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 ...

The darkness clouds my mind, my heart, the very atmosphere I breathe, even on a beautiful sunny day.  The hole you've left, the black one, the void, it's always there.  I think that's the thing you can't comprehend.  Hearts are fragile, and when it comes to your children, and a breaking or rending, a tearing, such as this . . .well, how can that hole be filled with anything other than you?  For the part that is missing is you . I keep trying to learn about Substance Use Disorder {SUD} and how it affects the brain, the emotions, the life of its victim - and as I struggle to live without you, it becomes more and more clear how delicate the balances are.  When I took the free Harvard opioid class, I learned some things - but one really stuck with me.  The limbic system.   It's the part of the brain that controls emotions, pleasure, relaxation, and contentment.  Well, when those opioids hit that spot and the feeling washes over you - it...

Before John died, I had a 3 a.m. conversation with the Lord one night.  I knew about the drugs.  I knew what that meant.  I had been pleading for his life, for his healing, for his willingness to get help, for his trauma - that he would accept counseling, try meds for depression, anything...something.  As his mom, my heart was broken, I didn't know what to do, and God quietly asked: "Do you trust me?"   Do you trust me either way?   Do you trust me if the answer isn't what you were hoping for?  If the outcome isn't the answer, isn't the solution you were hoping for?  Will you trust that I know the whole picture?  That I am the creator of the universe and that John is my child first? I cried for hours before I answered.  I begged and pleaded and I knew that I had to surrender.  I finally said "yes, I trust you no matter what.  I trust you with John's life and I trust you with mine."  On mornings like this o...

John - JRTC at FT Polk Words and more words.  I can't tell you how many posts I've written lately and haven't published, or I deleted them altogether.   I submitted a couple to grief sites, just because I'm drowning in them. Usually writing helps me process, but life has been unusually dark lately and nothing that's coming off the keyboard feels quite right.   Don't worry, I didn't send in the super sarcastic ones, with titles such as:  Leper, Snarky Grief, and I Wish I Couldn't Imagine, they are still in the draft file. They are TMI and word vomit.  I read one to my husband the other day -  he cautioned me not to share it.  😳There are too many words and at the same time not enough words.  Not enough of the right words.  No words to take the pain of losing John away. I found this picture of him in his iCloud.  Unfortunately, when the police released his phone, it wouldn't work anymore.  I had gone through it previously, ...