Mother's Heartbreak

A Story of Addiction & Loss

Category: Before and after a trauma or loss (Page 1 of 3)

Life Is Tough

September 18, 2025 /

Matt,   It’s been a while since I’ve written.  This year has been a rough one.  I was diagnosed with parathyroid disease and had surgery in July.  I guess I set myself up for failure as I thought this would be the quick fix to feeling horrible every blessed day.  Sadly I’m two months out and still feeling off. 

It seems my body just doesn’t want to regulate my crazy hormones.  So everyday feels like Groundhog Day.  I think about you a lot.  What you went through with your chronic pain.  Like you I just want to be pain free and feel normal.  Like you I wish that could just happen and life could just go back to normal. 

I finally understand how easy it was for you to become dependent on opioids for your life to feel normal.  I too have searched for that magic pill to get my life to feel normal again.  But unlike you I fear the consequences of pills and their promises. 

I so wish you were here. I know you of all people would understand how hard chronic pain is to live with.  I have so many regrets for not being more understanding of what you were going through.  I hope you can hear my conversations when I talk to you.  I still can’t believe you’re gone.  It still seems surreal that life has turned out the way it has.  

I miss the life we had.  I miss the calls, the hugs, the laughs and gatherings when life was what I always thought it was going to be.  How foolish we were to take anything for granted.    One thing I’ve learned is nothing is guaranteed and tomorrow is not promised.  I pray you are at peace.  Your pain is gone and you are living in paradise.  Know I will love you forever.  Tomorrow is my birthday and my wish is to turn back the clock, walk into your house and wrap you in my arms.  I will love you forever my beautiful boy. 

 

Upside Down. Inside Out

April 24, 2025 /

Matt,  I wish I could get back to feeling normal.  It’s been so long I don’t even remember how it felt.  I’m now on my 3rd anti anxiety med and feel like crap.  Everything is just so off. I feel like an experiment in the medical field.  If this doesn’t work try this. Oh wait, that’s not working either then try this.  
I had my CT scans and thank God they found no evidence of recurrence but my blood work showed that my parathyroid is being a little funky. I’ve learned that can also make you feel off so I’m feeling very defeated. 
So, now it’s back to Penn to add another doctor to my list.  I swear since you died the list just keeps growing.  I’ve acquired a cardiologist now I’m adding an endocrinologist.  How much fun can a girl possibly have.  
It seems my body has taken a beating from the unending grief.   Your ten year anniversary just set me in a tailspin and now my body is revolting against me.  At least that’s how it feels.  
I was so hoping to just enjoy the spring and summer as the weather is finally cooperating and Mother Nature is showing her beauty.   But it seems my body might have different plans.  
So now it’s more tests and only God knows what is going to happen.  
There are days I truly understand your addiction.  Days where I would love to have a magic pill to make this all go away.  I wish I had taken the time to understand how you were feeling mentally rather than fighting with you to just stop.  For that I will be eternally sorry.  
I have so many regrets and even after ten years they still creep up and haunt me.   I wish we had just an hour of time where that veil between where you are and where I am could be lifted.  
Perhaps one day that conversation will come but for now I’m praying that this puzzle of my health will get solved and life will return to my new normal without you.  Love you forever. 

Walking On Thin Ice

February 3, 2025 /

Matt,  January was a tough month for me.  First it was losing Scarlett right after Christmas, then your tenth anniversary, then my CT scans were all piled up on my literally breaking shoulders. 

I felt so overwhelmed.  My heart kept racing or skipping beats.  That familiar tightness in my throat found me again.  I became a walking mess as I tried to navigate through these emotional moments in time.  

Honestly, I’m still feeling off.  Like I just can’t hit my reset button like I always could in the past.  I’m finding my coping mechanisms are just not kicking into gear and my anxiety continues to greet me everyday with some new challenges.  

I’m thinking this ten year mark has just hit me harder than I could have ever imagined.  Thinking of all you have missed here on earth.  Thinking I haven’t seen you or heard your voice for what seems to be an eternity is becoming too much to bear.  

I had a meltdown yesterday as those feelings began to overwhelm me and my anxiety beat me into the depths of despair.   I cried for all you have missed.  For all I should have said and done.  I just cried for the unfairness of it all.  I cried and cried for both of us and for all those dreams that were crushed by your death.

