Mother's Heartbreak

A Story of Addiction & Loss

Category: addiction destroying families (Page 1 of 7)

Life Just Keeps Changing

November 17, 2025 /

Matt,  I can’t even comprehend life as it is now.   Just when I thought my health was starting to improve, I get hit with the double whammy.   Not only is the tumor back in my spine but I just found out I also have myasthenia gravis.  Yup, not only am I going to resume radiation but now I have to see a neurologist to fight a disease that has my body turning on itself.

I feel like my life has shrunk.  All my advocacy work is now on pause.  Even putting together your backpacks for the homeless leaves me exhausted.  

How I wish you were here.  We could commiserate about our back pain and how it’s affecting our lives.  I now get how easy it was for you to pop those pills allowing yourself a respite from the daily pain.  I fight the urge to follow in your footsteps as I now completely understand the path you walked.  

Chronic pain changes us.  It rules our daily lives. I feel like the only relief I get is from sleep and even that is a battle some nights.  I remember finding you sleeping upright on the couch.  Never understanding why you didn’t sleep in bed.  I bought you so many different pillows but you still preferred the couch.  Now I understand completely.  How I wish I had a better understanding of your pain and how easily it was for you to become addicted to the pills that were your only source of peace.  

I long for the days you were here and we were both healthy.  The days when laughter rather than pain and anxiety were the best part of life.  The days we took long walks on the beach sharing our hopes and dreams.  God, how I wish for a do over.  I took those days for granted never thinking there was a time limit to the life we shared.  

So now as I struggle with anxiety, pain and the uncertainty of my future I finally comprehend what you were living everyday.  God, I pray you are healed and free from this hell that I never could understand but now I live.  

I miss you now more than ever as I know you of all people get exactly what I’m feeling and I now understand more than ever why you needed to escape from life as you lived it.  
Forever in my heart.  Love Mom.

Empy Shoes, Shattered Lives

November 10, 2024 /

Matt,   These last couple of weeks have just been so hard.   Halloween was 10 days ago and all those memories of you and Mike as little boys running around in costumes waiting for it to get dark enough for you to grab your bags and run down the path into the neighborhood.  I remember having to tell you both to slow down and wait for me..  Even as an adult your love for Halloween continued and you would put your rubber mask on before you answered the door to hand out the candy.  I remember the squeal of the little kids when you jumped out onto the step and yelled Boo.

It never fails, every year there are two little boys just like you and Mike both towhead blonds who come together holding their little candy bags yelling trick or treat.  When I open the door to their smiling faces, I feel that gut punch and  those tears forming.   This year I was able to hold them at bay until they turned to walk away.  I shut the door, sat on the couch and allowed that grief to flow…

Today, I attended the 2nd Annual Empty Shoe Project.   I had helped my friends set up the night before trying to stay involved in the busyness of setting up the posters along side the empty shoes.  As hard as I fought that lump began to form in my throat, that heaviness of grief started to wrap itself around my soul as it knew I was powerless at stopping it.

As I walked in those doors this morning, I felt that familiar weight of grief, loss and despair.  Scanning the room for familiar faces I recognized the look in their eyes.  Parents whose masks were crumbling as they tried so hard to put on the brave faces we wear every day.  We know each others stories as we share a bond and belong to a club not one of us would ever join or even want to know existed.  Yet here we were together walking among our angels holding each other up as one by one the masks crashed to the ground.

527 pairs of empty shoes sat among the beautiful smiles, the shining eyes, the handsome faces, the perfect little pouts.  Short stories of their lives allowing us to see a bit of what remarkable human beings they were.  Their dreams, their hopes, their love for life all swept away by the power of their disease. 

Seeing you among them continues to take my breath away.   I stare at your beautiful face and hear my mind screaming WHY?  People ask if I’m ok and for once I feel free to speak my truth.   NO, I am not and will never be ok.  I know everyone in that room is not and will never be ok.  

We are the broken ones.  The shattered ones.  The ones left behind to pick up the pieces.  We are the memory keepers, the voices, the ones trying to piece together a tapestry that will always be unrepairable.   A mosaic that will always be missing a beautiful piece of glass.  

As the event was ending we each picked up our signs, shared hugs, and shed tears knowing that we are not alone in this unending grief.  We are a community of angel parents who as long as we live will never let our beautiful children be forgotten.  

Until I hold you in my arms, I hold you in my heart…………

 

 

Beautifully Bittersweet

May 25, 2024 /

Matt,   When I learned the circumstances of your death, I knew I could never stay silent.   What I really wanted to do was fly to Florida and punch the owner of your shoddy sober home in the face.  I wanted him to hear your name and see the face of your grieving mother and then I wanted to tell him what he told me, “People die here everyday.”   I wanted to look him in his eyes and say well, well, today is your day.  

