Mother's Heartbreak

A Story of Addiction & Loss

Category: Uncategorized (Page 6 of 8)

The Darkness Rolled In

March 8, 2022 /

Matt,  today is a beautiful day.  The sun is shining.  The sky is a magnificent shade of blue.  I should be able to enjoy the beauty but today my darkness found me.  

I never know when it will return until I feel it building like a storm churning out at sea.  Just off my horizon threatening and ominous.  There are times it dissipates before hitting but today it hit full force.

I never know what brings it on.  Perhaps it’s the memories of our lives before your death.  Perhaps it my loss of the life I lived before my cancer treatments and surgeries.  Perhaps it’s the guilt for not understanding how your chronic back pain drove you to seek relief through poison pills.  

Now that I live with your pain my thoughts turn to how horrible it must have been for someone so young to endure daily pain.  I feel like I’m re living your life as a lesson only to be learned by experiencing exactly what you did.  

You injured your back.  That injury led to surgery.  That surgery changed how you were able to work and live.  Your limitations forced you to give up your business and to make lifestyle changes no one your age should ever have to make.  You lost your ability to do everything you loved and masked the pain both physical and emotional with pills.  

I injured my back.  A tumor was found and surgery followed.   Cancer was found.   That surgery changed how I was able to live.  No longer could I do any of the things that helped keep the darkness away.   No more riding my bike screaming into the wind.  No more yoga where I could stretch and twist and breathe the grief away.   No more digging in the dirt, planting colorful flowers to ease my pain. 

Now all I have is time.  Time to remember, relive, and rethink every moment of how life used to be.   Time to pray for peace in dealing with the losses of my life.  Time to remember life when the memories weren’t coated in grief.  

 

 

I Don’t Want To Be This Me.

February 20, 2022 /

Matt,  Before your death, I was perfectly happy with my life.  I thought being a wife, mom, grandmother and nurse was my total purpose in life.  I was content going through life doing my thing and never gave a second thought to changing the path I was on.  

Then you died……….

My world as I knew it was on a tailspin.  Fractured beyond repair.  I was holding on for dear life trying to catch the pieces as they spun beside me.  My foundation  was crumbling.  Trying to find stable ground was unending as I fought to accept my new reality. 

I never knew that grief and pain would have the potential to change the trajectory of my life, but indeed it did.  

I found myself unable to return to being that Nurse who took care of other mothers precious children.  I no longer had that wall that protected my heart from their heartbreak as they said goodbye to their babies  born too soon.   I feared I would go to pieces with them as I now understood this horrific pain..

So I withdrew from life.  I was the one who needed care and time to sort out what my soul could handle.  I felt lost and alone.  

It’s funny looking back I now understand how the pain one suffers leads the way to helping others through the same pain.  I get that the loss I’ve experienced is not mine to shelter but it’s mine to share as so many others walk this path .

It continues to surprise me how out of horrible pain comes strength.  I never knew I could be fearless and bold when speaking to others about your struggles in life.  I never saw myself an advocate for Substance Use Disease and the treatment required to save lives.  

I never saw myself as a published author of the book that shares my grief with the world.  I never saw myself as the leader of a support group for moms who have heard the words “ your child died from an overdose”.  

Today I am surrounded by women who like me have used their grief to offer hope and compassion to so many others in our club.  This club is not a popular one.  It’s not a club members want any part of, but this is our reality.  

I don’t want to be this me.  I was to return to the past, before your death and live life according to my terms.  I want to return to the before part of my life as now it has become the after.  Life is now split in two parts.  

During my journey I’ve come to realize there is no going back to the life I desire.  The path is a one way street.  The future is not the one I anticipated but it’s the only one I’ve got.  💜

 

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.   

 

Some Days You Just Have To Cry

June 3, 2021 /

Matt,   Memorial Day weekend has come and gone.   The weather mimicking my soul.  The day was cold and dreary.   A typical Memorial Day weekend in Delaware. My mind kept going back to happier, sunny days when I would drive to the beach to spend the weekend with you.  

We always found a way to avoid the crowds as you hated when “those tourist” invaded your piece of paradise.   I can still hear your voice complaining about the people and the traffic.   I’d let you vent and then remind you I was one of “those tourists”.

Those bittersweet memories became a trigger.   The more I remembered, the closer the grief crept in.   Like one of those completely unexpected rouge waves that hits out of the blue and drops you to your knees.  

