Mother's Heartbreak

A Story of Addiction & Loss

Category: child loss (Page 1 of 8)

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  

 

6:23 Ten Years Ago

January 2, 2025 /

Matt,   6:23 on January 2nd 2015 was the last time I heard your voice.  I called you in Florida as you were on your way home from work.   You were headed back to your sober house and planned to just relax.

We talked about your day.  How in just a few weeks we would be together again.  Ray and I were heading to the Keys and we planned to visit you on our way down.  

I was so excited to see you again.   You’d been living in Florida for six months and I missed seeing your physical presence.   I missed seeing your smile, being able to hug you and I really missed walking on the beach and discussing life.  

All I could think about was seeing you again.   You were going to show me where you lived and worked.  Introduce me to your friends.  We planned to go to your favorite beach and have dinner every evening.  

I can still hear your voice.  Our conversation burned into my brain.   You sounded so good, so happy as if life was finally going your way.  It never once crossed my mind that this conversation would be our last.  I never felt any red flags that you could possibly be using again.  You sounded absolutely perfect.   

Looking back, I wish I kept you on the phone longer.  I wish I could have recorded your voice.  I wish I could have visited you sooner or brought you home for the holidays.   If I had seen you I would have known you were still struggling with your demons.

We ended our conversation as we usually did.  I told you I loved you and was so excited to see you in 3 weeks.  You told me you would look around for hotels and let me know what you found.  Before hanging up you told me you loved me and would check in tomorrow.  

Ten years ago had I known I would have been on the next plane to get to you before you left me behind.  I would have held you and never let you go.

Now I’m left with replaying our conversation in my mind.   I’m so grateful we ended it with I Love You,  it’s what I hold close to my heart as I continue to navigate life without my beautiful boy.  

Ten years feels like yesterday and forever all rolled into one…….

 

 

Familiar Faces In Unexpected Places.

December 19, 2024 /

Matt,  today I go to drop off toys to a single mom with 3 boys. I was once a single mom and know how tough the world can be but it’s so much harder during the holidays. I have found that giving to others really helps my grieving heart especially this time of year.

These holidays are hitting hard as your 10 year anniversary is January 3rd and I’m struggling to survive those waves of grief. They seem to be getting more and more powerful as we are getting closer to Christmas then New Years then that fateful day when you left us all behind.

I’ve been praying a lot asking God for peace but somedays I feel he is deaf to my prayers.

I felt some joy picking out toys for boys as memories of Christmas shopping for you and Mike so many years ago flooded my brain. Wondering if they believe in Santa and if these toys would put a smile on their faces.

Pulling up outside her residence I see a mom with a little boy. I wave to let her know it’s me. She walks over as I’m opening up my truck and I see this precious little smile on a face that looked so familiar. His hair the color of yours as a boy. The shape of his face, his eyes all yours.  I catch my breath and fight back tears. He says Merry Christmas as I hand mom the bags and continues to smile that precious so familiar smile.

My heart is smiling and screaming as I return to my car unable to stop the flow of tears. Those tears fell all the way home and continue to fall as I think of things that will never be. I got the gift of a glimmer of a child that could have been mine, the child of my child, a grandson I will never hold or make memories with.

Today was both a beautiful blessing and curse. I wonder if God had a hand in the circumstances of this moment. A grieving mother trying to make Christmas a little merry for a single mom who then received the greatest gift of a little boy’s oh so familiar smile.  Oh Matt, how I wish you were here and that little boy was holding your hand and smiling that precious smile as he called me mom-mom.   

I’ve lost so much more than you…………

« Older posts
September 2025
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930  

© 2025 Mother's Heartbreak

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