Turbo Cancer: Day 103 - September 22, 2022
Silence
On this day, last year, my mom wrote:
Kristi got a call last night from San Francisco PD. Steven died of a drug overdose. I’m so sad, but I know he’s in a better place. The last few years he was so tortured by drugs, mental illness etc. We all did all we could but he wasn’t able to take God’s hand. He is at peace at last. Pray for Kristi, family, Steven.
When I was a child, I couldn’t speak.
I had the physical ability to speak. I understood everything that people were saying to me. I had words in my head.
Fear kept me from saying the words out loud.
I spoke when I was with people whom I knew and whom I found to be non-threatening. However, if there were strangers present, or a group of people, I remained silent.
I wanted to talk and I had things to say. I just couldn’t do it.
It felt physical. It felt as if there had been a lump in my throat that would block the words from coming out. If I was encouraged to speak outside of my comfort zone, I would cry. I just couldn’t do it. My mom would describe me as “painfully shy”, and people would leave me alone. I preferred to be left alone.
Had I been born twenty years later, I would have been diagnosed with severe social anxiety or selective mutism. I am happy that I was born when I was.
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t participate. All I could do was watch and listen. I used my eyes and my ears. I quietly observed the world around me.
Over time, I figured out how to talk to people and how to make friends. I overcame my fear of speaking in my classroom, and at school. As an adult, I learned how to speak in professional situations, and I became socially proficient. I got myself to the point where I could stand in front of a room full of people, speaking passionately, without a script.
I thought I had overcome my quiet obstacles.
But the child we once were is who we remain.
The truth is that I lost Steven a decade ago. I lost him when he was in high school. He was a beautiful boy. He was filled with life and potential. Addiction took hold of him quickly and completely. There was no mercy.
While he was a teenager, I took Steven to different counselors, doctors, therapists, psychiatrists and programs. I read books about troubled teenagers and about addiction. I tried different parenting techniques.
None of it worked. I was watching, helplessly, as my son was overtaken by an angry, resentful, vindictive manipulator.
Drugs changed him, suddenly. Out of the blue, my perfect, brilliant, angelic boy, was filled with darkness.
The worse it got, the more I couldn’t talk about it.
I was filled with emotions and thoughts and questions and words, but my throat had closed up. I couldn’t speak.
As far as I know, the first time Steven tried a narcotic was after a bicycle accident, when he was fourteen years old. The bike had flipped. No bones were broken, but the right side of his body was badly scraped and bruised.
He was given prescription Vicodin for pain. Driving home from the hospital, we were all laughing because he was acting silly from the drugs.
By the time Steven was nineteen, his addiction was out of control. I wanted to be able to help him. I wanted to be able to fix him. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know what to do.
I did know that the situation, as it was, was not helping him. He had graduated high school. He was living at home. He was not working. He was not going to school. He was getting himself into more and more trouble. He wasn’t showing any signs of remorse. He didn’t seem to care about how his actions were affecting the rest of the family.
He had crashed his car, he had stolen money, he had gotten arrested, he had punched the wall.
I was overwhelmed.
Allowing him to continue to live in our house felt like allowing him to become sicker. I wanted to protect my son, but I didn’t want to protect his addiction anymore.
In protecting him, I had already failed.
By remaining oblivious, and not recognizing that our children are being preyed upon by dark forces, I had failed him.
When Steven was born, I was young and stupid. I was distracted by shiny things. I thought that loving my baby meant buying him the best stuff. Every payday, I took him to the Disney Store. I bought us toys and matching T-Shirts.
And people told me I was a good mom.
He was raised without a father. I didn’t take him to church. I didn’t tell him that he was important to God.
I told him that he was important to me and that he was important to himself. I failed to warn him about evil. I failed to instill in him the strength necessary to overcome darkness.
When I was young and stupid, I believed in the self-centered, materialistic, American liberal ideology. As a result, I sacrificed my son.
And I didn’t see it coming.
And my poor, sweet baby boy didn’t see it coming either. Nobody had taught him about wolves.
When Steven was nineteen, my husband and I decided that we would no longer support his self-destruction.
I told my angel that I wasn’t going to take care of him anymore. I told him that he had to make a choice between drugs and family. I told him that, when he decided to get healthy, I would help him in a real way. I told him that I would no longer help him to remain sick.
I told him to pack his things and leave my house. I shoved him out into a dark, scary world.
I lost him forever.
And I couldn’t talk about it.
I went on with my life, because life goes on. While I put my energy into my job, I secretly walked around with a big, empty hole in my heart.
I just didn’t talk about it.
I always held onto hope that Steven would one day decide that his life was too hard, and that he would come home, ready to accept our help. Ready to start over.
Instead, he found a place where drug addiction is accepted and encouraged. He was welcomed by San Francisco, where they will give you a tent and a needle, helping you to remain unconscious, until the day you die.
I thought that, one day, somehow, we would fix things between us. I imagined that there was a way that we could be together again.
What died, in the bathroom, in San Francisco, was hope.
During my mom’s illness, there were only three days when I did not see her at all. This day was one of the three.
I asked Penny to take care of my mom.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I was frozen.
Some babies can't be saved by us humans, only God can save them and it happens after death.
Please have hope that your baby boy is with God and free of any addiction now.
You will see him again, you must believe that, he's with your mom right now!
As a mother, I can imagine this is a heartbreak with no end. God bless you and your family🙏