The Portal: Portal-ity Thoughts

I wrote this post a few months ago thinking I would submit it.  I didn't.  Today I found it, read it, started tweaking it, and now I'm not so sure I should post it at all.  Hopefully, it will speak to someone who has lost a child or was disappointed by life. John died overnight.  One moment we were a mostly happy family, and the next morning he was dead.  He was 24 years old, tall, dark and handsome.  He was funny and outgoing, and he genuinely cared about people, He was also an addict.  I hate that term, but I’ll use it here, so you understand.  I would normally refer to it as substance use disorder, or that he died from fentanyl poisoning, but the fact remained that John was very addicted to opioids.  Which turned into a heroin addiction and then to fentanyl poisoning.  The drug of the season.  The mass murderer of our children.   He was in the Army, 3,250 miles away from home, and was ...

You left us at 24, and today you'd be 32.  It's hard to wrap my head around that.  I guess you'll always be 24 - but down here, I'm watching your friends get older.  Get married.  Have children.  Get divorced, a nd in some cases, keep struggling.   I have some peace knowing your struggle is over.  If you were still fighting the same demons I don't know where that would have left either one of us or the family.  It was the hardest thing I've dealt with, other than your death, and I feel like we have dealt with a lot.  But, to watch your child be controlled by a substance, one that changes who they are, takes over their life, their thoughts, their minute-by-minute - it's the most helpless feeling I've ever had.  I couldn't fix it.  So, in one very small way, it helps . . .helps to know you are safe, in Heaven, with Jesus, and we will see you again.   Thank you for making that decision and for keeping your faith, even though you w...