A Story of Addiction & Loss

Category: advocate mom battling cancer (Page 1 of 2)

Madness VS. Mindfulness

Matt,  it’s been a rough couple of weeks.   August is all about Overdose Awareness.    Everywhere I look on social media there are pictures of beautiful, smiling faces all lost to overdose.   Posted by the moms who are grieving so deeply I can feel their pain as if they were sitting right next to me.   Pain pulsating off the pages right into my heart.  

Many days I would quickly post to my pages and then get off before I lost my mind.   Nothing has gotten better since your death, honestly they have gotten worse.   Young people so full of hopes and dreams are dying every hour of every day.   It’s heartbreaking as I hear about a person who was doing well but is now dead.   I remember the feelings so clearly when I too thought you were good but in reality you were not.  

The grief mothers feel is endless.   Even after 6 years I still have days where reality hits and I just need to go mad and scream until I can scream no more.   The ugliness of our reality is too heartbreaking.   On these days I allow myself to go to my dark, mad world and settle in until the waves wash over me again and again releasing the pain and allowing me to come up for air.

I think having cancer and the constant cloud that follows me compounds my grief.   Prior to my diagnosis I could  physically release this grief.   I would dig in the warm soil with the sun on my back planting until my hands were numb.   Planting kept my mind focused on the beauty I was creating rather than the ugliness of life without you.   I would get on my bike and ride miles and miles feeling the wind in my face brushing my tears away as I emptied my heart.   I would scream into the wind and feel a release like non other.  

Today gardening and biking are things I’m no longer capable of doing.   I never knew how much I needed them until they were gone.   I never realized how I took my health for granted until it was gone.  Back surgery put a stop to both of my grief releases and forced me to try to be mindful.   Mindfulness is the new go to for relieving stress and anxiety.   I can hear you laughing.   I know.   The thought of your physically active mom sitting quietly to meditate is enough to make everyone who knows me laugh.  

Believe me I’ve tried and tried.   Days when my anxiety is out of control I will sit  trying to breathe clearing my mind of all thoughts.   I can tell you it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do.  I imagine myself on my bike pedaling hard, the wind hitting my face.   I think of out running the grief.   

Oh Matt, how I wish we could turn back time.   How I wish I knew nothing about overdose awareness, cancer or grief.   How I wish we could be together again spending time by the sea without any cares.   No addiction.  No cancer.   Just a mother and son enjoying the day.   

So wish me luck with this mindfulness.   I’m thinking the madness is going to win.  

Missing The Me I used To Be

Matt,   There are days I don’t recognize myself anymore.   I though grieving you would be the biggest hurdle of my life.   I’m finding that grieving who I used to be is becoming a hurdle that seems impossible to jump over.  

So much has changed in these last two years.   You have been gone 6 years and I’d begun to think I had finally found stable footing.   Funny, I look back now and laugh at how I foolishly thought my life had stabilized.   

Nothing could have prepared me for the avalanche of grief that was waiting right around the corner for me.   Being diagnosed with cancer was something I never saw coming.   It was another of those rouge waves that hits with such force you are left helplessly struggling to break through the surface of the water fighting to find your breath.

I never realized how much I took for granted.   When the waves of your loss would hit I would get on my bike and physically exhaust myself until I felt a semblance of calm return to my soul.   If the weather was bad I would grab my yoga mat and find my zen place as I stretched my muscles holding poses until I could no longer feel the chest tightness or racing beats of my heart.

Today, my physical body has endured the brutal treatments to help me beat this ugly disease.   My back is no longer able to bend or twist.   I am full of rods and screws.   My bike hangs in the garage.   It’s become a symbol of the independence I’ve lost.   My days of beating back the grief has disappeared like the woman I was before your death.

Don’t get me wrong.   I’m very grateful this disease was cut out of my body.   I’m grateful for the radiation that was guaranteed to kill any ugly cells left behind.   I just wish I had known how the reality of my treatments would have impacted my ability to handle the anxiety that comes when the reality of your death hits me head on.   I’ve lost my physical ways of coping.   The best I can do is walk and I can’t walk long enough or far enough to make a dent in my grief.

