A Story of Addiction & Loss

Month: June 2017

My Father’s Day Fantasy Of You

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Matt,  tomorrow is Father’s day.   Today my mind is full of what if’s.   What if you found recovery.   What if you found the one.   What if you married on the beach like we both dreamed you would.   I picture you standing by the crashing waves holding the hands of your bride.    Her gown is softly blowing lifted by the soft sea breeze.   You are dressed in khaki pants and a white shirt.  Both wearing flip flops.   Your sun kissed face so handsome.   You glance my way as our eyes meet sharing the joy of your recovery    The sun is shining down as you become man and wife.    I’m standing by your side.   Tears of joy falling from my smiling eyes.   The sound of the crashing waves take the place of a band.   We dance in the sand to the sound of the gulls laughing as if they know how amazing this day truly is.

I imagine getting that call.   I can hear your voice.   The joy and fear mingled together as you tell me you are going to be a father.   My heart so ready to welcome your child.   I close my eyes and remember my little tow headed boy.   Your crooked smile and silly laugh.   I remember your tenderness with animals.  Your love for the sea.  Your feistiness when trying to keep up with your big brother, Mike.   Most of all I remember your beautiful eyes.   Indescribable in color.   A beautiful contrast to your natural sandy hair.

Memories of your childhood rush through my mind.   Losing your first tooth.   Your first home run in Little League.   That proud smile as you yelled at me to let you go as I stood back and watched you take off on your first bike.   Your tan face shining in the sun as the biggest fish hung from your pole.

I allow myself to imagine you as a father.   Meeting you at the hospital as you welcome your first child.   I always imagined you with a girl.   A sweet tow head like you.  A tiny thing you would carry close to your heart.   I would watch as you wore your heart on your sleeve as she wrapped you around her finger.   I imagine you placing your precious child in my arms as we both cry tears of joy at this miracle of life.

I stare into those amazing eyes just as I did so many years before when you were placed into my arms for the first time.    Overwhelming love floods my being as I remember your softness.   Your smell.   I imagine her grabbing my finger like you did and holding on as we rock together.

I imagine you bringing her to the sea you love.   I see the two of you running through the surf with a black lab puppy biting at your feet.   Familiar squeals fill the air.   You glance back at me remembering when it was us.   A mother and her young son loving the innocence of running  through the crashing surf.   The dogs barking, the gulls yelling.   You are now a man, a father, and my heart is soaring like a kite caught in a beautiful breeze as I  watch you.

Reality hits and shatters the beauty of my fantasy..  You are gone.  You left no one behind.   No precious child to help your broken mother survive life without you.   During your active addiction I was relieved there was no child to witness your struggle.   Today my arms ache to hold a piece of you.   To be able to hear a voice and see a smile that brings you back to me.   To be able to look into those incredible eyes and know you are still with me.

In my Heart I pray that Heaven is a beach and you are holding a child on your shoulders looking out at the vastness of the sea remembering me.   My beautiful boy you are loved forever.

The First Year Fog

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Matt.   The professionals call it grief brain.   I call it being hit in the head by a tornado.   I used to call myself a smart girl.   Once a capable human being.   Able to care for the tiniest, sickest infant.  Functioning at my highest capacity.   Being a wife.   Being your mother and fighting your battle like it was my own.   Never missing a beat.   Being able to rattle off a diagnosis and calculate the most complicated drug dose while working in the NICU.    Today my brain is scrambled.  Like an egg thats been dropped from the counter.   My brain in pieces all over the floor.   Shattered like the town that was once whole but now nonexistent.

All I remember is being wrapped in a fog.   After hearing the words I’ve dreaded throughout your struggle with addiction.   “It’s Matt, he’s dead”.   I remember feeling like my body was no longer attached to my being.   I was in another dimension.   Unable to hear or feel anything.   I felt a protective cocoon envelope my soul and I heard the door shut with a slam.   My brain protecting itself from what would become my harsh reality.

I feel like I’m walking around in a soft, warm fog.   Everything I used to be now a distant memory.   I feel safe here.   My grief cocoon.   Surviving  the first year without you has been excruciating.    I try to break free of the fog.   In my psyche I know I must come to a place in time where I can face reality.   I just don’t know if I can survive.    I’m told the brain protects us from overwhelming, crippling grief.    I say thank God it does.    I would have lost my mind months ago if my fog hadn’t settled over me like it does over the harbor on a humid night.   Protecting my heart from the harsh reality of what has become of my life.

My nightmare keeps trying to break through.   Reality continues it attempts to seep through my fog like blood soaks through a cloth.    My brain continues to resist knowing I am consumed with disbelief and I’m struggling to accept my new reality.

There are days I feel like I’m losing my mind.   Days I just cannot allow myself to believe there will be no more you.    I’m having trouble believing I’ve survived a year without hearing your voice or seeing your smile.   I go through the motions of life.   I get up and crawl through the grief punches.   I put on my mask to face the world but in my mind I’m gone.   I’m told I made it through all the firsts.    Like I should be given that purple ribbon of grief and put your loss behind me.    It’s time to live again.    What no one understands is that living is the most painful thing I do.

My grief has become a part of who I am.   This first year has been the hardest time of my life.   Brief memories find their way through my fog.   Memories of us on the beach.   Life before your demons took over.   Memories of a mother and her son fighting for his life.   Those struggles seem like a walk in the park when compared to the reality of my life.   I go there briefly knowing that if I stay I will be lost forever.

Everyday is a struggle.   I battle my demons now as your demons took you away.   The guilt of the what if’s and I should haves spin out of control threatening to crash into my fog with a blazing light exposing me for who I really am.

Learning how to breathe.   Learning how to pretend that I feel.   Learning that I must go on without you.   I feel like an infant needing to learn how to navigate a new life.     A broken mother searching for the pieces of her mind.   Settling back into the protective fog when grief whips her heart.

I’m told life goes on.   I’m told the grief changes.   I’m told it gets easier.   For now my fog is a welcome place.   I’m not ready to see the future without you.   My fog wraps me in the warmth of loving hug.   I will emerge when I’m ready.   Until then I will allow my mind and heart to heal at their own pace.   For now my fog is a where I need to be………

 

 

 

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