True Things…

*Part of the reason I share intimate details about my journey with my son is because I firmly believe if we don’t name the hard stuff, if we don’t bring it out into the light of day, things can get pretty dicey in our psyche. Especially if it perceives that something is too sensational to say. Even if something isn’t a secret, I believe that when the psyche senses that something isn’t being openly expressed, it can easily morph into shame. 

True things

In February of 2021 I experienced my most intense crisis with my son.

He had such a bright beginning. A good student, prized athlete. Great looks, endless pools of green blue bled through his piercing gaze.

He was so extremely loved.

A piece of the puzzle that doesn’t fit. A piece that will remain in the unknown. Which sliding door was it, that landed us here?

In fourth grade, Tanner had noticed one of his classmates being made fun of because his clothes were outdated and too small. He asked if we could collect some of his good clothes along with a pair of his new shoes to donate anonymously to the boy so he wouldn’t be embarrassed.

Tanner had a heart of gold. Always looked out for the underdog. Hated injustice. He’d give the shirt off of his back to save a friend. But he couldn’t save himself.

This recent crisis in 2021 had me in the most desperate, and powerless, place I’d ever experienced as a parent.

We were several years into the turbulence by then.

It wasn’t the first time I had felt rattled to my core from witnessing something he experienced. 

But this was the first time I can say with sober honesty, I walked away traumatized.

A call from the hospital came in at 9:31. The woman on the phone relayed that he had been brought in with a gunshot wound to his left shoulder blade. Advised that I come in ASAP. It was an undeniable miracle that he lived. 

Instead of Tanner having that come to Jesus moment, and realizing the gravity of what had just happened, every next choice he made, seemed to escalate his crisis.

I shook for almost six weeks straight as we careened from one devastation to the next.

It was an earth shattering, life altering, off the map, thing to behold, while I simultaneously tried to hold space for him to make more life affirming choices. I wanted to crumble, but I had to be his mom.

If I’m really honest, we were in a three year protracted crisis, that had peaks and valleys. At that time I was doing everything I could to rescue him. Gripping on so tightly. And getting knocked out so hard when all the progress we made was obliterated in the space of one impulsive choice. 

Mental health stuff (I don’t love these labels, but for lack of better language, I’ll use it.) IS SO FUCKING DIFFICULT TO NAVIGATE.

It’s like those Chinese finger traps. 

We can’t do nothing. We have to support our loved ones. Because they genuinely won’t be ok without it. None of it is their fault. But when substances are also involved, that support constantly needs to be negotiated and renegotiated. I do mean constantly. It can look different from one day to the next. 

However in this particular gateway, I was on my knees.

I could not get him to see the light, to choose health and safety.

The only possible choice for me was to let go. Surrender. Pray. Trust. 

This one act was so deep for me. It was a depths of my soul surrender. Open to the universe level letting go.

There came a point in here when it just became true that trying to save him was killing me. 

I developed a heart condition from the stress and non stop-adrenaline. 

Because I could see what was coming.

My greatest fear. 

I would have done anything to stop it. 

And for years, that’s exactly what I tried to do.

You see, I had this sneaking suspicion that if I let go, even a little bit, that he would die. I had genuinely wanted to will him to live, myself.

Until 2021. Until my diagnosis. Until I began to see the price all of us were paying. Including him.

Once I surrendered, fate saw fit to help him get his life together with very little “force” from me. 

This whole last year of his life I spent trying to redefine how I could support him, and show up for him in a way that translated as love. 

That didn’t feel controlling. But rather felt like genuine care. 

All without loosing Him and my health in the process. 

Tightrope Walker.

I did have my own life to consider. I remember thinking about whether or not that was even a valid thought.

There were times it felt completely selfish.

We live in a world in which we deify people who sacrifice their lives for others.

We love the movie where the parent dies to save their child. They are heroes.

Yet my movie? Mine felt like a “Sophie’s Choice.”

In my case, not only did I have to consider my own life, but the lives of my other children.

I spent time wondering what it might be like for them if I died trying to save Tanner. 

Or if one of his choices had repercussions for them.   

What if one of them ingested or even came into contact with something he accidently left lying around the house?

In all of this contemplation, the unshakable gnosis came through (you know, from the voice of God) that our children each have their own path. And I couldn’t live out Tanner’s path for him.

In fact, we honestly can’t do that with any of our children.

No matter how badly we want too. 

He was going to have to value his own life. To choose for himself.

So, inside this new knowing, everything changed.

Our relationship drastically softened.

He could finally feel me and the deep well of love I had for him.

I stopped trying to control him.

