David Magee - Dear William: A Fathers Memoir of Addiction, Recovery, Love, and Loss

Contents

Praise for Dear William

Its been decades since Ive read a literary offering like Dear William. Through inventive storytelling and heart bursting revelations, David Magee welcomes us into the making and near breaking of an American family. Tone is one of the hardest narrative tools to responsibly wield. The tone here is breathtakingly brilliant, carrying us into unexpected depths of despair and concentrated layers of joy. Walk with this book, consider new beginnings and ends of loss, and be forever changed.

Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy and Carnegie Medal winner

David Magee passionately brings to life a story of joy and devastationone that invites the reader into a world of boundless love and sacrifice. I feel so lucky to bear witness to this vital recollection. This powerful and revelatory memoir plants seeds for a future in which his sons legacy becomes synonymous with the word love.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil, New York Times bestselling author of World of Wonders

Dear William is a staggering and generous gift. Here, David Magee documents and illuminates an epic American family saga. In the writing, he translates pain into revelation, loss into propulsion, tortured despair into buoyant hope.

John T. Edge, author of The Potlikker Papers and host of True South

Dear William educated me as a parent, dazzled me as a writer, and moved me as a human. This book is a big, soulful account, told with fearless honesty and insight. David Magees ardent-hearted journey will inspire all.

Tom Franklin, New York Times bestselling author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

Dear William is big and bold. It is heartbreaking and unflinching, a story of loss and grief and pain that knocks us to the floor yet lifts us back up to somehow face the world. A remarkable story.

John Archibald, Pulitzer Prizewinning columnist and author of Shaking the Gates of Hell

David Magee connects with parents and students on the topic of substance misuse and personal responsibility like few people I have witnessed. He started a movement and he hasnt let up sinceinspiring students and parents as a speaker and starting a university wellness center. His voice resonates with vulnerability and common sense, with a story every parent and every student can benefit from.

Dr. Brandi Hephner LaBanc, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, University of Massachusetts

Dear William

Also by David Magee

How Toyota Became #1

MoonPie: Biography of an Out-of-This-World Snack

The John Deere Way

The Education of Mr. Mayfield

Endurance: Winning Lifes Majors the Phil Mickelson Way

Ford Tough: Bill Ford and the Battle to Rebuild Americas Automaker

Playing to Win: Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys

Turnaround: How Carlos Ghosn Rescued Nissan

Dear William

A Fathers Memoir of Addiction,
Recovery, Love, and Loss

DAVID MAGEE

Matt Holt Books

An Imprint of BenBella Books, Inc.

Dallas, TX

The events, locations, and conversations in this book, while true, are re-created from the authors memory. However, the essence of the story, and the feelings and emotions evoked, are intended to be accurate representations. In certain instances, names, persons, organizations, and places have been changed to protect an individuals privacy.

Dear William copyright 2021 by David Magee

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

BenBella Books, Inc.

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BenBella is a federally registered trademark.

Matt Holt and logo are trademarks of BenBella Books.

First E-Book Edition: November 2021

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021020358

ISBN 9781953295682

eISBN 9781637740026

Copyediting by Lyric Dodson

Proofreading by Michael Fedison and Greg Teague

Text design and composition by PerfecType, Nashville, TN

Cover design by Brigid Pearson

Cover image Shutterstock / Lunatictm

Author photo by Lo Magee

Special discounts for bulk sales are available.

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For every child who is lost and every parent who has lost a child.

Contents

This story is true, according to my memory and interpretation.
Others may recollect differently. Also, some names and characteristics are changed.

T he officer standing in the doorway raised his arm when I stepped forward, blocking my entrance to my sons apartment. I tried to peer over his blue-uniformed shoulder to gaze around the corner to where the body of my son sat on the couch. My precious WilliamI saw him take his first breaths at birth, and Id cried as I looked down at him and pledged to keep him safe forever. Now, within a day of his final breath, I wanted to see him again.

Please, I said to the officer.

Listen, he said, and I dragged my eyes from straining to see William to the officers face. His brown eyes were stern but not unkind. You dont want to see this.

I do, I said. Its my son.

He glanced over his shoulder, then back at me. Death isnt pretty, he said. Hes bloated. His bowels turned loose. Thats what happens when people die and are left alone for a day or more.

I didnt say anything. I couldnt.

And theres something else, he said.

What?

Hes still got a $20 bill rolled up in his hand used for whatever he was snorting.

I felt the pavement beneath my feet seem to tilt. I reached to steady myself on the splintered doorjamb one of the officers had forced open with a crowbar just minutes before.

At his hip, the officers radio squawked. I knew the ambulance would be here soon. Your sonwe found him with his iPad in his lap. It looks like he was checking his email to see what time he was due at work in the morning.

Yes, William was proud of holding down that job at the Apple Store. He was trying to turn things around.

Its typical, really, the officer continued. Thats how addicts are. Snorting a fix while hoping to do right and get to work the next day. Its always about the moment.

This past year, William had been the chief trainer at the Apple Store, and hed been talking again about heading to law school, the old dream seeming possible once more now that he was sober. He seemed to have put the troubles of the previous year, with his fits and starts in treatment, behind him. Theyd kicked William out of one center in Colorado because he drank a bottle of cough syrup. Another center tossed him out because he and a fellow rehabber successfully schemed over two weeks to purchase one fentanyl pill each from someone in the community with a dental appointment. They swallowed their pills in secret, but glassy eyes ratted them out to other patients, who alerted counselors. When asked, William confessed, hoping the admission might move the counselors to give him a second chance. But they sent him packing back to Nashville, where his rehab treatment had begun. One counselor advised us to let William go homeless. Well drop him off at the Salvation Army with his clothing and $10, he said. Often, thats what it takes.