If you haven't had to deal with the death of a family member, you probably haven't had to consider death certificates. In addition to personal information and next of kin, it states the primary "cause of death" as well as contributing factors. So, for example, death could be due to atherosclerosis; sepsis or blunt force trauma. "Contributing" factors could be pneumonia, diabetes, etc.
That's the clinical stuff. The County Coroner is supposed to classify the death. However, to the family, to the survivors, your loved one is dead. No longer here. Does it matter how it happened?
Well, as a matter of fact, it does. To some, it matters a great deal.
Take, for example, suicide. No one ever wants to say his or her loved one committed suicide. It was an accident!!! Or, it was part of a nefarious plot (look up Vince Foster (of the Clinton entourage) for a great conspiracy theory).
The idea that someone you love would willingly take their life is for most folks too much to bear.
And so it is with addiction. The idea that someone took drugs and died of an overdose is also too much to bear.
If you read my earlier post on "The Hierarchy of Death" you know that there are "acceptable" causes of death and not-so-acceptable causes. We want our loved one to be part of the "better" reasons that she/he died. It places us higher on the "worthy of sympathy" scale. Military or cancer deaths are just about at the top of preferred deaths; drug overdoses and suicide are in a race for the bottom.
Recently, a friend of mine received word that a family member had been found dead in bed. This person had a history of drug use, and of being in and out of jails and rehab.
When a known addict is found dead in bed, the immediate thought is "overdose." And so for my friend that's what she and everyone else thought. My heart was heavy, knowing the pain she was suffering as she had tried so often to "rescue" him from his addiction, to somehow free him from the demon that served as his ball and chain.
So imagine my reaction when my friend texted me the next day to say that "thank goodness" it appears her family member may have died from a "seizure" not an "overdose." She thought that death by seizure would be "much easier to take."
I had to think about that for a while. How is death ever "easier to take"???
But of course. We do not want our loved one to have died of an overdose. Oh, the shame! If they died from an overdose, clearly it was our fault. We didn't do "enough" to keep them from the drugs. We are somehow to blame for their addiction and their death makes us look bad! We could have prevented the overdose!
Here's the cold truth. You cannot prevent it.
Repeat: You. Cannot. Prevent. It.
You might postpone it, and save someone from an overdose today. But only if the addict WANTS to change their path will the path be changed. You cannot change their path. That is their journey alone. [I make exception for the scum of the earth that supply drugs to known addicts and encourage their use or make money off their use. They are death merchants and should be held accountable.]
As family members, we always believe we can change them. But we can't. Worse, we -- the family and friends - are judged by others if our loved one dies from suicide or addiction. It is always seen as somehow our fault. We "let them" go astray or failed to protect them.
I will spend the rest of my life spreading this truth: That no one can free another of whatever ball and chain binds them. We can only accept them and love them and make them know we are ready to support their efforts when they decide to admit to and manage their addiction.
Right now, there is a plague of overdoses on opioid medication (particularly Fentanyl). I'm glad that the tragedy is being given a public forum by elected officials as well as family members (like the mom who posted photos of her son on life support after he took Fentanyl, shortly before they removed life support and he died.) Giving a face to addiction, and removing the shame, will benefit all those who must confront another's addiction.
Also, I am glad to know that Narcan (which can reverse the effects of opioid overdose) is being supplied to first responders who can prevent deaths. It's true, if you catch an overdose in time, Narcan can save lives. First responders should have had this drug in their kits a long time ago.
But the story not being told is what happens after someone is revived. Do they change?
The sad truth is, many do not. Addiction is as part of their genetic make up as the color of their eyes, or their preference for chocolate vs. lemon. Only if the addict makes the decision to confront his or her addiction is there any hope of avoiding the inevitable outcome of "jails, institutions or death" [go to an AA or NA meeting and eventually you will hear this truth.] That's why the first step of any 12 Step program is to "admit we are powerless over alcohol/drugs." Only when the addict admits the problem can the addict ever hope to try to deal with the problem.
We cannot get them to admit it. Only they can do that. We are indeed powerless over their addiction.
So how does this reality fit in to the Hierarchy of Death that I wrote about in a prior blog? And about my friend's loss of her family member?
No one wants to admit their family member died of an overdose. It sullies their memory. They were a "drug addict" and that makes us look bad too. Had we just sat down and had more dinners with them as kids. Or had they just gotten involved in sports. Or gotten to the right therapist. Or if the parents had not gotten divorced. Or if only had they gone to church regularly. Or lived in a better neighborhood. Or if we had just kept them productive at a job or hobbies. The list of "if only we'd done....." goes on to infinity.
All bullshit.
All that matters is that they have the addiction genes, the genes were triggered, and after that it's their journey.
