A Story of Addiction & Loss

Month: December 2018

Nothing Happy About My New Year

Matt,   Today is December 31st.   The final day of 2018.   I’m fighting my demons.   Trying to stay away from that dark place where I sit on that slippery slope.   The place where memories become almost too painful that I fight to keep them out of my head.

Our last New Years Eve was in 2014.   We were one thousand miles apart.   I was sitting watching the snow fall and the ball drop welcoming 2015 into our lives.   You were sitting on a beach attending an outdoor NA meeting.   Two different places but with hearts connected.   We spoke briefly.   I told you how proud I was of you and your new found sobriety.   We talked about how your life was finally getting back on track.   We talked about our expectations for 2015 and started the count down until we would see each other again.   I was so looking forward to getting out of this cold and joining you on a sunny beach.

We ended our call with I love you’s as we always did.   I saw your Facebook post about doing the right thing.   You were posting about attending a meeting on New Years Eve instead of partying. My heart was so happy to read those words.   My hope for 2015 was to have you back.   That my amazing Matt was coming back to the surface.   The Matt I knew before the demons took over your soul.   Gazing at the stars on that crisp night, I sent a prayer to the heavens to keep you safe.   I feel asleep thinking we had survived your addiction and this New Year would bring us both peace.

Two days later you were dead.   January 3rd of 2015.  That day hopes and dreams for a happy new year shattered at my feet.   That day my soul shattered like a glass thrown against a concrete wall.   In too many pieces to salvage.

So here I am facing another New Years Eve with only memories to sooth my broken heart.   Facing the fact that January 3rd is coming again.   Reality is difficult to comprehend.   The fact that 2018 will be gone in the blink of an eye, at the drop of a ball, as smiling people begin their resolutions for this New Year.

My heart is jealous of the happy crowds.   Those people who have no idea how painful it is to watch 2014 or 2018 disappear to the count of ten.   Ushering in a New Year is not what I want to do.   I want that ball to go backward.   I want that ball not to drop but to travel back in time.   I want the new year to be an old year returning to when you were alive.

A month after you died, I received a box from Florida.   It contained a few of your personal possessions.   As I opened the box, your smell surrounded my being.   The hat you wore to your meeting on New Years Eve was staring back at me.   Immediately that photo of you flashed through my brain.   I could see your smiling face as you blew a horn welcoming in 2015.

I can’t tell you how many times through the year I’ve run my hands over your hat.   I cover my face searching for your scent.   I hold that hat close to my heart as if I’m giving you a New Years hug.

Tonight I will let my tears flow at will.   Tonight I will gaze at the stars sending a prayer that you are at peace spending this night celebrating in heaven.   Tonight I allow myself to feel what I feel taking each moment as I can.   Tonight watching the ball drop will  be a painful reminder that time does not stop marching on……..

 

All I Want For Christmas Is A Re-Do

Matt,   It’s Christmas day.   My fourth Christmas without you.   I heard the song,  All I Want For Christmas Is You and thought what I really want is a re-do.   I want to re-do our entire lives.   I want father time to give me the power to turn back the clock to when you and Mike were young boys.   I want to take back this knowledge of how our lives would unravel and redirect our outcome.

I want to go back to the Christmases’ of complete chaos.   The ones when the GI bug hit all of us and we took turns running to the bathroom while we struggled to open presents from Santa.   I want to return to that time in life when Christmas brought great joy to my heart.   Watching both my boys laughing as wrapping paper piled up under the tree.

I want to go back to your teenage years knowing that your career choice would lead to your ultimate death.   I would give up everything to have known that one day your passion for cars would lead to injury that would then turn into a deadly disease.  If only I had the knowledge then that I have now perhaps you would be sharing Christmas with me.

I want to go back to your first surgery and rip that script from your hands.  I want to make the nightmare of your addiction magically disappear.   I want the ghost of Christmas past to come and sweep me away from the reality of Christmas present.   I want to hear the doorbell ring and see you walk in with a wife and kids in tow.   I want to once again watch you and Mike sitting side by side as your tear into festive wrapping paper laughing over the gifts from your crazy mom.   I want to hear your voices, your laughter.   I want pictures showing both my boys together as men.

I want to never take anything for granted.   I would treat every Christmas as if it could be our last together.   Enjoying every moment of chaos.   Every moment of laughter.   I would have hugged you longer.   I would have taken more pictures of us together.   I would have spend more time memorizing your face.

I remember watching A Charlie Brown Christmas with you and Mike.   Never thinking that one day those words so innocently spoken by Charlie Brown would shatter what’s left of my broken heart.   Material things, gifts, and decorations mean nothing when those you love are missing from around the Christmas tree.

There’s Nothing Silent About The Night

Matt,   Tis the season.   Wherever I go, Christmas music always seems to be playing.   I can’t even run into the grocery story without being punched in my gut.   There is no escaping the joy of the season.   People with smiles on their glowing faces are singing along to the carols.  Hearing I’ll Be Home For Christmas left me sobbing in the cereal isle as I wanted to scream out that No, he won’t be coming home this Christmas or next.   I wanted to stand in the middle of that aisle and scream at the top of my lungs.  My son is Dead.  Everyone shut up!  There is no Merry or Happy in my holiday.

Sleep used to be my only reprieve.   The only time I could crawl under the covers and disappear.   The quiet of the night used to bring a comfort to my soul like nothing else.  Wrapping myself up in my safe cocoon I could shut out the noise of the happy world and just be.

I don’t know what the trigger was.   I don’t understand why.   Suddenly, the night became my enemy.   The silence I once craved is now full of noise.   My brain, like a newborn babe has confused day and night.   Maybe it’s the season.   Maybe it’s ugly reality.   Perhaps my grief found my safe place and decided to move in.   Quietly, with the cunning of a predator, grief found me in the silence of the night.

Now, like a child fearing the monster in the closet I dread the night.   The night awakens all those  thoughts that were safely buried in my psyche.   Those visions of your disease swirling through my head.  The what if’s and why’s come flooding into my brain ripping me from the safety of slumber.   My body instantly reacts causing my heart to pound and hot tears to form.   There will be no escape from the questions that continue to tug at my heart.

The silence.   The lack of distractions allow my eyes to focus on your picture smiling back at me in the night.   My mind goes to places I refuse to visit in the daylight.   The darkness, the stillness  has a way of surrounding me with the despair I can no longer outrun.   The darkness allows the grief a power that is nonexistent in daylight.

In my mind I have conversations with you.   I pray for your peace and mine.   I wipe my tears quietly as my mind does the delicate dance of acceptance versus disbelief.   I allow myself memories of how holidays used to be.   Holidays when I was the one singing in the aisles with a smile on my face and childlike anticipation for our gathering in my heart.

I’ve come to realize that nothing will ever be the same.  Holidays will never get easier.   I will continue to feel your loss as long as I walk the earth.   Certain Christmas carols will most certainly come with gut punches.

Sleepless nights have become a part of my present life.   Reminding me of past sleepless nights when I held you close and rocked you as a baby.   Holding your sweet body next to mine those nights bonding us forever.   Under the cover of darkness I will close my eyes and try to remember your smell.   Your laugh.   Your amazing eyes.   I will allow the darkness to hide my weeping from the world.   I will allow myself to imagine you spending the holidays in a beautiful peace.   I will lay in the darkness and allow myself to grieve……

 

 

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