Dear Maks,
It's my birthday. I am trying desperately to push forward but lately I have really been feeling lost.
I miss you Mac...you and I were a team and I miss you.
I find that life is defined by moments and my life is now defined by the moment I said, "Are you telling me my son is dead?"
There was life before that.
There has been life after that.
But who I am is forever defined in that moment.
I find myself pushing the thoughts of you out of my head so that I don't have to feel the pain...the unbearable emptiness that I feel in every ounce of my being.
I have a great deal of faith now. Faith that you are still around me. Faith that you will help guide me to my next defining moment. Faith that you are working to bring me happiness. Faith that I will see the signs that you send. Faith that I will believe in what the rational mind pushes aside and follow the path you are helping to forge for me.
Some days I wonder if I am handling your death better than most mothers would. It isn't that I don't miss you.
I do.
And I am scared beyond comprehension that I will begin to forget things about you. Your silly ways, your laugh, your sly grin.
But I also feel at peace about things.
Living through your addiction never afforded me the opportunity to flourish in my own life.
If I can accept my broken heart will my soul ever be whole again? Was I left here for some greater good? Will I ever find passion in life?
It's my birthday Mac.
This is the start of my new year. Please help me understand what I am suppose to do with it.
When I see you in my dreams you tell me to move forward...you tell me that it was you who made the mistakes, not me.
How do I do that? Move forward? I have no idea where I'm going. I have no direction.
It is as if I am waiting for a new moment to define me.
A moment that isn't about losing you, but in finding me.
Maks, you are everything to me...through the anger and the addiction...I built up walls and had to learn to protect my heart, but you will always be the best thing that I ever had in my life.
You are my whole heart.
I love you to the stars.
And I miss you.
You said you were going to take a role in my life, help my spirit guide and be here for me when I need you.
I need you. Your bear hugs, your laughter...I need your energy to surround me and guide me.
Please let me know you're here with me.
It's my birthday.
I am emotionally stuck. Defined by your death.
I need my next moment. Some glimmer of hope.
Can you help me?
I love you, mama

I Can't Breath

Dear Maks,

It has been 7 months since you died and I still find myself so alone. Surrounded by people and still so alone.

For weeks I have been so angry at you.

I gave you every opportunity that I was never given. I guided you through school, gave you the opportunity to flourish as an athlete, bought you all the best clothes, supported your short lived musical endeavors.

And for what??? So you could fuck it all off and die of a heroin overdose???

Why the fuck aren't you playing football at USC right now???

I raised you to play sports at any college in the country. I made sure you took the right classes, I paid tutors to help you with subjects you struggled with.

I gave you everything.

I gave you everything that I ever wanted for myself but was never given.

I tried to set an example for you. I worked hard. I achieved awards, became a leader in my field. I SHOWED you how to be a respectable, strong, go getter.

You decided to do drugs.

I put you through the best adolescent rehabs in the country.

You cleaned up...then went back to drugs.

You quit sports. Your grades fell to shit.

Drugs took you.

And I am mad at you for letting them take you.

I know that addiction is not a choice...but sobriety is. You could have chosen sobriety god dammit. You could have chosen a different path. You could have made me proud. I am so damn angry that you threw it all away. You were beautiful. 6'2, brown hair, blue eyes, naturally perfect teeth, charismatic, witty, smart, strong, athletic, warm-hearted.

Who would throw that all away?

People search for years for what you were born with and you threw it all away. I can't help but struggle with this.

I am so torn between the you that I knew as a child and the you that you became as a teenager on drugs. I admit, sometimes it is hard to separate the two.

It is also hard for me to believe that you are really gone. That pain has not yet hit me.

One voicemail.

That is the only way I will ever hear your voice for the rest of my life.

All of the anger...here to protect me from all of the never ending pain.

Once the pain sets in I may never come back from it.

Right. I'm strong. I will survive.

But I will never be whole again. I will never escape the ache, the empty ache that I keep hidden. Because I am in this pain alone. No one knows it like I do. It takes my breath away. This is me...gasping for air. In some ways holding on to the anger in order to avoid the excruciating pain that I have kept hidden since the day you went away.

I miss being called mama.

Hold my Hand

Dear Maks,

Sometimes, when I am driving, I put my hand on the passenger seat armrest and ask you to hold my hand. I squeeze my hand into a fist and I remember how your hand use to feel in mine. I remember your little boy hand, your teenage hand and your grown man hand. It feels so warm, so innocent, so full of life.

Then I let go and pray that I never forget how it feels.

Your hand.

In mine.

Stay with me ok? Be there when I need to hold your hand.

So I can always remember what it was like to feel something.

I'm empty without you,

mama

Shades of Grey

Dear Maks,

I want you to know I am trying to move forward in small ways every day.

I have started running again. I hope to do my first half marathon on June 3rd...1 year to the day that you left home and went to New Roads in Utah.

The strength you used that day, to put yourself in treatment, to want sobriety...it is the strength I will use as I run through 13.1 miles.

I have also starting working again...part-time, and am relaunching as Laurie Cota Photography to include more than Pet Photography.

Small steps in the big picture of life, I know, but it is better than standing still...which is what I've been doing since you left.

I am not sure how to live my whole life without you. All I can do is hope that eventually the days won't seem so pointless and the nights won't seem so sad.

The weather is changing. Growing warmer. You always loved this time of year...the onset of Spring, warmer nights, longer days...you would beg to go to the park or out for ice cream.

I miss seeing you eat ice cream.