I feel like I’ve lost both my boys.   Your brother barely speaks to me.  I know he is grieving your loss but I really just need to hear his voice and share memories of you with him.   We are all that’s left of our original family.  He’s the only one who shared our story who is still here on earth.   He’s the only person who loves you like I do.   

Somedays I feel so defeated.   I can’t believe this is my life.  I miss who I used to be.   I miss the future I envisioned for our family.   Both my boys married with children.  Weekend get togethers.  Bonfires on the beach with kids and dogs running on the sand.   So many dreams now gone up in smoke.  

I pray for you everyday.   That you have found your peace.  That you are surrounded by love, light and beauty.   That you have been reunited with our family and your pets and that you have met Jesus.  I pray for my peace and healing as this grief journey becomes harder to navigate.   

I really don’t know what else to do.   I can tell you time doesn’t make a difference all is does is make me wonder how I have survived this long without you here.

I wish you peace.  Until we meet again.  Love you forever Mom  

 

99 Months

April 11, 2023 /

 

Matt,  99 months.  My brain counts the months as my heart screams how can this be.  How can it be true that life has continued to march on and I have been drug along in my grief.  How can this grief continue to bring me to my knees?  To make me want to scream from the rooftops that I am in so much pain?  How can all this time have passed yet still feel like yesterday?

Perhaps it’s because Easter has come and gone.  Another holiday without you.  Perhaps it’s the memories that continue to haunt me of past celebrations.  Two boys with chocolate faces and hands running through the yard Easter baskets swinging from their arms as laughter filled the air.

Perhaps it’s the memories of two men laughing as they walked in my door seeing Easter baskets filled with the same chocolate they loved as boys.  

Perhaps it’s the silence that has replaced the laughter, that silence is deafening as the grief is powerful.    The silence from your brother.  The silence of those who have passed on.  The silence haunts my heart and leaves my soul empty.

Yet, I have good days.  Days where I cope well.  Days I find joy in little things.  Flowers blooming in my garden.  The dogs chasing a squirrel through the yard.  An unexpected phone call from a friend.  A clear Cat Scan.

I guess you could say I’ve learned to cope, to handle the pain.  Sadly when I think of how long you have been gone, how long I’ve had to bear this grief that’s when my reality begins to haunt my heart leaving me breathless and wanting to scream.

Some say Silence is golden.  I think of what I wouldn’t give to hear the shouting, the laughter, the voices of two little boys whose smiles were covered with chocolate……..

 

Fractured

November 12, 2022 /

Matt,  the holidays are approaching and I feel like I’m drowning.

I’m surprised that after surviving 8 years of holidays without you my heart continues to ache. 

There are so many things I’m trying to juggle.  I feel like letting those balls shatter on the ground while I walk away from it all. Time I’ve found is no help as the holidays coming remain as brutal as ever.  

I feel like I’m fractured.  Broken in half.  The before and after, the then and now dance through my mind everyday.  Memories of what used to be.  The laughter, the love, the togetherness fractured like my soul.  

The Monday before Thanksgiving I have my CT scan looking for any sign of returning cancer.  The thought takes my breath away as I remember the healthy me before that dreaded C word became a part of my life.  The holidays were tough enough without this hanging over my head.  Grieving you, grieving me, grieving the holidays that used to be.

Your brother is distant.  I know he shares my grief.  I had hoped we could be a comfort to each other as time went on.  I had hoped that my diagnosis would have us clinging to each other as we are all that’s left of us. Sadly the opposite is true.  I grieve for the relationship I Imagined but do not have.  I wonder if I will survive long enough to see it change.

If someone had told me I’d be living this life I would have laughed and walked away.  Never in my wildest dreams did I see this coming.  Never did I think your addiction would be fatal and our dreams for the future would be crushed on that cruel, cold, January morning so many years ago. 

Never did I think I would be struggling to find my footing on unstable ground.  Never did I think my world would be so unbelievably full of sadness that time is powerless to heal.  I saw things so differently when I thought about life and growing older.  I saw family celebrating the holidays together.  I heard laughter, imagined smiling faces as we gathered around the Thanksgiving table.  I imagined a life of making new memories as the holidays came and went.  

The reality is your death fractured my life.  Blindsided us both, crushing the future I envisioned.  Now, I continue to hold onto memories hoping they become a healing balm soothing my raw edges allowing peace to enter and carry me through life without you  💔

 

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