Category : Notes/work

Sub Category : N/A

I've heard that everyone grieves in their own unique way and that there is no time limit.
Within the last two years I've buried almost my entire family.
Certainly the only ones who truly ever cared for me have passed. 
At times the loneliness is almost unbearable , then it is replaced with deep longing, bittersweet memories that bring silent tears to my eyes,  then the emptiness settles in and claims its place in my existence.

It could have played out so differently , my life. Still taking the blame upon myself of every bad decision or wrong choice everyone else has made, just like my old man used to do.
I could have  been  anyone  or became  anything I wanted to be in life, and many times I excelled at being the best at whatever the particular challenge was at that moment in time, that,  had I realized would be so fleeting and leave me scared and alone to the point of breathlessness , perhaps I would have made my choices more wisely.

Like others who live their lives in quiet seclusion after  having been beaten down and drug through abuse, addiction,abandonement, and betrayal, we are a breed apart from what society accepts as normal.
Wandering aimlessly feeling that our lives, or at least the best years of it, have already left us behind.
Like an orphan awaiting the return of loving safe arms to protect it.

There is no one left to protect me now, the people so dear to me in life certainly must be waiting on the other side. 

As adults we expect the inevitable letting go of our parents. 

The love of my life was also lost a little over a year ago, riding his motorcycle, high, in the dead of winter. One would think better of such a foolish choice if sober. 
You think you know someone, especially after spending more than 15 years with them.
Yet I didn't see the man that I loved so much was a heroin addict or pedophile in the making.
How does something like that slip by you unnoticed? Denial. 

When I look back on my life and what we had, my husband and I, I now see that there were signs here and there, like when my son informed me of the syringe he noticed in his step-dad's toolbox. 
Or when my daughter wanted to know why her step-dad would tell her that smoking meth is a great way to lose weight. 
I don't need to press further, for the pain of it still stings my being.

My daughter too is now gone. She died alone in a hotel room after ingesting too many of what she thought were Xanax , but instead turned out to be carfentynl, an elephant tranquilizer used to manufacture the homemade version of the drug.

She was discovered the following day and found  unresponsive by the cleaning crew of the hotel she was at, prostituting for drugs and to buy her daughter's Christmas. 

Telling a child that her mother won't be home for Christmas ever again is something so life altering. My heart breaks every time I think of her daughter, and her reaction to her mother's death. 

Of course we all knew my daughter's life was a perpetual train wreak. Her addictive behavior having become so toxic that it put others in danger to have her around.  I can't recall how many times I came out of my house with a pistol and in bare feet,at all hours of the day and night.  It's  a wonder I have even survived as long as I have.
 Staring down dope men hiding in closets, random drive by shootings when she jumped out of a car after grabbing dope she didn't pay for. 

God must have a purpose in mind. Or at the very least a lesson in all this.

Why is it so many of us lose our credibility as we get older? I've tried to be an honest and decent human being my entire life. I've helped others when I didn't have it to give, and for what? 
For drugs to invade my life and steal the lives of those I love? 
Im not even able to get custody of my son's daughter, tied up in CPS after being born addicted to heroin. 
As a result of my daughter's involvement with child protective services the times I would relent and give in to allowing her a place to stay for the night. 
This decision always ended badly,yet still. being a mother, found it too difficult to put my own grown child out on the streets. After all, I still needed my parents from time to time. 
How could I not be there for my own daughter? 
And the times I didn't give into her antics, her grandfather would. There was no emotional support there from the beginning, my mother suffering her own living torment, was not one to comment as to anything positive as far as I was concerned.
But what concerns me most is what is happening to us as a society? 
The 'baby boomers' seem to have given birth to a disposable generation. One that is selfish and lazy and without any  moral compass. 
Who is to blame for the continual stream of body bags arriving at county morgues, victims of overdosing? 
I've barely had time to grieve the loss of one when there is news of yet another opioid induced death of someone I'm attached to. 

But there is nothing that rips and tears to shreds your innermost soul as the death of your child, no matter what age, no matter the circumstance. It changes you in a way that nothing else  can come close to toucbing.
I am now aware that there is nothing I can't cope with. The trivial issues I hear others complain about are meaningless. 
Life, itself is often meaningless as I sit alone in this darkness waiting for the light to find me, as I have given up the search of finding it.
I' m not quite sure where I am in this seemingly never ending grieving process.
All I know how to do is to keep going, keep the faith, know my Angels are near,and hope they are bringing comfort to those I love and miss so immensely.
Maybe I just need a little more time to grieve.
I hear everyone grieves differently ...