I sat with Amy and her girls at Cold Stone yesterday and I looked around and wondered if all those parents knew how lucky they were to watch their kids eat ice cream.

In those moments I feel so damn sorry for myself.

Not one thing will ever feel the same again. Without you, it's as if the world has suddenly turned bland. Everything that was once vibrant is now merely a shade of grey.

But within this tasteless, black and white world I am making an effort to live. Because I know you would want it that way.

I'm moving through the haze, holding on to my belief that your energy is all around me...existing through the signs that you send me.

I know I will never be the same again. So I guess what I want you to know is that I am making an effort to exist differently...to find the me that I have to learn to be.

The me that is without you.

I love you,

Mama

Dear Maks,

“Are you telling me my son is dead?”

I keep hearing myself say that. Yet it didn’t feel like I said it. It felt like I was watching a movie and that was the most dramatic way for the character to discover the death of her son.

He didn’t answer me ya know. He said I had to call the police department.

Instead of saying you were dead he said, “he couldn’t be revived”.

I thought he was kidding.

I thought I would hear you laugh in the background at any minute because you had fooled me.

I hung up the phone and said, “oh my dear god, it finally happened.”

I didn’t cry.

Instead I fell numb.

I knew I should be hysterical, but I wasn’t.

I was numb.

I began to plan. I said to myself that you would be cremated. I continued to drive. Alone. With no idea where I was going…with no place to go…

Are you telling me my son is dead?

I hear it in my head, every day, over and over.

“He couldn’t be revived”.

I said, “I’m almost there, keep trying.”

He said, “He is cold Laurie”.

Cold.

Again they told me to call the police.

I refused.

They wanted me to identify your body.

I refused.

How could my last image of you be your cold body?

Then I started to cry. Sob actually.

The unimaginable had finally happened.

Somewhere, deep down, I think I always knew that you would die young.

A part of me knew I would speak at your funeral.

I can’t explain that feeling, that vision that I so often had.

But deep down, I knew.

Nothing could have prepared me for the moment I was told you “couldn’t be revived” though.

Nothing.

Why didn’t I see it??? How could I not have seen that you weren’t ready to be sober?

I knew you would struggle, but I never imagined you would use drugs the day you were released from rehab.

I believed in you god dammit.

More than you believed in yourself I guess.

I haven’t told anyone this, but the last time we spoke, the night before I was coming to bring you your things, I felt you weren’t sober. I pushed the thought away, rationally I couldn’t fathom that you were using drugs within 24 hours of being released from treatment. Rationally I didn’t even pause on my thought that you didn’t sound “right”. I ignored my gut instinct to question you. What if I had? Questioned you.

Suppose I would have told you that you sounded “off”? Sure, you would have denied it…but maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t have used that morning for fear that when I arrived I would have been able to see it on your face, in your eyes…the way I saw it every damn time.

Rationally I just couldn’t fathom that you were using.

I forgot that addiction is not rational.

None of it made sense to me then, and it still doesn’t today.

I look at pictures of you and I can still feel you…hear your voice…see your expressions.

It’s like you are on vacation and I will see you again.

But you aren’t, are you? On vacation.

No.

You couldn’t be revived.

You were cold before they even started to bring you back.

Are you telling me my son is dead?

Yes.

They should have just said yes.

Please show me the way...

Dear Maks,

I keep hearing them say "he couldn't be revived"...over and over in my head.

I don't remember much about the past 4 months. Everything is hazy.

They said I had to identify your body. I refused. I couldn't see you like that. Lifeless.

You could have been so many things.

You WANTED to be so many things.

I was driving when the call came in and i just sat there, alone, hysterical, shocked. I remember thinking, "oh my god, it finally happened."

4 months later I am still in shock. I haven't accepted the fact that I won't ever see you again...accepting that fact will break me.

Do you remember when I taught you had to drive a stick shift? How we drove around and around the block practicing 1st gear?

I remember those moments so clearly. When it was just you and I...mom and son...smiling...laughing.

What am I suppose to do now?!?!?

Without you, who am i?

Mac I am scared to start a new chapter in my life because you won't be a part of it...how can I live a life that you aren't a part of??? How do I move forward from this?

I'm stuck. I want to freeze time so that it can't continue without you. I want to stop the days from coming so that it won't keep getting longer since I've seen you.

I will never understand how I am suppose to live life without being your mom.

None of this feels real.

I need guidance. I need direction. I need to feel hope.

I see everyone else moving forward in their lives...it makes me angry...jealous...how can the earth keep turning without you?

Please let me know you're with me. Please. Send me signs from the other side...I am begging you for guidance and strength.

You are forever frozen in time. An image in my mind and in my heart. Please help me live through this with the faith and the strength I need to believe I will be with you again.

xoxo, mama

I am fine

Dear Maks,

Something about your death is still unbelievable to me. My emotions come in waves. Are you really gone?

People are concerned for my well being. I tell them I am fine.

People say I'm strong.

They don't know me. Inside I ache.

How am I suppose to make my life into something that I know you won't be a part of? If I stay in this place, in this moment, then I don't get farther away from you. I hate to think that you are forever still. As the world changes you are stuck in time. You will never be anything but 20 years old. People will grow older. Lives will change...new memories will be made and you will be still. Just an image. Moving forward means moving on without you. It's as if I have hit pause on my life. If I "un-pause" myself the story will continue to be written without you and that concept is eating me away inside. I just want to remain still...in this moment...close to you...my beautiful son. I miss you. I'm mad at you. I'm lost without you.

And I don't know how to find my way back...no, I don't want to find my way back...to a life without you.

I love you,

mama