I can’t put into words what that information did to my soul, but it fueled me into months of research of how sober homes operated.   Months and months of research speaking to advocates from many states sadly revealed that dumping people who have relapsed into the street in the middle of the night with no available help or support was common practice.   Learning this I knew I would never find my peace until laws were passed to protect people at a vulnerable time in their lives.   This became my mission.   These people became my Matt’s.

I became obsessed with this project.  The more I researched, the angrier I became.  To think many sober home operators used people suffering from Substance use as a means of disposable income fueled my desire to put a stop to this evil practice.   How dare anyone treat a human life as it was disposable.   It happened to you and I have to live with that every day.   The only way to find peace was to punish the people responsible.

After I had a folder thick as a phone book containing all the research on sober homes, I called my House Representative.  I asked her to meet for coffee.  When I showed her the folder and shared your story I could see the disgust in her eyes.   Her words were music to my ears.   “We Will Fix This,” became our battle cry.

After almost 5 years of advocating and fighting to get this Bill right, riding the roller coaster from happiness to disappointment, through many challenges and changes HB 114, The Matthew D. Klosowski Act was passed unanimously in both the House and Senate on the very last day of the 2023 Legislative session.   You my beautiful boy were the catalyst that will change the trajectory of how sober homes will be allowed to operate in our state of Delaware forever.

Last week, we were honored as the First State Alliance of Recovery Residences had their certification kick off as they certified a home for women in recovery.   Oh how I wish I could have shared that moment with you.   Senators and House Members were saying your name and sharing your story.   Congratulating me for fighting for so long to get this dream of mine to become a reality.   There will be no more treating people as if their lives didn’t matter.   No more kicking people out in the street to die.   

We were given an award.   Honoring us both.   I fought hard to hold back the tears as I spoke to the crowd.  Oh how I wished it was your face I was seeing among so many people who came to attend the ceremony.   I hope you were there.  I hope you felt my love for you souring through the sky from my heart to yours.   I hope you know how much you are loved and missed.   How time has not made a difference in the void in my heart.  

I can assure you this my beautiful boy,  you have a legacy that will stand the test of time.  Your name is forever in the Law books in our state of Delaware.   One hundred years from now people will look up HB 114 and see your name.   Your story and how your death was not in vain.   How your death fueled my grief to find a little slice of beauty from the brokenness you left behind.   Godspeed until I hold you in my arms, you are forever in my heart.   

 

 

A Not So Happy New Year

January 27, 2024 /

Matt,  we’ve passed the 9 year mark of me surviving your death.  For some reason, this 9th year has hit me harder than I could have ever imagined. 

I continue to struggle with the fact that time has flown by.  My mind knows but my heart continues with disbelief.  It almost feels like that horrible second year, when the reality replaced the fog and the weight of grief settled into my heart. 

I was a guest on a podcast about grief yesterday.  So many of the topics we discussed hit home for me.  We talked about society and how it places a time limit on grief. Sadly, most people who feel that grief has its limitations have never suffered the devastating loss of a child. 

We also discussed many faucets of grief such as the fear of not remembering the sound of our loved one voice.  Matt, that is one of my biggest fears.  You never left me voice mails.  Texting was your form of communication.  Believe me, I have screenshotted all of your text messages and treasure each one.  But what I crave is to hear your voice once again. 

There are days when I sit quietly by myself, closing my eyes.  I try to conjure up your face, your smile, and your voice.  Some days it all comes rushing back.  Other times I feel like you are drifting farther and farther away.  Those days I feel a panic set in as I never want to ever forget anything about you.  Sadly, the brain can only hold so much memory.  Grief brain is capable of so much less.  

This year will be a bigger challenge than I could have ever imagined.  There is no truth in the statement that the passage of time heals.   For me the passage of time is a tragedy as I struggle to remember the essence of you.  ❤️

And Just Like That It’s Been 7 Years

January 3, 2022 /

Matt,  today is your seventh angelversary.  I asked for a sign that you are at peace and I woke to a snow storm.  You loved the snow.  The last time it snowed like this was when I was trying to fly your body home from Florida.  Flight after flight was canceled due to the inclement weather.  I would go outside as the snow was falling staring into the sky asking if this was you.  

Today feels like it did the very day 7 years ago when I found out you were gone from this earth.  It’s called muscle memory.  My body hurts.  Every muscle, every bone remembers the shock that hit as I heard the words “ It’s Matt, he’s dead”.  

I close my eyes and feel my soul break as I hear the guttural screams that came from my being as the reality of those words found their way into my brain.  I remember and return to that place of disbelief and breathlessness.  The moment I too wanted to die before you got too far away.  In my shock and grief I thought I could catch up with you as we left the pain of the world behind together.  

My brain, like a projector continues to plays the events that happened the week of your death.  Every detail burned into memory.  Every feeling burned into my soul.  


I look at your pictures.  I touch your urn hoping to break the spell that your death has cast on this day.  I must survive as I know this grief has no plans to go. 

Seven years feels like yesterday.  It also feels like forever.   💜🙏🏻




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