Mother's Heartbreak

A Story of Addiction & Loss

Category: grieving health

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. 

 

Trying To Keep The Faith

July 13, 2025 /

Matt,   Today is Sunday.  I remember all those Sundays when we used to attend church together.   I never thought those days would come to an end.  It was always a comfort to have you there with me praying together and then stopping by Wawa for our morning coffee.  

Sadly, I haven’t been able to attend church in person for months due to this horrible condition making me feel like I’m dying every day.  I’m grateful they have a live stream that I can watch from home to at least make me feel like I’m still connected to our church.  

I do continue to take care of your garden.  Planting new flowers and keeping the bird feeders full.  It’s very peaceful there and I continue to enjoy the surroundings and the quiet.  Many days Pastor Mike will come down and bring me communion and pray with me for peace and healing. 

I’m really struggling with anxiety today as I will be having surgery on Wednesday to remove the diseased little buggers that have been wreaking havoc on my body.   I really never thought I’d have to face surgery again after the last two but I’ve learned life is so very unpredictable.  I’m both looking forward to returning to normal but also very nervous about possible complications from the surgery.   I’ve done a lot of research and it’s supposed to be a safe procedure but still going to worry until it’s over.  I remember when you used to tell me I worried enough for both of us and you were right nothing has changed there. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about you and wondering how it is in heaven.  I guess a part of me wonders if things go wrong will you be there to meet me?  I know that’s a weird thought but it seems the older I get the more that thought pops into my mind.  Your death was so unexpected and out of order that I find myself struggling to make it make sense. 

If you can please send me a sign to let me know it will all be ok.  There are still so many things I want to do in this life before I leave this world.  I don’t know if people in Heaven can pray but if you can please say one for me.  Know you are forever in my heart.  Love Mom. 

Missing The Me I used To Be

July 1, 2021 /

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.   

 

Walking On Thin Ice

January 2, 2021 /


Matt,   It’s 5:21 on January 2nd.   Six years ago you were still alive.   I remember our conversation.   It was Saturday evening and you were on your way home to the sober home where you were staying in Boca Raton.  I remember looking at the clock it was 6:23.   We chatted about your day and promised to catch up again later that night.

That next call never came.  Little did I know that our conversations would never take place again.   We ended our conversation with our usual I love you thinking our future would be filled with many more talks.

As I write this letter I can feel my throat tighten and tears forming in my eyes.   I can feel the shock and disbelief wrapping itself around my heart.  It’s called muscle memory as the body never forgets trauma.

Tomorrow marks the sixth anniversary of your death.    Some days it feels like it’s been forever since I’ve heard your voice.    Other days it feels like yesterday.

The New Year is always tough for me.   This year it’s full of uncertainty and grief.   Sunday is the 3rd.   Your anniversary.  The weather will be rainy and bitter.   Mimicking my heart.   Monday l have my second CT scan checking to see if my cancer treatment has been successful.  I will be holding my breath and praying until I hear what I will be facing.   More down time or more treatment.

So I now mourn your death and my health.   I sometimes wonder if the cancer was caused by years of second guessing decisions made that led to your death.   Years of grieving and guilt for what might have been.   Years of wondering about If Heaven truly exists and if you are healed living in Paradise.   Years of wondering if I will ever see you again.   Wondering what death is like and if we will be together when my time comes.

I feel like I’m walking on ice.   On a frozen pond trying to get to the other side.   Some areas are solid and stable.   As I continue my journey I find areas that are cracking beneath my feet.   I can feel the frozen water seeping through my shoes as I wonder if I will make it to the other side before I fall through.

My journey since your death has been one I could have never prepared myself for.   Parents are never prepared to say goodbye to their children.   Parents are never prepared to hear they have cancer.

So I continue to pray that God has us both in his healing hands.   I pray you have found your peace that eluded you here on earth.  I pray your body and mind are free of the demons that followed you as you struggled.  I pray for his peace and healing as I struggle with losing you and losing the woman I used to be.

 

 

 

Walking The Path You Walked…..

December 17, 2019 /

Matt,   I feel as though I’m reliving your journey.   I remember so clearly your phone call.   “Mom, I was lifting an engine and I felt something in my back pop.   The pain is horrible.  I can barely walk.”   Little did I know that almost 5 years later I would be reliving your experience.

The similarities are mind boggling.   You lifted an engine, I lifted a stuck window.   As soon as I felt the pop and felt that searing pain shoot down my leg I thought of you.   They say you can never understand what someone goes through until you go through it yourself.   I am a living testimony to that truth.

Looking back I wish I had known how life altering your pain was.   I never thought it was as horrible as you described.   Living with your pain, I now feel so ashamed that I lacked compassion for your pain.   All I saw was your addiction to the opioids.   Your addiction became my focus.  Your pain was a secondary concern.

Now I get it.   I’m facing the same surgery you survived.   I’m facing trying to find a happy medium to this pain that has become a part of my life and a reminder of how you suffered.   I’m facing the possibility of becoming addicted as you did after back surgery.   I think back to how your life was affected and I’m terrified that I will become you.

Thursday I will be the patient.   I will be you.   I will be in the OR not the waiting room watching your name flip through the different phases of your surgery.   I remember scanning that board every few minutes searching for where you were in the process.   I remember walking next to your stretcher to those OR doors and giving you a kiss for luck.   Promising I would be there when you woke.   Promising to pray for a successful surgery.

So now I’ll be the name Ray and Mike will be following through the OR process.   I will be the one with the surgical scar on my back exactly like yours.   I remember seeing your scar and feeling chills come over my body.   I remember thinking how brave you were to have gone through what you did, never thinking that almost 5 years after your death your scar would be on my body.

We have always had this unexplainable connection.   You and I so much alike.   Now, even though you are no longer here,  I will be retracing your journey.   Feeling your anxiety as you waited for surgery.   Understanding your pain as it is now my own.

I pray that I will feel your presence.   That somehow, someway just for a brief moment I will know you are there.   I pray that neither time nor space will break our connection.   I pray that you have forgiven me for not understanding your pain………

 

 

 

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

© 2025 Mother's Heartbreak

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