I am missing a lot of spoons.
This fact is not new to me. It is just a cold reminder of
how addiction destroyed my son.
My spoons were used to further his habit, burned with now
empty lighters that were innocently purchased with nothing more than candle lighting
in mind.
For the rest of my life, every time I eat a bowl of cereal
or indulge in mint chip ice cream, I will be reminded of the dirty drug that
took my son.
I am the bereaved mother of an addict. This is my life.
Every time I open a silverware drawer I am slapped with the death of my son.
In 2011, the year that claimed the life of my son, 178,000 Americans used
heroin for the first time. (The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration).
With statistics this heinous I can’t be the only mother
missing spoons.
I grew up in the 80's, in a suburban neighborhood on the
outskirts of LA. Gasoline hovered around .85 cents a gallon (I remember this
because my friend and I would scour the floor of her Honda CRX for loose change
and always came up with enough to drive all day). Kids had to graduate high
school without the luxury of the internet and the call waiting beep on your land line
was sheer luxury. We didn’t have cell phones, or email or Facetime.
And we sure as hell didn’t have heroin.
The most dangerous thing I did when I was a teenager was
lather myself up with baby oil and bake myself in the afternoon sun.
Sure marijuana was around and I had a couple of drunk
weekends, but heroin was strictly off limits. It wasn’t even an option. Not
only was it not accessible, but it was a 'junkies' drug. No suburban kid in LA in
the 80's was cooking heroin and shooting up.
It was taboo.
Of course cocaine was the drug of choice back then and I
suppose that I could have found it had I looked, but heroin? No. Heroin has
taken a place within suburbia that my teenage self could never have imagined. Because life was simpler when I was a teenager. There was no such
thing as social media, text conversations or online video game playing.
I never imagined I would have a strong, handsome,
charismatic son who would succumb to heroin and die just days after his 20th
birthday.
Heroin was not part of my life. It was a 'junkies' drug after all. An intangible darkness that I couldn’t fathom becoming a part of my life.
Yet, here I am, in upper class suburbia.
And there it is, staring me in the face every time I open my
silverware drawer.
2 comments:
My wife just lost her brother to heroin addiction. It was a great loss. I fell that your story is going to help a lot of people. I send my prayers of support to you.
Veery powerful story and I am truly sorry for your senseless loss. my daughter at 23 is a heroin addict.. Being a heroin addict is like being sentenced to death row! Your story hits home with me. The constant daily reminders of our family members both pre and during their disease are truly heartbreaking and painful...every day for us.
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