? When you pick apart every piece of the face, then you begin to see the story unfold.

When people at work see this photo, they usually ask if Ziggy is ill in the photo, or if he had cancer or something – he does look that bad and most everyone at work knows him, because he did work here years ago.

And yet, with all of the bad things that I know and that I hear about this photograph, it is still the ONE photo that I refuse to ever move away from my line of vision. This photograph means more to me than almost any other photograph that I own. It humbles me and brings me feelings of warmth towards him during times when I want to hit him and it reminds me of who I am and what I can handle.

This photograph is the very first one that was ever taken of Ziggy where there are no lies behind his eyes, no double life hidden inside his brain. This photograph was taken on 12/24/05; two weeks after Ziggy stepped into the world of the clean and sober for the first time and for God willing, the rest of his life.

He was suffering in this photo. Physically, he was still experiencing painful withdrawals. He was not sleeping well. He was still crying out and screaming and thrashing in his sleep. He was not eating yet. He was probably closer to death than any of us realized or cared to admit. He was panicked and fearful of old friends knocking on the door when they figured out that he had changed his cell phone number. He was paranoid that I would change my mind and withdraw my hand from his hand and decide that, no, I cannot stand by your side through this and I cannot forgive you enough yet to put myself to the side for a little while longer while we get you well.

Anyway, for those of you who think you know a lot about that time of my life, there is so much you don’t know. For those of you who don’t know anything about that time in my life, get ready. Now that the first few cold fronts have blown in, the memories have begun rushing in and so have the dreams. Ziggy’s three year sobriety anniversary is coming up, and while I love to celebrate this time of year, I also loathe it. The months of October and November 2005 were the worst, the rock bottom, the near death, the hell before the dawn. While most of the city was suffering in the aftermath of Katrina, rebuilding my home was nothing compared to the events that followed on the Saturday in October that Ziggy returned home from where he was evacuated in Dallas.