"Well it's been 10 years and a thousand fears, and look at the mess I'm in.
A broken car and a broken nose, an empty bottle of gin.
Well I search and I pray,
In my broken down Chevrolet,
And I'm singing to myself, there's got to be another way.
Take away, take away,
Take away this ball and chain,
For I'm lonely and I'm tired, and I can't take any more pain.
Take away, take away,
Never to return again,
Take away, take away, take away...."
[Social Distortion, "Ball and Chain"]
So my friend, like so many others, cannot confront the reality that her family member's demon of addiction did not go away. She needs to believe he died of something else, anything else, other than addiction. Yes, maybe he did die of a seizure. Or a heart attack. But years of mistreating one's body with drugs or alcohol will lead to seizures and heart attacks. Yet how much easier it is to say to the world, "so sad, he was doing better, and he suffered a seizure." Far better than to say the dreaded word "overdose."
And far better to not think that we -- and the addict -- failed.
Many folks don't know that Bill W., one of the two co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, who lived many years sober, asked for whiskey on his deathbed. Pardon the pun, but that is a sobering thought.
For my friend, I hope she comes to peace with whatever the coroner finally states as a cause of death. The loss of her loved one is no less tragic or no less worthy of sympathy and support whether it was a seizure, or a heart attack, or an overdose.
Survivors of loss feel the same pain and gaping hole in our psyches regardless of the cause of death. Those who have lost still need love and support -- and no judgment -- from the rest of us.
Give love and give hugs and most of all, don't judge the cause of death. It's still death. And someone still grieves. Let's not give them more to grieve.
copyright 2017
Saturday, July 15, 2017
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Who Knows Where the Time Goes
I love to write. But keeping my life afloat and investing so much energy into running my business has taken its toll. I have had no room for writing. It is a true casualty of my work.
But today, with a cloudy, post-rain sky, and the cold we are not used to in Southern California still upon us, I took a little downtime to come back to the blog. And to my utter amazement, saw that my last post was April 2016. Who Knows Where the Time Goes (anyone remember that Judy Collins song?? Haunting.....)
Time loses perspective after someone you love dies. You do not have a clue where or how it goes. You sometimes have no realization of days passing. You wonder how you got from June to July, or from morning to night, and don't have good recall of anything you did. A person drowning in grief never knows where the time goes. Or even if it goes.
In the first few weeks after my son died, I found myself sitting outdoors under a large navel orange tree that graces the far front corner of my property. It was a favorite place of his to sit. I often would join him. He and I shared more than a few conversations sitting under the orange tree. Quality time for us.
Then, after he was gone, I found a little peace by sitting under its great branches again. Sitting there, with no awareness of the passage of time, became a daytime reality anchor. In the evening, my anchor was walking the dog (his dog). But during the day -- at least when I was home and not distracted by the numbing routine of "back at work," I would find myself sitting on the cast metal open weave bench that was almost hiding under the branches of the old tree, just starting at the house, the expanse of lawn, the trees, the sun, the sky. It was an amazement to me that life seemed so normal, back under the orange tree. How could the house be standing? How could the sun rise and set and move across the sky? Why did the plants keep growing? Why was I still alive?
Questions to which there is no answer, when grief has kicked you so hard you struggle to breathe.
I cannot know why I kept breathing. Why I kept going. Why I went to sleep, woke up, drove my car, spoke to people, did my work, drank my coffee, walked the dog. It was as though there were 2 people inside me. One, the mother who had lost her only son, her first born, her tether to life; the other, the practical, rise above adversity survivor. For a long time I did not know which one would win.
Under that tree, I found myself saying, over and over, like a mantra, "Mat, how am I supposed to live the rest of my life without you?" Eventually, I heard in my head the 12 step entreaty to take one day, or one hour, or one minute, at a time. I remember hearing veterans of the addiction wars saying that eventually the "one minutes" turn into hours, then days, and finally years. I never understood the depth of that concept until I needed to survive minute to minute -- because imagining living with that excruciating pain of loss for more than another minute was just too much to comprehend.
And here I am. Millions of minutes later. Still living. Finally enjoying music again. And laughing, a real, from the heart, laughter. Living and not just getting by. Perhaps seeing a glimpse of love again.
The survivor in me prevailed, but I doubt through any conscious thought. It turns out the survivor part of me was a lot stronger than I sensed during those first few months after losing what I thought was my necessary connection to life and the world.
I came to understand that despite that the despair which in the early days of grief engulfed every cell of me and told me life no longer was in my future, somehow my soul determined (without any input from my conscious self) that my journey here was not through.
I am very glad that my journey didn't end. That my survivor self won out over abject despair.
