Month 4 - Souls/Drugs/Frustration

Four months ago, on Saturday, November 4th, 2017, we woke up to find our beautiful 24-year-old son, John Ryan, lifeless in his bed from an opioid overdose.  He looked peaceful lying there, but not exactly like himself.  What made him who he was, the essence of him, was no longer there.  His body, the vessel that housed his spirit and his soul, was carefully preserved and laid to rest in a beautiful container, for that day when the Lord's timeline is fulfilled. On that day,  John's body will be raised from the dead, glorified, and reunited with his soul. A soul that did not die.  You'll notice that I said John's body will be raised . . . not his "person".   John did not spend a moment not being himself.  He left that body and his soul stepped into eternal life. He is fully himself in Heaven, without the worldly baggage that was dragging him down while here on Earth.  

The one thing you get to take with you from this life is your soul.  Your "you", if you will.  It's who you are, who you were created to be,  and that part of you never ceases to exist. I won't get into the semantics of whose going where and when,  and what that looks like for non-believers, as I am certainly no expert.  But what I believe, and what I have learned, is that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord - you are just passing from one realm to the next, from Earth to your Heavenly Home - in a blink of an eye.  That my friends is the essence of the Christian faith.  That is our great hope in this life. That we get to spend eternity with our Heavenly Father and be reunited with our loved ones that went before us in the faith.  Where we will once again dwell in a beautiful place with the Lord.

Here is a great link to Bible.Org, that gives the supporting verses and a really nice explanation by someone with far more experience than I:  Funeral Messages for Believers for Bible.Org, and another good article is What Happens at Death by John Piper.

After four months, what does life look like for us?  I keep writing and rewriting this part, as it either sounds like a full-fledged pity party, that I'm angry and bitter, or sliding into depression.  I ask myself, really, can this be helpful to anyone? Does anyone need to know this, hear this? On certain days, I suppose I am all those things.   The truth is, we too have changed.  We are no longer who we were.  This is too hard and gets harder every day. We don't know what to expect.  This sorrow, this missing him, this hole. .it's not going away. It can't.

The first few weeks, we were really never alone. There were people here constantly. Every day there were cards, phone calls, messages.  I want you to know that I personally opened every card and read it.  Brian has not looked at the cards yet. He will when he is able.  During that time, we were in shock.  We didn't have time to think, to digest, to come to terms with what we were facing.  There were things to do, so many things.  We were kept very busy and didn't have all these hours to ponder our loss.  We had no idea the reality of what we were facing.  We were heartbroken, but we were oblivious to what it all meant. How it would affect our future lives, and as time has gone by, as we've had this four months to reflect, we see our reality a little differently.  Another grieving family was told at three months "you are just getting started in the grief process", and I think that was very true.

The fact that John isn't away in the service, up at the lake cabin, or off visiting friends has started to sink in. When John was enlisted, we didn't see him for months at a time.  We could still text him, or speak to him, but we didn't always see him. So, this absence is confusing to us.  Every day, when we open our eyes, we are faced with this new reality. He isn't coming home. The image of him lying lifeless in his bed will haunt us.  People have moved on from it, this tragedy of ours, it's too much for us, let alone those around us.  Life continues, and so it should.  The world didn't stop the day our son died.  We just feel like it should have.  Now, we have our lifetimes to consider what we do not have. What we have lost.  We have lots of free time for our thoughts to wander and we do not need a lecture, contrite words, or to be reminded of what we can be thankful for.  We know.  Trust me we do. If you feel the need to tell us that, be assured that someone else already has, and it really wasn't helpful.

Oh, we are getting somewhat good at putting on our game faces and heading out the door.  I've even been told I seem to be doing remarkably well.  The truth is, this pain becomes something you end up dealing with alone. It is said that grief is the loneliest journey you'll ever take. You aren't invited to see me at my worst.  My days are considered, my calendar carefully planned, and often times, I just head on home or stay here.  I may not answer the phone.  I don't make phone calls if I'm feeling sad, as I usually end up in tears with the poor soul on the other end.  If I'm overly tired, I don't attempt much at all.  

People get tired of hearing about your heartbreak, the opioid epidemic, how your life has changed. Maybe some want the old you back. But, you don't even know that person anymore.  That person had something that you do not.   You're jealous of the time she got to spend with him.  You are the "after" person.  Part of your heart is gone.  You have to live the remainder of your days without him.  Dealing with your tears, watching your husband cry, seeing your daughter suffer.  You are the one who will see his friends move on, get married, have kids.  It's not fun to be the "after person".  It won't always be this way.   On that glorious day that you are reunited, you'll feel whole again.  But until then, you are a shell of the who you once were. Now, you pick and chose what you do.  Who you see.  You do the things you have to do, and you carefully weigh the rest.  You ask yourself, can I do that?  Can I manage myself?   You gear up for it.   Every conversation you have or listen to is weighed. You take up a banner for a cause.  You fight for injustice.  You want their life to count for something.  You watch as others take their lives for granted - sweat the smallest things, and you want to scream.  An ambulance bill for services not rendered turns into a protest. 😏 I do appreciate all your comments and offers to go to battle over that with me. 

