Member-only story

It’s YOUR Job — Responsibility, Stepping Up

Lucas A. Davidson
3 min readJan 11, 2025

--

Daily Meditation 1,042–1/11/2025

When Sammy was just 10, his mother passed. It didn’t seem to be anything Sammy understood. He remembered accompanying her to the doctors (“anything to get you out of this house”), but didn’t remember the why or what had happened. He thought it was her heart, but who knows…

One day, she just stopped eating, lost a ton of weight, and then died.

Sammy had an older sister who was 17 at the time and his youngest sister, Lily, who was only 2.

Sammy’s dad had always enjoyed a beer with supper and then maybe two or three more in the evening. “Pour it in a glass,” Sammy’s mom would scold dad, “at least with supper. The can is so uncouth in front of the kids.”

After she passed, dad starting bringing the can to the dinner table. Then three cans. Then stopped cooking altogether and moved to a mostly…liquid diet of Hamms or whatever swill had the cheapest 30 pack.

By the time Sammy was 12, his dad was a fully functional alcoholic who’s “functionalness” lead him to misbelieve he could drink at work. Well, he couldn’t. He lost that job and soon they were all living on assistance.

After his sister immediately moved out, Sammy’s dad sold their once beautiful 5 bedroom ranch home in the nice part of…

--

--

Lucas A. Davidson
Lucas A. Davidson

Written by Lucas A. Davidson

Daily philosophical meditations on Eudaimonia. These are distillations from the forthcoming book on the topic. Comments or jobs: lucas@multistatewide.com

Responses (1)