A Story of Addiction & Loss

Category: grief and your brain (Page 1 of 4)

Disbelieving While Grieving

Matt,  it’s been 8 years and one month since you left this earth and I still find myself in disbelief.   January always hits me the hardest as it’s the beginning of another year but it’s also when you left. 

Somedays I allow myself to pretend you are enjoying the beautiful weather in Florida.  Spending time on the beach relaxing with friends. Then reality will sneak up on me and I feel the weight of grief hit my heart.

The other day I was grocery shopping and saw a can of Beef A Roni.  I had to stop for a moment as the memory of  sending you care packages of food came flooding back leaving me shaken.  

I find myself longing to talk to you.  To hear your voice, to see your smile.  I know so many years have passed but the reality of life is just so unbearable that’s it’s easier to sink into the fantasy that you are alive.  

I have days where I just sit and tell myself that you are really gone.  That what’s left of you sits in an urn on my shelf next to the last picture taken while you were alive.  It’s still seems so surreal and I have such a hard time wrapping my head around this truth that has become my life.  

I’ve read that losing a child is the most devastating experience a parent can live through, I’m finding it’s also the most unbelievable.  I look at pictures of you as a young child and wonder how did this happen.  How did your life end before mine?  Losing a child goes against what we are taught to be the natural order of things.  Children bury their parents not the other way around.  

I know that as long as I live I will carry my grief over losing you but now this disbelief had snuck into the open cracks in my heart.  It appears to have moved in and has no intentions of ever leaving.  Until we meet again I will carry you in my heart………….

 

Life Is A Trigger

Matt,  As if May wasn’t already tough enough going through another Mother’s Day without you, then getting my CT Scan done and waiting for the results that would either have me dancing for joy or crying from despair, a mass shooting occurred at a grade school killing 19 children and 2 teachers.  

As I watched it unfold I could feel the grief wrapping itself around my heart and soul.  I sat sobbing watching the parents begging police officers to go and save their children.  Their desperate pleas fell on deaf ears as those members of the police force stood around ignoring their cries doing nothing to help those defenseless children from being slaughtered. 

Then it hit.  My own grief exploded as I remembered how I was once that parent.  Screaming at the medical community to do something to save you.  Screaming at both the insurance industry and treatment facilities to act now before it was too late.  

All those buried emotions came flooding into my brain as I felt myself breaking apart knowing that those parents would hear those words that would shatter their souls.  Your child is dead. And I was triggered.  

I sat there feeling helpless.  I wanted to reach out and wrap those sobbing parents in my arms never letting them go.  I wanted to rush to their aid knowing how the world they knew just this morning had shifted off its axis and was now spinning out of control.  

The loss of a child is beyond describing.  It’s life altering.  Losing your child throws you into a different universe. The pain is palpable and unending.  Age does not matter.  How they died doesn’t matter.  It’s the fact that they are gone forever and we are left behind to navigate a world that is so unfamiliar we are completely lost. 

Now these parents will go through the rest of their lives with only memories to sustain them.  Just as I have done.  These parents will never see the faces or hear the voices of their beautiful children just as I have not seen your face or heard your voice for so long. They will cry everyday for all that was lost and for all that could have been.  Just as I have. 

I sadly know what is ahead for these parents. Years of what ifs and why’s.  Years of blaming themselves for something as simple as sending their child to school. Years of wondering what their child would have been like had they lived.  Would they have gone to college, gotten married.  They will miss so many milestones that nothing in life can replace.  There will always be a large hole in the tapestry of their lives that nothing can repair. 

I still blame myself for sending you to Florida thinking if you were home I could have saved you. I still wonder what life would feel like had you lived. I wonder if I would have danced at your wedding and rocked your baby in my arms. 

Life after child loss is filled with indescribable pain.  It’s walking through life feeling as if you’ve lost your mind and really don’t care if you find it again.  It’s watching another parent learning their child is dead and reliving the death of your child over and over again.  

Life is a trigger with no safe place to hide. 💔💔

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.  

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.

 

 

 

New Year Same Grief

Matt,   Today is the second day of the New Year 2020.    My mind keeps drifting back to the second day of the New Year except the year was 2015.   That year I had such high hopes for you. I remember your Facebook post on New Year’s Eve stating you were doing it right.   Attending an all night NA meeting.   I can’t tell you how my heart soared with joy thinking this New Year would be the beginning of a new us.  That your addiction would finally take a back seat to your new life.

We spoke on January 2nd at 6;23pm.   I had no clue that would be the last time I would ever hear your voice.   The last time I would ever hear the words “Love you, Mom”.   There were no red flags.   My ears had been trained by the years of your struggle to listen for verbiage changes.  There were none.   No clue that in just a few hours my world would spin off it’s axis and come crashing down at my feet.

Tomorrow January 3rd, marks your 5 year anniversary.   2020 feels like 2015 all over again.   The fact that 5 years has passed means nothing.   5 years feels like yesterday.   The grief hits with a vengeance that still has the power to bring me to my knees.   My body remembers hearing those words.   It remembers hearing the guttural sounds of a wounded animal as she sees the dead body of her young.   It remembers the grip on my heart.   The breathlessness as if my lungs collapsed and would never know how to breathe again.

I am restless.   Edgy.   Unsettled.   My mind is spinning out of control.   Reality and fantasy vie for top spot in my head.   I want to scream YOU ARE NOT DEAD.   I want to dial your number and talk to you about your day.   I want to hear your children laughing in the background as they yell hi to their mom mom.   I want to turn back time and fix our lives.   I want you and Mike and your families here for Friday night pizza and Sunday barbecues.   I want life to be want I want not what we’ve been dealt.   I want you HERE…..

There is a foolish perception that time and grief are friends.   That in the beginning time holds griefs hand and leads it down the path of firsts.   That path is hazy, dark and uncomfortable.  But time is seen as a hero.   Time continues to pass and as it does grief is supposed to suddenly lighten.   To change.   To become acceptable.   Bearable.   Doable.   Society is afraid to acknowledge what so many like me know and live.    Time is no friend to grief.

Time changes NOTHING.   Time continues to pass bringing painful memories to the surface.   Time doesn’t stop for your birthday.    It doesn’t care how many painful days it drags along your path.   The only thing true about time is it continues to march on no longer caring as those empty, painful years pass with no new pictures, cards or memories.

The problem with grief is you can never imagine its power until it finds your soul.   Grief knows no time frame.   Once it moves in it has no intention of leaving.   It wraps itself around your being with a grip that doesn’t know how to let up.   Grief makes you feel like you are slowly losing your mind.   It makes you question how you will make it through all those next painful days that time continues to drag into your life.

If I’ve learned anything during these last 5 years its that the passing of time means nothing to the power of my grief.   Making it through all those firsts means nothing.   Time seems to sharpen the edges of life.   Time takes me back to those moments and memories that are all I have left of you.

The passing of time and the power of grief have no relationship to each other.   There is no connection between the two.   Time is no friend to grief and grief knows nothing regarding time.    My heart and soul will grieve you forever.   The passing of time will continue as it has done these last five years.

Grief comes with no instruction manual.   It has a mind of its own.    Lying low then hitting hard as a memory, song or smell assaults my senses.   Grief is as individual as a fingerprint.   There are no stages.   No rhyme or reason.   Grief is a part of who I am and who I will continue to be.   I will embrace my grief allowing it to have its way on those dark days and allowing it to ebb and flow through my soul as time keeps marching on…….

 

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