enough is never enough
I experienced a very emotional day today. As if the rain was not enough, I went to the memorial of a woman I never met. She passed away on her 50th birthday from brain cancer (glioblastoma). She was an amazing woman, as I read daily on Face Book, an accounting by her husband (my ex brother-in-law ~ but in my heart he always will be just that). He told the story of of how she lived, which hit me like the proverbial ‘ton of bricks,’ and how he remembered his last moments with her. I shed tears openly for him, my nephew, and her teenage son.
I found that I also cried for MY son, life lessons, and the insanity that sorrow embeds in your soul.
My son is entangled in the conflict of his life, a contest of good versus evil. A potion of drugs continues to lacerate him from the person he used to be and the addict he has become. As I listened to the pastor, the prayers and the echo of falling teardrops all around me today, I wept too for the boy I raised. When you imagine a shameful family secret called drug addiction, you never imagine it will be a story about you and your child. It never occurred to me that my child could or would be an addict.
With too many young people succumbing to drugs like Oxycontin and heroin, to name only two, I KNOW I am not alone. I feel alone though. I haven’t seen my son in months. I don’t know where he is or how he is living. I do know he is using and I am panic-stricken that he is in the clutches of the most nefarious monster known to any parent. There are too many I know who have lost their children to this monster, the little boys and girls our minds still depict them as.
I am afraid of this outcome for my own son. I struggle to understand addiction and what it means.
As I contemplate the life of a very brave woman, who fought her cancer until the end, I wonder why? Why do some have to leave and others don’t? No one seems to have a reasonable choice or a good reason. She is missed tonight by so many and the sorrow of that is overwhelming. I’m especially heartbroken for her son.
To the ones who leave and don’t want to, who fight till the end; and to the ones who are trying to wipe out the pain with whatever poison or process they can – I don’t think we will ever understand what they are going through. If they could interpret or somehow define for us the agony of their sickness or struggle, perhaps we would be able to grasp a small piece of understanding. I know I’m praying for understanding.
In the same breath, how can we clarify the loss we feel when they are gone or when someone you love is bent on self-destruction? If we could only explain to THEM how much they mean to us, if they could only know in their heart of hearts the love we have in ours, would it make it all different?
My son is not gone, he is alive at least, and I am blessed to have that. I miss and love him more than he will ever know (all my texts go unanswered). A woman I never met is now in Heaven, with the brightest light enveloping her, warming her soul and she knows no pain. When is enough ever enough? The time we spend with our loved ones here on Earth will never be enough, we can never give enough love to our children, and we can never understand enough to make the pain go away before it is irreversible. Are we supposed to want less? Is that enough?
My heart breaks for those we have lost and those who are lost.
I’m just a mom and its all I know how to do.