You are a mama bear who has lost her cub and you'll tear through anything that you think has come against your child, or caused him pain.  My worry and protection for Kaitlin, my love for the new grandbaby, is off the charts.  Recently, Katie was struggling. She's tired. She's had a rough few months.  I had to remind her of exactly what she has endured.  Losing her brother, her only sibling, worrying about her parents, having a baby, a scary birth with an emergency C-Section, being offered several opioids while hospitalized, quitting her job, being a new parent.  Good gracious.  This daughter of mine deserves an award. (So does Jason).  She has great strength, but she is human.  How much can a person bear and not come unglued?  She had a breakdown one night.  She called from the Target parking lot.  Sobbing.  She flashed back to the Blink 182 concert with her brother and Morgan. John, always the protector, told her to hit her lock button and not her unlock button when she is trying to find her car.  That way the car stays locked, and you stay safer.  So as she's coming out of Target, exhausted, she hits her unlock button to find her car.  She remembers the words of wisdom from her brother, her friend, and protector, and she breaks down. She misses him.  She wants to text him, call him, show him the baby.  She comes home and she expects him to be here.  And he is not.  And is it painful.

Kaitlin and John

Those are the times when you need your friends, your family, a support system,  and yet, the thought of calling someone and burdening them with your truth is too much.  So you call your mom, and your mom understands.  She cries with you and for you, she changes roles from grieving mother to a supportive friend, and she reassures you, talks you down, and reminds you that it's okay to feel overwhelmed.  Just one of those major life changes could cause you to feel this way, and you've had an abundance of life changes.  Then her mom hopes and prays that her friends and extended family continue to reach out to her, to understand that her silence in the matter is not necessarily because she is strong, it is because she doesn't want to burden anyone else with her pain.  It's hard to reach out, even if you know that all the people that have said "let me know if there is anything I can do, call if you need someone to listen, or cry with you", meant it.  It's just too hard to make that call. To ask for help.  To ask them to find the time in their busy schedules.

People seem to want to remind you of things you should be thankful for.  Like somehow you have forgotten that life is precious?  Nope.  You know it all too well.  You are super sensitive to what you say to others, because in this new role, you've heard a lot of words, and you learn to hear those things with grace.  But you do not want to make the same mistake and say something that comes across as hurtful to someone else.  But as you listen to what bothers others, you come to realize that nothing is safe.  Everything you say is a catch-phrase for someone else.  

We are trying our best to turn our grief into tangible help for others.  We do not hesitate to tell John's truth.  I recently asked Dave Baker, our friend and State Representative,  a champion in the fight against Opioid addiction, and a fellow parent that lost a son to the epidemic, how others can help in this fight.  He said it starts with addiction without shame. Our idea of who the addicts are has got to change.  In our case, an addict looks like a military veteran who sustained a groin injury that left him in extreme pain.  For Dan Baker, it started with an injury.  For countless others, it started the same.  At the meeting we went to the other night, we heard Joe Rannazzisi, the former DEA Agent, and 60 minutes whistleblower say, "addiction is about changing the way you feel."  He also said sometimes pain is the bodies way of telling us what's wrong.  

I was told by a nurse at the meeting that protocol after a C-Section for them is Motrin.  People aren't dying from the pain of a C-Section, having their wisdom teeth removed, a broken arm - but opioid manufacturers have got us all convinced that without some painkillers, we just aren't going to make it through.  We get addicted because we don't like the way feel, albeit from pain or misery, or whatever it is in life that we are running from, trying not to feel.  How sad is it that so many of us are running from pain?  Isn't pain part of life?  Not every sad day needs a pill.  Not every anxious moment needs a drug to treat it with.  We have to learn to stand firm, lean on Jesus and persevere without medical intervention sometimes.  We also need to treat addiction as a medical condition, not as a moral condition.  The stigma has got to go.  And yes, there are many individuals who need to be placed on pain meds for chronic conditions, etc., this is not about that.  Nor am I talking about clinical depression or anxiety and treating that.  

We will not cease to fight for John, for his friends, for the countless others affected by this crisis.  We are also seeing a very terrible disconnect with how John's injury was handled, how his addiction started, and how it could have possibly been prevented.   The more I learn, the more frustrated I get for him.  

I have a feeling our fight has just begun.