13 Months: An update after a death from addiction

August 31, 2019

Dear Dave,

It's been 13 months since we lost you. And it's been 17 years and 13 months since you and I were a married couple, but our parenting partnership never ended despite the fact that our marriage did. Until you died, we had an understanding that when it came to our boys, we were a team.

This letter is to fill you in on what's happened over the last 13 month.

After a really rough year, our older son has decided he needs a change. Next week, he's moving halfway across the country to your hometown, a place you had always wanted to return to but never did. We are seeing this as an exciting fresh start for him, and he's looking forward to it, but I think he might be a little nervous too. Rightly so. He's never lived outside of our state before, and he's never been so far away from us before either. But your family has offered to help him get settled, and he's going to live with your niece and her kids. It's going to be great for him especially since he'll get to use those incredible fatherly instincts he inherited from you.

I wish you were here to see it.

Our younger son is almost finished with college. He's got one more semester to go for a political science degree. I can't help but remember the way you used to walk the halls of the high school where you taught with a miniature copy of the Constitution in your front pocket. Our boy is studying what you loved. And he's a research and policy intern for our agency this semester. His work will involve researching and supporting legislative efforts related to mental health and addiction. He is figuring out his life and his future. He's going to do great things.

I wish you were here to see it.

And I've been focusing our advocacy work more deeply into the issues of addiction. Now, when I train or consult, I have a more personal view on how a person's life, as well as their loved one's lives,  can dramatically change when substance use disorder is involved. I don't share the details of our story, your story, but I do talk about the fact that it affected us all. I do say it cut your life too short. And I say it stole you away from us years before you actually died. We watched you slowly fade away, a gradual suicide.

I wish you were here to see how hard we are all working to make our lives and others' lives better. Each of us in our own way is trying to make losing you have a purpose.

Forever your parent partner,
me.

P.S. Did you know September is National Recovery Month? How I wish you were here to celebrate it.

Etched Deep: A Place Where Art Reclaims Lives

Aug. 4, 2017

There is a place downtown where creativity inspires dreams in those who had long ago stopped dreaming. Where vision reignites ambition in those who'd long since given up. Where praise encourages the ignored and trust empowers the doubted. 

There is a place downtown where Hope is etched deep.

Ken greets us at the door. He's happy to see us again but sorry that he can't remember our names. He says we do look familiar. He just isn't so good with names anymore because of all the ECT. He laughs nervously like he's convincing himself that this is somehow funny. He doesn't know what projects we're doing tonight, but he knows they'll be good.

Pharoah comes in and puts his crumpled grocery bag on the table--it isn't filled with groceries, it's filled with notebooks. Removing each one reverently, he stacks them, then lays a hand down on the top one as if to swear an oath. Quietly, he asks if we'd like to hear a poem. If we do, he'll need a minute to find one that is appropriate for all audiences, one that doesn't have curse words and that doesn't require yelling.

And Nate arrives to drop off his hand drawn flyers advertising his debut art show coming up next month. He shuffles on the balls of his feet, nodding proudly when he learns his show will be the most well-attended one to date. He tells us of his girlfriend Sheila and how she's had Lyme Disease. He's very pleased to meet us and repeats our names again as if to memorize them before he disappears out into the city.

We sit down and we each pick up a tile. Yellow or pink. We pick up our carving tools and begin to create our own unique designs. Anything we want to imagine. We are told we can do whatever we think of as long as we carve deep. Get down below the color surface so it sticks when they fire the tile. So it stays. Just carve it in. Dig down deep. Dream hard.

Ken and Pharoah, Nate and Sheila know how to dig deep. And they have remembered how to dream and to imagine and to create right here. Their freedom to hope was etched deep into them when they first stepped inside this place.

Yes, we know Poverty and Homelessness lurk just outside that door. And we see Mental illness and Addiction hovering there too. But Ken and Pharoah, Nate and Sheila don't get distracted by that gloom. 

Their Hope, like ours, is etched deep.

Still Hope

July 26, 2017

It's been seven years since
the Wave of my son's illness first crashed over him.
Seven years since I realized he needed something
that neither he nor I could see nor taste, smell nor hear, touch nor feel.
Seven years since I tried to find the boy
who'd disappeared in Darkness
and smother out his Pain. And Sadness.

But Sadness swallowed him whole.

It's been more than four years since
my son went to Prison.
More than four years since he decided,
from the backseat of a Police Car,
to finally accept his Diagnosis.
More than four years since

I finally received the Call

and he stopped running
Four years since
I finally knew where he would sleep that night
and I felt Relief. And Sadness.

Sadness swallowed me whole.

It's been over a year since
my son left Prison.
Over a year since he came out the other side
and began to face the world of Recovery,
discovering it is a world of constant motion.
Like treading water,
Recovery expects constant Movement,
constant Effort, constant Work,
Recovery nags, never satisfied.
The journey of Recovery is always that.
A journey with no Destination.

It's been more than a year and
we are both Still just treading water.

It's been more than a month since
I left my teaching job
More than a month since
I began this new career
to Advocate and Support people
living with mental illness and their families
People like my son. And people like me.

And the work we do brings me joy.

But also, sadness.

Sadness that I can't solve all the Problems.
Sadness that there are not enough Resources
and not enough Hours and not enough Days
and not enough willing and capable People
to do this Work.
All this Work.
Not enough. Never enough.

So yes, Sadness.

But with the Sadness,
also Hope.

Still
Also Hope.

"Why We Fall Down" Runner-Up Essay written by my son Luke about his older brother Jake

 August 17, 2015

My son Luke wrote an essay about his older brother for a scholarship contest. He was awarded Runner up. Here is his essay.