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 ...

John:) I haven’t written in a long while. Am I a grief writer? What about this whole cancer thing? Can I just write whatever – do a therapy dump? I guess I’ve been a bit confused lately, and to be honest, I just haven’t had the energy to confront all the thoughts and emotions of the last several months. But, I have some time today – and in all honesty, I think I could use some writing therapy. This post is probably going to be all over the place, but I think that’s okay – because so am I.  JOHN I will start with John because in all of this, speaking his name and keeping his memory alive is paramount. I started writing to help others and to help my heart. To help me process what I was feeling, and to reach out to other bereaved parents. I wanted to be as transparent as possible – to speak my truth and share the truth of other bereaved parents so they wouldn’t feel crazy in their grief and so I wouldn’t lose my mind. Over the last 3.8 years, I’ve done my best to stick wit...

A Room With A View . . . My corner for the morning - a warm blanket and peanut butter & jelly toast . . .I'm all set Yeah.  Being facetious.  I can see some treetops!  The cancer center is BUSY!  Everyone is getting their after Christmas dose of life-saving poison and the nurses are trying to keep up.  I thought I’d bring you with me today, dear reader, (⬅️ Morgan 😂) and show you what a day in the life of this grieving, and now, cancer patient, looks like.   My appointment was at 8.  8:30 . . .I had my port accessed and headed back to the waiting room.  I saw the Doc about – 9:30.  He listened to my heart, squeezed my ankles, and asked how it went on Round One. I told him it went really great.  Then I shared my genetic results with him.  I'm BRCA 1 Positive - so this is definitely inherited and genetic.   His reaction was a little shocked, and he confirmed what Mayo said about another surgery.  So, after chemo is all ...

I lift up my eyes to the mountains where  does my help come from?   My help comes from the  Lord ,  the Maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 121 Yesterday, I wrote an article and submitted it to an online magazine.  In it, I made no reference to my faith – just grief.  I usually always end my writings with a positive faith-filled message.  But I didn’t.  Why?  Because someone commented on a piece I wrote, saying that it was "great up until the religious part."  Friends, without the religious part, the faith part, the actual reason for our hope part – it’s just words, in my opinion. So I wrote a sad piece on grief and what to expect, without sharing my hope. I'm about to correct that now. Because my hope, my faith, my Jesus? They are everything to me. I don’t understand a world where things just accidentally fell into place. Where there is no Creator, no author, no God of the Universe. ...

Today is just one of the many hard days.  I think the ratio of good days vs. bad days should be changing anytime now, and then I tell myself the truth.  This is forever, and I'm pretty sure at day 167, that this isn't going to get any easier.  In fact, I think it may be getting harder as the days pass and I can't see John.  I miss him.  Did you know there was an app for keeping track of days? Yep.  It's on my phone.  I like to know how many days/months it has been.  How sad is that that someone designed an app to track the days in between?  I'm sure they meant it for special countdowns - happy countdowns, but still. I should anticipate these bad days when I'm at home all day.  These days are bound to pop up. After all, last night was a precursor, as I had to finalize the verbiage on John's headstone (unless I change my mind . . .again).   I also woke up today to another article in the local newspaper.  At least ...