On a daily basis we face adversity. Some of those moments are as simple as what we are having for dinner or what movie we are seeing or who is picking up the kids. Others can be extreme moments about expenses in life, marital problems or dreams turned into nightmares. We assume that during those times that everyone will cope well while supporting each other. It is an expectation but that is a green truth because assumptions require no work, no actual knowledge or skill. Serious adversity can and does bring out the worst in people. Each of us faces traumas and the challenges of life in our own way defined by our own emotional definitions. Those skills or lack there of are learned and created starting in our childhood. They are then reflected in our teen years and on up into our adulthood. We either turn towards each other, away from each other, against each other or even towards “the apple” (which can be drugs, alcohol, another person, or anything). The mirror knows the real truth about all of us especially when it involves adversity.
After the doctor had told us that Ryan was probably not going to make it through the night, the room had fallen silent. Everyone was looking at me and waiting for my reaction. My emotions had spun between shock, anger and devastation. The first person to break the silence had been my husband. He had said something. Something that had not made sense. I had ignored it. My youngest brother had been the next to speak. He had asked me, “Are you alright?” How could I have been alright? What had that meant? I had just been told that my son would probably die during the night. My answer was “No. No I am not all right”. I was not able to breathe, think or feel. Drugs had turned the poster child into a fallen angel and death had arrived to claim his soul.
I had needed to find Ryan’s dad. I had called him. There had been no answer. I had then tried his wife. I had left multiple messages on both of their phones. When she finally called me back, she had told me that my ex was in another state at a retreat. He had not had access to a phone. I had told her that she had to find him. That he had to get here. I had said that Ryan was alive because of a machine but that he wasn’t expected to make it through the night. She had told me that she would try but could not promise she could reach him. I had prayed that he would be found in time.
I remember each of those moments from that trauma as if it had happened yesterday. The perfect hand off of a broken phone as that fateful phone call had come in. That drive to the hospital. Talking to Ryan before having them intubate him. The doctor. The curtain. The little room. All the people that had been in it. My husband’s words and actions. My brother’s words. The machine that had breathed for Ryan. Even trying to reach Ryan’s father. Every single sight, sound, and smell has stayed with me because traumas can never be unseen or unfelt. Every action or reaction has far reaching effects whether we are aware of it or not. With time I have been able to learn to embrace those moments because they are as much a part of me as all the good ones.
Despite the people in that room or even the phone calls that had occurred, I was completely alone. I was the mother of an addict who was alive because of a machine. No one else in that room had ever held that position nor would they have wanted to. The only other person who had come close to understanding that pain had been Ashlee. As her brother had lay dying, she had been angry and scared. Taylor was at a friend’s and completely unaware of what had happened. When emotions are felt in such extreme levels under such an intense circumstance, there is no way to know how to handle that. Even if someone else had been able to describe that pain to us, we still would not have been prepared. After all it was our pain. Our reaction.
Ryan’s father had finally called. He was boarding a plane immediately after having driven to the nearest airport that was a couple of hours away. He was arriving at almost midnight. I had felt relief and yet I also had felt fear. What if Ryan had died by then? What if his dad didn’t get to say goodbye? What if Ryan died while I was picking his dad up from the airport? I had thought about that as I waited for the next two hours to pass before I would be allowed back into that ICU room where Ryan lay sleeping. Alive because of a machine but dead because of drugs.
Everyone sins. Drugs love the fallen angel. We ARE in hell. The green truth won’t help us cope. The mirror is getting bigger. We can run but we can’t hide. The snake is smiling. I HATE DRUGS. The apple is a friend of death…
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