The wave of grief so powerful I felt like I was choking.  Like my breath had been sucked out of my lungs as I was being pulled under by its strength.   The reality that we would never share another Memorial Day together, that I would never make that trip again, that I would never walk into your house to see your smiling, tan face was too much for my heart to handle.

I was shocked at how my body responded as those waves continued to wash over my soul.  They call it muscle memory and my muscles were in full gear of remembrance.  That familiar choking sensation returned.   That feeling of hopelessness.  Of dread.  The pain radiating from my broken heart.  I was helpless to stop the physical response to the wave of absolute sadness that enveloped my soul.  

I used to try to fight my way through these tough days.   I’d tell myself that I was being crazy.   That my grief should have lost some of its power over the last 6 years.  I try to convince myself that I should be able to handle these memories without going to pieces.   That what society says about grieving is true.   We should be able to wrap it up in a pretty package and place it on a shelf.   That time should heal broken mothers.  

The reality is that grief knows no time frame.   Those waves are churning always ready to hit without warning.   Grief makes no sense.   It hides in our souls forever present waiting to pounce on our unsuspecting hearts.  

That day, I allowed the dam to break.   I let those waves wash over me as I cried my heart out.   I cried for you and all you were missing in this life.   I cried for me knowing that memories are all I have left of us.   I cried and cried and cried until I had no more tears left to shed.   

I could feel the waves subsiding.   Heading back out to sea.  I felt a calm returning.  My breath becoming regular.  

I’m learning that some days I must anchor myself letting those waves wash over my heart.   I’ve learned I need to feel the pain of what will never be.   After years of struggling to suppress  my grief I’ve come to realize that some days I just need to cry…………

 

I Miss You I Miss Me Too…….

October 6, 2019 /

Matt,

I don’t know why your anniversary on October 3rd hit me so hard.   It’s been 4 years and 9 months since you left this earth, but for some reason this anniversary hit me like a well thrown brick.   Perhaps it’s because we are only 3 months short of your 5th year angelversary   My brain knows you have been gone this long, my heart still struggles with this painful reality.

I feel like a broken piece of pottery.   Once whole.  Once beautiful.   Once useful.   Now I’ve been shattered so many times the pieces that compose me are sharp and  jagged.   No longer fitting perfectly together.   Leaving large gaps that will never fit together to make me whole again.

I look at pictures of us.  Smiling faces stare back at me.   You as an innocent child in my arms.   The joy radiating from my eyes.   I look at pictures of you and Mike.   Both happy and healthy.   Sadly,  there will be no more pictures of you.   What I have is all that will ever be.

My pictures look nothing like the broken woman I have morphed into.   My eyes carry a sadness that cannot be disguised.   My smile is nothing like the one before your death.   Some days I look at my reflection in the mirror and I want to cry.   I miss who I was before your death.   Now as I battle cancer, my reflection is even more painful.

I look like a ghost of the woman I was before.   Pain has taken its toll on my face and body.   Your loss continues to shock and shatter me.   Our pictures never gave a clue as to how our lives would take a turn that would change me into someone I no longer recognize.

My losses just keep piling on.   First your death.   Then my career.  Next were the friends who ran out of my life as fast as their legs would carry them.  Losing both Bella and Simon within weeks of each other was losing another connection to you.    Now, it’s my health.   I wonder if I will ever be able to piece myself together again.   I wonder if my body will return to a state of normal allowing me to enjoy the little things again.   Yoga and biking.   Walking the dogs and making dinner.   Things I always took for granted as I took for granted that you would beat your disease and live.

So now I struggle to pick up my pieces and find a way to make them fit.   The problem with broken pottery is once it’s broken it can never be repaired to the original state.   It will always show the cracks.   It will always show signs of damage.

The life I’m left to live is one I never saw coming.   I’ve read that grief consists of two parts.   The first being loss.   The next is the remaking of life.   Funny, life has continued to go on around me.   I am older and somewhat wiser.   I have learned not to sweat the small stuff.   As so much of life really is small stuff.   I have learned to stop and feel my grief.   I’ve forgiven myself for not being able to save you.   I know I will never return to the woman I was before your death.   I’m trying to rebuild my pieces.   Somedays I remember you, me and Mike holding hand and singing Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.   Humpty Dumpty had a big fall.   All the Kings’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.

Matt, never did I think I would be Humpty.   I miss you.   I miss me.   I miss who we used to be…………….

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