[freya]

Last night I went to my partner's HG meeting with her. It's a gay/gay-friendly meeting. Anyways, there was this guy (straight guy) there, with whom I used to work and whom I have not seen since I left that job more than 13 years ago.

I had gotten divorced the year before I left that job, and when my ex-husband left, he had left behind several of these penguin items that I and/or our sons had given him -- because we had 2 little boys and I just really loved the fatherhood imagery associated with the Emperor Penguins. Well, this young guy at work and his wife had just had their first baby at that time, and he was all about this baby and parenting and fatherhood, and I was so impressed with how into it all he was and how seriously he was taking it, so I brought one of the little penguin statues up to school, explained to him what it meant to me & why I was trying to get rid of it, and asked him if he wanted it. He did.

Like I said, that was, like, 14 years ago. Anyways, yesterday, he shows up at this meeting, and he recognizes me. (I would not have recognized him.) And he is very excited to see me. So we started talking and he tells me that he got sober about a year ago....and that one of the things that really "inspired" him to do it was that little statue! He said that he has always kept it on his desk at school. His wife had left him in 2003 and that's when his drinking really started to get out-of-control. Finally, one day last year, he was in his office thinking about how terrible his life was and how miserable he was, and he happened to look at that statue and remember the kind of father he had wanted to be...compared to the kind of father he was turning out to be. He said it made him sick with himself.

So, the next day he went to his first AA meeting, and he's been sober ever since!!!!

Wow...that is just so cool...and I'm so grateful that HP "arranged" to let me know about it!

freya