Unforgettable

While hard at work on my consulting project today, I saw that Natalie Cole died yesterday, and this song immediately began to play on my internal sound system:

Unforgettable
That's what you are,
Unforgettable
Tho' near or far.

Like a song of love that clings to me,
How the thought of you does things to me.
Never before
Has someone been more...

Unforgettable
In every way,
And forever more
That's how you'll stay.

That's why, darling, it's incredible
That someone so unforgettable
Thinks that I am
Unforgettable, too.

This song fits this day for more reason than one: I am reading a book (in the car) called Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget. I am really enjoying it, as I do a good memoir, and it's good for me to read memoirs right now since I'm trying to write one of my own.

It's also a particularly fascinating read for me, the child of an alcoholic and a once problem drinker myself. Although blackouts weren't an ordinary part of my drinking M.O., they definitely happened, and it scares the crap out of me to think of the compromising situations I put myself in that I can't even fully recall. Many of these escapades were in Australia, but some were right here in Wisco.

It makes me shudder to think of the possibility of my children drinking the way I did, or God forbid the way my Dad or Uncle did, especially since I know how little influence parents have over children's drinking, particularly after they leave home. I guess all I can do is model a healthy relationship with alcohol and leave the door open for my kids to communicate with me about it, neither of which my parents did...