Now I depend on my daily dose of xanax or my THC or CBD.   I hate who I have become.   I never understood your dependence on pills.   I foolishly though that you should have handled your anxiety with physical activity like I did.   Little did I know how debilitating back surgery was and how it impacted your life.   For that I apologize to you my beautiful boy.

I hate walking around with that lump in my throat.   I hate how my mind has taken over and fills me with fear of what my future might hold.   I hate that some days all I can think of is death and leaving everything I love behind.   I hate that you’re not here to help me through my dark days. 

I hate that PTSD has become my constant companion.   I long for those days when we were both healthy and life was a breeze.   I miss our endless walks on the beach.   Our laughter as we remembered your antics as a kid.   We were so much alike.   I wonder how you would have reacted if you were still alive knowing I had a potentially life threatening disease.   

I survive by praying for healing of both my mind and body.   I pray that you have found your peace and one day we will once again walk on a heavenly beach together both healed from our diseases filled with peace and joy.   Until then memories of who we used to be will carry me until we meet again.   

 

Go Ahead and Call Me Crazy

Matt,   I know it’s been a while since I’ve written.   I feel like I’ve been hit by a tsunami and I’m still struggling to come up for air.   For some reason, the holidays smacked me in the face as reality that another Christmas was here and you weren’t coming home.   I could feel the darkness beginning  to close in and surround me with dread.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the New Year brought your 6th year angelversary.   January 3rd the day you left my life continued to batter me like an unexpected wind knocking me off balance.   January 4th added to my unsteadiness as I had to be at Penn for my total body Cat Scan to evaluate my cancer.   I felt like I just couldn’t carry the weight of all that was happening piled on top of each other day after day.

Just when I started to regain some balance, Aunt Mary ended up needed more care than we could handle and it was up to me to find her a safe place to spend the rest of her life.   I remember spending hours on the phone begging for some help from the medical professionals who really seemed not to give a damn.

In the midst of all this I was still dealing with my unresolved grief over the sudden death of your grandmother.   Still reeling from all the things left unsaid and undone.   I was also waiting for a biopsy result from a mole removed from my eye lid.   I felt like I was surrounded by doom and I started thinking a lot about death.   Both yours and mine.

I became obsessed.   I could think of nothing else.   I began to find myself in a constant state of panic.   I wondered what it was like for you as you were taking your last breaths.   I wondered if you were afraid or in pain.   I wondered if you were really in Heaven and if I would ever see you again.   I then relived the moment I was told you were gone.   It was like my life was a replay of everything I feared the most.   I wondered how I would die.   How much longer it would be before my cancer returned.   I focused on the treatments I endured to get where I am today.    Chemo, two major surgeries and 54 rounds of radiation.

I felt like I was losing my mind.   Like after 6 years I was no longer able to cope with what life threw my way.

I finally went to seek professional help.   As I sat before a new doctor and spilled out my journey since your death I felt as if the horrible weight was being lifted.    Telling my story out loud and seeing the doctors face I felt validated.   I felt like I had every right to feel like I was losing what was left of my mind.

She confirmed that I had PTSD.   Her validating what I felt started the road to my self healing.   Rather than fearing what I can not control, I’ve started to count my blessings.   I’ve started praying more and worrying less.   I talk to you and your grandmother asking for signs that you are together and healed in heaven.   I’ve started saying the rosary everyday.   It gives me a peace I haven’t felt in such a long time.   I’ve started to attend support groups where I can be the grieving parent rather than the facilitator of the meeting.   I’ve come to realize that I like every other grieving mother needs to find support on this journey of unrelenting loss.

Little by little I’m learning that life even though  it can be filled with pain and anxiety, it can also be filled with beauty.   It’s up to me to learn not to run and fear what might be but to open my mind to the possibilities of joy.

 

 

 

Love Has No Time Limits

Matt,   These last two weeks have been tough.   It seems my grief resurfaces with the changing of the seasons.   Fall has arrived.   The leaves are changing and the geese have begun their daily fly over.   I stare at the sky and listen to their song thinking of you.   I remember how we shared a love for watching their V formation and listening to the honking.   We would roll down car windows upon spotting them in the sky and remain silent as their sounds filled the air.

