New Dawn of Hope.

The last few weeks have been daunted with grief; my heart has been agitated and filled with hopelessness.  I had hoped I was done grieving the losses.  Done grieving it all.  We forget that grieving is part of the process, that the road isn’t always full of sunshine and roses.  That there are dark stretches of the road, where shadows loom and the night falls.  I wish grieving was done in one fell swoop that we could just “cry that river” and it would be done.  But grieving doesn’t work that way.  It doesn’t work that way with those I have loved that have passed from this life and it doesn’t work that way on the Road marked Addiction.

I lost my dad nearly 11 years ago now, I remember the initial grieving period, the feeling of loss, and the hole that was left in our lives and how dark that hole seemed for quite some time.  Over time that painfulness of grieving lifted, and it wasn’t so fresh and deep anymore.  Yet there have been moments that have come, that have brought with them a fresh wave of grief.

Like when my little man was born, just 15 months after my dad passed.  He would be the first grandchild my dad would never know… 

I grieved. 

And then there was the time my car started acting up and I realized my dad was not there to tell the symptoms too…

I grieved.

Every February when NASCAR’s first race comes and I hear the National Anthem sung and those words…”Gentlemen START your Engines”

I grieved.

So why would I think grieving my son’s life of addiction would be any different.  Why would I think that it would be done in one fell swoop, that  back in 2009 when I hurt so deep I thought I was going to die, that that was it, no more grieving needed.  Why would I think this darkness wouldn’t befall me now and again when his life spins out of control and the Hope seems to have left?

And Grief seems to win for the moment. 

I’m foolish to think I won’t grieve along the way.  That my road of Recovery won’t have those dark moments, ones that will cause me sleepless nights, and a heart that seems to have lost hope.

But…

Then the morning comes, and we walk just a bit further down the road and the sun breaks over the crest and we see it again.

HOPE…

It’s still there, even though the shadows of the hard times blocked its view it was still there.  Waiting for us on the horizon.  Waiting for us to feel its warmth and embrace its glow.    

Both last night and this morning I was crying out to God to lift this darkness from me, to give me a new Hope.  (actually I have been  asking this for days now) and there it was this morning, calling me out of my bed early… as I sat at the kitchen table with coffee in one hand and my bible and phone in the other.  I opened my Facebook and there at the very top was this from my son’s Facebook page:

“Dear God, 
thank u for wat u have put me through, the past yrs. my life was a mess and know i have made it better by turning it around i know it has not been that long but i do not want to go back to it and i also want to thank u for putting this beautiful girl into my life she is the greatest girl i have ever met i believe that u put her in my life and i just want to thank u for that i also want to pray for my family to be watched over while im fixing my life for the better….
Amen..”

 

Then in my bible reading this morning I was reading Isaiah 49 which speaks to the restoration of Israel and in verse 17 it said… “soon your son (Jacob) will be brought back”… I wept with hope.  (I read Isaiah 46-52 this morning and it all was just filled with the HOPE of restoration)

Those words leapt off the page as if they were written just for me, just for today.

Without the sting of grieving; we may never know the deep refreshment of the New Dawn of Hope.  Know that it is ok to grieve… grieving will be part of of our Journey… But oh thank you God when the Morning comes and with it a New Dawn of Hope is given.

The Balancing Act

On any given day my emotions can run all over the place if I don’t work my own Recovery.  I can go from sadness to fear in a matter of seconds. And if I’m not careful will start acting out of that fear.  Chasing after my son; looking for ways to make life easier on him.  A meal here, some cash there, a few hours at home so he can feel connected.  It doens’t take long before I crash and burn for all that chasing.

AND…

Yes, I’ve done all of that. Some of it I don’t regret, knowing it was the right thing to do at the time.  Right for where I was in my own journey, and hopefully right for his.  But I know that there are times that things get out of balance.  That I have ended up doing too much at the wrong times.  Those are the times I regret.  My own choices, filling my own need to know he is safe, fed ect.  Those are the times that end in disaster.  They end with us being taken advantage of and usually something gets stolen.

This is my battle today; today my journey of Recovery is struggling.  My son is in “free fall” mode once again and I am left to battle with the balance.  My sadness, if not recognized and held in check will turn to fear… and then I will be battling with acting out of that fear, most likely perpetuating a new mess.

So for all of you who read my blog, I am being accountable today.  I am sad.  So very sad that my son has YET to find his way, has YET to walk strongly in Recovery, has YET to make any marked progress.  A year ago I sat in a court room asking a Judge to Section 35 him, to save his life… and a year later the sadness hits me yet again.

But in that year, my own Journey has made some leaps, I’ve fallen back a few steps on the way and then regained them and fought for a few more new ones.  And I will continue to fight for new ones, and to do my best to hold my ground on the steps I’ve already learned.  And I pray my son will begin to do the same.

Unplugging the Phone

 

 

 

 

 

I’m glad I got those two weeks because last night I had to unplug the phone.

The call came at about 7PM…

“Mom you’re not going to believe this but I just got kicked out…”

I heard the rest of the story but it all sounded like … blah blah blah… blah blah blah.   And truthfully at this point in the journey I don’t believe much he says. For whatever the reason is, was, it doesn’t even really matter to me anymore.  He immediately asked for money, for minutes on his phone ect ect ect.

To which I responded “No… you got yourself in this mess, you will have to figure your way out of it.”

That of course didn’t stop him…he continued to rant

and I…

Unplugged the phone.

 

And I’m ok.

I’m not worried into a frazzle about where he slept or if he ate. He seems to always figure that out, he’s pretty resourceful.

It’s a bueatiful sun-shiny day here in the South Coast of Massachuestts.  I have plans underway for my daughters graduation party, celebrating her Master’s in Teaching, and a special dinner Friday night for my grandson who’s graduating from Jr. High.

I choose to focus on the blessings in my life, yet still praying that my son finds his way to recovery and a life of sobriety.

The phone may be unplugged… but my HOPE isn’t.

 

Living in the Moment…

 

 

 

 

 

For many months I’ve lived with the fear that my son would never put together any real clean time.  That a life of sobriety would somehow pass him by and he would forever be caught up in an existence of drug use/abuse and homelessness.

Although I didn’t give up Hope per say, I certainly was preparing myself to deal with what could be our reality.   My own battle with Recovery has taken many twists and turns.  Finding the balance between despair and hope has at times been a matter of the will.  I have had to “will” myself toward Hope during some of the more difficult times.

These last few weeks I’ve been silent and haven’t posted.  In the past when I have posted about some level of success  my son has had it would only be a matter of days and addiction would come crashing down on us once again.  So I have literally been “living in the moment”.  Enjoying my son for who he is right now.  He has put together a good number of clean days, has had a strong attitude about the future, has been attending meetings (a new thing for him) and has been working hard towards finding long term help.

I have sat back and watched him take homelessness and turn it into the motive to drive him forward.  I had my moments of fear when he won a good amount of money, only to find that he used some of it to help those even less fortunate them him at the shelter.  Today he is in a Rehab, detoxing off Methadone a choice I am very proud of… I’m not sure I would make the choice to purposely make myself very ill so I could take the text… but he did.  And when he comes out he will have a placement in a Transitional Living house.

Living in the moment has its merit. I have had the opportunity to see my son and appreciate who he is today, and quietly rejoice in how far he has come (today).  For truly today is all we ever have.