A heart shattering morning
I woke up this morning to something heartbreaking. Our street was lined with police cars. I knew instantly what happened. Our neighbors have a young adult child (probably 19 or 20) who has an addiction problem. Not long after, the medical examiner’s car showed up. We watched as all the little children in the house were taken out one by one with other relatives (there are a lot of children in that house). Finally, a stretcher with a body bag was removed from the home. It wasn’t surprising. This kid has been heading down a very bad road for a long time. I have intentionally interacted with him as little as possible. I only once spoke to him. It was only to tell him forcefully to leave my premises (he was slurring and asking for money). We weren’t friendly, but I know he was close to his nieces and nephews. I know his parents loved him because he was still there. They still allowed him under their roof despite his addiction and behavioral problems. It’s shaken me. As a mother and a sister, I can’t imagine what the people that loved him are going through right now. I finally decided just to sit with it, and meditate. I hope they find peace.
As I snuggled my son tonight, I hugged him extra hard. We have a tough conversation coming up that I’m not ready to have with him yet. So far every time I’ve tried to verbalize what happened this morning I start crying. I shouldn’t have to tell an 8 year old about a heroin overdose, but if I don’t his friends next door will. Luckily, it’s very cold this week so I doubt he will go out to play. He is in class with one of the kids, and he rides the bus with all four that are of school age. This is not how I imagined our first conversation about drugs coming about. It’s not fair. I don’t want it to happen like this. I don’t want our first conversation to be “drugs can kill.” They can also help (though I don’t believe heroin helps). I’m sure I’ll post more this week as I prepare to have this talk with him.
Yeah that kind of killed the holiday for me as well. I have been in a strange place mentally today. It was surreal seeing the stretcher with the body bag leaving the house and going into the ambulance. But sadly I was not very surprised. I was pretty sure I knew what had happened the moment I saw all those police cars and the ambulance there when I first woke up this morning.
I’m glad we had each other all day.
It is really an amazing post.... and yeah Happy New Year
Thank you for reading and bearing witness
Damn it.
Kali Yuga is calling.
Hope you are ok and feel better now.
Sometimes the souls freak out.
Here in Berlin/ Germany one station was burning...
Couldn’t believe.
Hugs out to you
I have to make an Upvote break to regenerate so I hope my friends from
@originalworks
Could vote up for me.
Shanti om
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Not the best sight to welcome the new year in at all.
More power to you for this planned talk with your child, and all the best for the year ahead.
Very unfortunate news. Sad. Very sad.
I had a similar experience when I was in high school. Another school mate from my same high school lived across the street and two houses down. He was one year younger than I.
After a weekend night out he was pulled over for drinking and sent home without his car (police were more lenient back then). He must have been scared about how much trouble he would be in when his parents woke up in the morning.
Instead of shouting, the neighborhood awoke to sounds of his mother screaming as she found him dead the next morning. He had shot himself in the head. He was only 15 years old.
My opinion is that there still is a HUGE stigma on talking and communicating as a way to deal with our problems, especially for young men. They bottle emotions up inside and never deal with problems out of fear. Next time someone tries to open up and talk to us about feelings we should all do our best not judge and overreact, no matter what. Maybe slowly we can change the negative stigma....
Omg that’s awful :(