I’ve started fall decorating around the house.   Every pumpkin holds a memory.   You loved this time of year especially Halloween.   Your rubber mask remains on the shelf in your closet just as you left it.   There are days I have flash backs of you running into the house, your mask covering your face, your laughter filling the room as the dogs circled you barking with wagging tails.

You loved handing out the candy spooking the kids as you jumped out of bushes with your big bowl of candy.   Those memories remain bittersweet as Halloween will be so different this year.  The virus has changed the way we do things today.   It’s no longer safe to open your door to strangers.

As the weather cools, the need for quilts returns.   Two years ago I had a quilt made with 20 of your favorite T Shirts.   I remember picking it up and crying all the way home.   Your quilt has been tucked away in my closet since it arrived home.   On bad days I would bury my face in it’s softness hiding in my closet as the screams were muffled in your clothing.   Two days ago I put on my brave face and brought it downstairs.   As I laid it over the sofa in the den my tears started to fall.   Memories of you sitting there holding Scarlett wearing the exact shirt that was staring back at me from the quilt hit hard.

There are so many things I need to share with you.  So many things happening in my life.  So many things I need you to be a part of.  So many days I struggle to remember your voice.   I wanted to call you to let you know my first CT scan was good after finishing cancer treatment.  Your number remains in my phone contacts and so many days I fight the urge to call not knowing who or if anyone would answer.

I know the seasons will continue to change.   The world around me continues to move on.   I struggle to stay in the present.   To find a bit of happiness when those memories hit.   To be grateful I had you for 37 years.   Navigating through life reminds me of being in your boat.   Being caught off guard as an un predicted storm caught us unprepared or our  unexpected joy as family of dolphins put on a show for us.   So many emotions continue after all these years.   The most important lessons your death has taught me is never take tomorrow for granted  and love never ends……….

Facing And Fearing The Future

Matt,   I feel like the world is spinning out of control.   My anxiety is through the roof.   Some days my heart feels like it’s going to beat out of my chest.   This is exactly how I felt those early months after your death.

I never remember having such fear over what the future holds.   The combination of your loss and my having cancer has once again knocked my world off its axis.   I find it so hard to believe you have been gone for 5 years and 5 months.   I find it hard to believe that this cancer has derailed my plans for a healthy, active future.

I have begun to fear what the future might bring.   Somedays the pain of your loss hits with an unimaginable force.   On those days I feel like I just might lose my mind.   The thought that you are really gone is still so foreign to my mind and heart.   Even today I walk through your closet smelling your clothes searching for a lingering scent.   I run my finger over your picture looking at your smiling face wondering how long my pain will remain.

Then there are the days my cancer fills my mind.   I relive the day and those words that once again shook me to my core.   Exactly like that day and those words letting me know you were gone.   I wonder if the treatments worked.   If the cancer will return.   I wonder if you can see what is happening here in my life.   I wonder if we will be together again.

I try to keep busy.   Exploring new ways to keep those frightening thoughts at bay.   Unfortunately, the back surgery has deterred me from all those physical activities I once did to stay sane.   Biking and kayaking my two go to stress reducers have been put on the back burner. I now remember you so vividly walking like you were an old man.   I remember when I would encourage you to be active in hope of helping your pain and you would look at me like I was crazy.    Well Matt, I get it now.   I walk like an old lady.

I read books about Heaven.   Written by people who had near death experiences and lived to tell of peace and beauty.   They tell of amazing colors and of not wanting to return to earth.   They speak of how their battered bodies are now whole and healthy.   They tell of meeting loved ones who had passed before them and of joyous reunions.   I devour these books looking for my own peace praying that what I’m reading is true and you are young, healthy and happy living in Heaven.   I wonder how long it will be until we are together again living in this place they refer to as paradise.

The future has never held so many unknowns for me.   At least I fooled myself  into thinking I had control when in reality if I had control you would be alive and healthy with a wife and children and I would be cancer free.

They say the future is promised to  no one.   That everyday is a gift from God.   That “life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards”.    Looking back there are so many things I would do different.   Looking forward continues to take my breath away.   So many unknowns lurking in the future.

I will continue to pray for God’s peace in accepting my future without you in it.   I pray to be cancer free and to be given the time to accept those things I cannot change.   Know you are missed and loved every moment of my past and my future……..

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