Artist and writer, Terry Barker, is an engaging, grandfatherly sort of gentleman, widely known for a popular series of illustrated books and a regular Sunshine Sketches column in the Coast Reporter newspaper. What most people don't know is that the eighty-one year old Barker is a recovering alcoholic - he recently celebrated 30-something years of sobriety!
Barker's latest book is a dramatic break from his familiar genre. Last Chance This Life is a soul-baring collection of one-hundred of the nearly five-hundred letters that he wrote to his fifty-year-old addicted son whose sudden plunge into the Downtown Eastside culture, and present battle with crack, lung disease, and emphysema, still threatens to take his extended family hostage.
Reading this collection of letters, we watch Barker's daily ritual of putting pen to paper and post, evolving from self-conscious duty to reverent ceremony.
Initially the letters are mostly intentionally light (apart from the 'unabashed preaching'): random thoughts, bits of family news and a doggerel or off-colour joke-of-the-day wrap. There are some poignant searchings for self and son: "How's your life? Not as uneventful as mine, I daresay." Attempts to find common ground through philosophical discussions: "The moguls of the movies ... venerated freedom with a passion, and made masterpieces about it. What about today?" In response, his son sends occasional rants, pleas, promises and fairly regular calls to his mother on his 'parents-pay' cell phone.
In his journal, Barker writes of 'furious discussions' with his wife whose 'maternal instinct' repeatedly trumps 12-Step wisdom. Ask yourself or any mother you know - can a mother not want her son to have food on the table and a roof over his head? Can a mother not want so desperately to hold the child she bore to her breast again that she'll forgive and believe? The truth of her child's addiction is a sword in a mother's heart.
Barker is scrupulous about not defining Him/Her/It/Them as he repeatedly urges his son to rely more, as he does, on the indescribable, ever-present Higher Power to whom he owes his life.
Anyone of us whose hearts and lives have been seduced and manipulated by an addict knows that Christmas is a dangerous time. Not surprisingly, when members of the family plan their holidays around his long-awaited visit home, Barker's son is a no-show.
Epiphany should follow Christmas and so it does: Barker took off his gloves to write to his son of the sacrifices and heartbreak his behaviour had caused. The letters that follow are increasingly unguarded as Barker shares some of his own struggles and feelings. He pours out encouragement and hope but he, and the extended family, are learning to keep a firmer grip on reality - which, in itself, is a painful way.
Letters to your addiction-estranged son are not the detached stuff of a column. Little wonder Barker says that publishing this book made him feel like he's running naked through the crowd. So why this exposé
Terry Barker is not looking for sympathy and he's too private a man to want an audience on this journey. He relies on the support of friends who meet regularly to speak the truth, to receive and offer consolation and courage.
It's for the rest of us that Barker has published Last Chance This Life. Most of our lives are affected by addiction. We've put up with the drunken co-workers. We've written cheques or handed over a loonie and hurried out of reach. We've tried to support friends. Many are trying to survive public or painfully private struggles with the physical, financial and emotional ravages of addiction.
Last Chance This Life is Terry Barker - an engaging, grandfatherly gentleman - opening his heart full of suffering and hope, love and wisdom to help us along the way to the truth that the only persons we can save is ourselves - with the help of our Higher Power.
Last Chance This Life is available online at
www.LastChanceThisLife.com or contact Terry Barker, Box 609, Sechelt, B.C. V0N 3A0