If you have issues with your dad, address them while there's time

To the editor,

Billy Cunningham, 63-year-old talk radio host recounted a gut wrenching story during his broadcast last Sunday night. His father was an alcoholic who ended up abandoning Billy, his mom and three siblings when he was 12 years old. Fast forward 15 years to when Billy was 27, recently married and a new dad himself. His father, who he had not heard from at all in those 15 years, called him requesting to see him and told him he was dying of cancer and only had a month or two to live. He basically told his dad that since he had not been there for him, he wanted nothing to do with him during his dying days and hung up.

Fast forward many years later as Billy became a famous personality. People came out of the woodwork to tell Billy about their relationship with his father. His father, a marine and World War II veteran had been involved in the battles of Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal. They told him: your dad as a young man serving his country for the first time, had to kill other human beings and had to endure the agony of watching many of his buddies die bloody, horrible deaths. Back then, the VA had no mental health programs, no psychological counseling and post traumatic stress disorder was an unknown entity. They told Billy that it just tore his father up inside. He was sucked into an emotional vortex of torture to which there was no escaping and he turned to the bottle to gain relief from the intense, unrelenting mental anguish and pain.

Billy informed all of us that every father's day, he now deals with the pangs of guilt and remorse for not being there for his dad in his time of need. He does not excuse his dad's behavior in abandoning a family that desperately needed his love and financial support. But, it does give a level of understanding to that behavior, that had he known, would have given him some measure of relief from the pain and hurt that he had carried for all those years. It may also have afforded him the necessary insight to handle that very difficult phone call in a more compassionate and reasoned way.

Billy was using his own personal journey to implore all who have issues with their dads to address them and make amends while there is still time. Mr. Cunningham's heart rendering story should be enough to motivate most anyone to reflect on the woulda, coulda, shoulda's with respect to their relationship with their dads. If this letter prompts just one person to pick up the phone and reach out to a mom or dad they have been estranged with, then this retelling will have been well worth it.

Russ Wiles

Tilton