Sitting with Grief and Hope

Photo Credit: Randy Mason

So many people in my circle will say in anger “They will never know how it feels until it happens to them!” We are talking about the loss of our loved ones to addiction, the struggle that we had fighting their addiction, the sacrifices we made, the changes we went through and the pain that we will carry forever. Nope some of “them” (YOU) will never know these feelings, and for that I am not angry but grateful.

I hope that those of you who “don’t know” never will!

I hope that you won’t spend days searching the streets for your strung out child.

That you won’t sit in courtroom after courtroom either trying to get help or standing with your child to face the consequences.

I hope that you don’t ever face the disappointment and distress of having your loved one turned away from treatment because he is not high enough or abusing the “right” drug.

I hope that you never look at your child and see a junkie and fear to have them in your house.

I hope you never have to say no to your loved one who is begging you for money “for food”.

I hope you never have to fear your telephone ringing with an unknown number.

I hope you never have to “prepare yourself for the worst” – because trust me, you never will be able to do that.

I hope you never hear the words I need help from your loved one, and have no ideas or real ability to actually help them.

I hope you never “know how it feels”.

However, if you are lucky enough to read all of the above and not relate to any of it, I hope you can accept that as a blessing AND also be open to those of us who were not so blessed. That you can look at those people and their families who do not have the same blessings and treat them with acceptance and kindness. The addiction and recovery communities need support from our entire community.

-Darlene Mersereau

About Magnolia Beginnings

Just when you think you have it all down it changes again or... “Reshaping life! People who can say that have never understood a thing about life—they have never felt its breath, its heartbeat—however much they have seen or done. They look on it as a lump of raw material that needs to be processed by them, to be ennobled by their touch. But life is never a material, a substance to be molded. If you want to know, life is the principle of self-renewal, it is constantly renewing and remaking and changing and transfiguring itself, it is infinitely beyond your or my obtuse theories about it.” ― Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

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2 Responses to Sitting with Grief and Hope

Magnolia Beginnings says:

April 1, 2017 at 1:46 pm

Reblogged this on Magnolia Beginnings.

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Rick Christensen says:

April 1, 2017 at 2:32 pm

Thank you for this heart-felt writing. Sadly, our legal system has processed people who need treatment, not incarceration. I understand those complexities for which right now it seems, we have no real answers. I will pray for your family. Thank you for sharing your walk of faith and your prayers for other families.

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