I just wanted to foster connection. 

I wish I could publish our text messages. And show the world the unfathomable depth of love that flourished in this space. 

I am so glad I shifted gears. It gave us almost a whole year this way.

It didn’t end with a huge struggle.

He didn’t die feeling that I was ashamed of him.

Because there was no other way for him to feel when I was trying so hard to save him, and it didn’t work. The fact that he felt that way was devastating for me. It was honestly never about that. But he felt my exasperation when we had setbacks. It hit him. And it hurt him to feel like he was hurting me.

But there were boundaries too. And times when I had to enforce those boundaries. Heartbreaking times. 

Times I look back on now and wonder “why did I do that?” If I hadn’t, would he still be here? Did I really do all that I could?”

Because he did get better for a while. Perhaps I should have let him move back home from his Dad’s sooner and none of this wouldn’t have happened? 

What could I have created with him nestled in the love and safety of our home sanctuary? 

I knew how important connection was. And though there was lots of it, there could have been even more with him staying here.

But history had shown me that things wouldn’t have turned around for him here. We’d done that song and dance quite a few times.

So I stuck to my “loving” boundaries. And I lost him.

If I were still trying to save him, everyone could have lost me.

Or one of the other kids could have inadvertently been hurt.

See, there is no win. It is only fucking hard. And in the end, we are left with a million and one what ifs.

So I come back to the true things. The things I know.

We each have to walk out our own path.

And if something is meant to happen, it will happen no matter how much force we apply towards the opposite outcome.

When his last crisis flared up at the end of May, I remember talking to my mom in the car. We were driving back to my house after an incident with him.

I told her that I just couldn’t live like this anymore. I worried every day when he was like that, that he’d die. I’d wake up in the morning looking for proof that he made it through the night. Checking Facebook to see the last time he’d logged on if he didn’t respond to my calls and texts.

I told her that this time, I was going to worry about him dying, after it happened. In the meantime I’m just going to keep loving him, and I’ll accept whatever outcome was meant to be. I know that sounds insane. But it was the true thing to do.

I couldn’t see straight when I worried. And my love got all warped and grabby when I was trying will him to choose life.

Inside those fateful words to my mother, I felt my whole body finally give him permission to go if that’s what he needed to do.

He was suffering so much. In so much pain.

And part of me thought over the years that his soul stayed for me. 

Because he could see how much I needed him to live. 

From an existential perspective, there came a point when I felt that my fighting so hard for him to stay might be hurting him as much as the thought of him leaving was hurting me.

Our death phobic, life obsessed culture, sees every single death as just a tragedy. Especially when its a young person.

At the outset of the year, I began to do death work. I thought I was healing my own fear of death. But it turns out, it wasn’t just that. I was reorienting my beliefs around death, in preparation to take in the news. To have a kind of a template to receive his the news of his departure inside of.

So while I was inquiring about getting custody of him with a lawyer, and asking him to go back to treatment (lovingly) everyday….

My souls position was clear.  My living prayer was … Only open the way if it’s right for him to stay. If there is a chance for him to live a life he loves. A chance for him to heal…

I believe we only die if our soul agrees to it.  

I have this sense that the night he passed, his soul visited mine to be blessed in his crossing.

And though it’s incredibly hard to say out loud, I know my soul said yes. 

I know that my soul got to a place of approval about him leaving, long before my human self did.

In fact, my human self still goes back and forth about how much acceptance I have for it all.

But in the background, I feel the deeper truths. The kismet.

There is this way that I knew for him, being trapped in the body he had, so full of hurt, and trauma, meant he wasn’t able to fulfill what his soul came here to do.

And that by shedding his body, he could finally be about the business of his soul’s mission, purpose, and intention. His soul’s goodness and purity was being occulted by a powerful seductive substance that would not let him go.

Painful as it all was, there was also so much beauty. Because despite all of the apparent brokenness, my son was actually such a bright light. His struggles in no way define the gorgeous complexity of his heart and soul. 

He had always been my teacher. And will continue to be. His depth of presence, and well of evolutionary wisdom was profound. Which is why I think the world hurt so much for him. He was so AWAKE to it all.

I also have this knowledge, that as long as I’m here, he will still be with me. That our destiny is so woven together. I have no doubt about his part in my incarnation. It’s huge. 

God I love him.

It is immense.

As expansive as the dessert sky. 

I can’t even explain the gratitude that comes with knowing I get to carry a love this big for the entirety of what is left of my life. It’s the biggest blessing I’ve had to date. I’m so cracked open by my love of him. I can’t wait to see what we create together. 

Beauty for ashes.