At times while these millions of minutes have passed, I have reminded myself that women endure great pain to give birth to our children. So, it seems fitting that we endure even greater pain when our children leave this existence before we do. But just as we return to our individual lives after life comes forth, we must return to our individual paths after that life leaves us. We are our own individual souls with separate journeys and lessons, and that remains true even after the loss of a soul we thought we just could not live without.
And so, now, years later, I indeed wonder, where has the time gone? How has so much time gone by without my constant awareness of the clock ticking and of time's minutes melding into the great span of years? It's been an amazing, although gradual, revelation to myself: I no longer survive one minute at a time. Sometimes (like at his birthday or his memorial day) I regress to needing to get through the day by each minute or hour. Yet now the minutes of those 24 hours zip by and then it's the next day and the next day, and then, voila! - life has gone on another week and month without my collapse.
I look back at the landscape of my life created in the past few years, and see it painted and sculpted by the grief journey I've traveled. Miraculously, that landscape is no longer barren, but reflects that I have continued to live. I realize all of this really has been my path, and my life. The pain of my losses continues to inhabit my being every day on some level, but it no longer keeps me from continuing on my soul's journey in this existence. And I find myself more than a little glad that somehow, the survivor part of my being saved myself from that journey on the river Styx and returned me to a path of light.
For those who have helped me navigate back to my life, I will be forever grateful. For those who choose to join me or remain with me in the path that is now my life, I will welcome the company with both love and gratitude. And with anyone who dares to love me knowing where I've been, and what the pain of grief has done to my soul, there shall be great love to share.
Where has the time gone? To a place where I have hope that, someday soon, love and affirmation will finally cover over the dark pools of pain.
Copyright 2017
But today, with a cloudy, post-rain sky, and the cold we are not used to in Southern California still upon us, I took a little downtime to come back to the blog. And to my utter amazement, saw that my last post was April 2016. Who Knows Where the Time Goes (anyone remember that Judy Collins song?? Haunting.....)
Time loses perspective after someone you love dies. You do not have a clue where or how it goes. You sometimes have no realization of days passing. You wonder how you got from June to July, or from morning to night, and don't have good recall of anything you did. A person drowning in grief never knows where the time goes. Or even if it goes.
In the first few weeks after my son died, I found myself sitting outdoors under a large navel orange tree that graces the far front corner of my property. It was a favorite place of his to sit. I often would join him. He and I shared more than a few conversations sitting under the orange tree. Quality time for us.
Then, after he was gone, I found a little peace by sitting under its great branches again. Sitting there, with no awareness of the passage of time, became a daytime reality anchor. In the evening, my anchor was walking the dog (his dog). But during the day -- at least when I was home and not distracted by the numbing routine of "back at work," I would find myself sitting on the cast metal open weave bench that was almost hiding under the branches of the old tree, just starting at the house, the expanse of lawn, the trees, the sun, the sky. It was an amazement to me that life seemed so normal, back under the orange tree. How could the house be standing? How could the sun rise and set and move across the sky? Why did the plants keep growing? Why was I still alive?
Questions to which there is no answer, when grief has kicked you so hard you struggle to breathe.
I cannot know why I kept breathing. Why I kept going. Why I went to sleep, woke up, drove my car, spoke to people, did my work, drank my coffee, walked the dog. It was as though there were 2 people inside me. One, the mother who had lost her only son, her first born, her tether to life; the other, the practical, rise above adversity survivor. For a long time I did not know which one would win.
Under that tree, I found myself saying, over and over, like a mantra, "Mat, how am I supposed to live the rest of my life without you?" Eventually, I heard in my head the 12 step entreaty to take one day, or one hour, or one minute, at a time. I remember hearing veterans of the addiction wars saying that eventually the "one minutes" turn into hours, then days, and finally years. I never understood the depth of that concept until I needed to survive minute to minute -- because imagining living with that excruciating pain of loss for more than another minute was just too much to comprehend.
And here I am. Millions of minutes later. Still living. Finally enjoying music again. And laughing, a real, from the heart, laughter. Living and not just getting by. Perhaps seeing a glimpse of love again.
The survivor in me prevailed, but I doubt through any conscious thought. It turns out the survivor part of me was a lot stronger than I sensed during those first few months after losing what I thought was my necessary connection to life and the world.
I came to understand that despite that the despair which in the early days of grief engulfed every cell of me and told me life no longer was in my future, somehow my soul determined (without any input from my conscious self) that my journey here was not through.
I am very glad that my journey didn't end. That my survivor self won out over abject despair.
At times while these millions of minutes have passed, I have reminded myself that women endure great pain to give birth to our children. So, it seems fitting that we endure even greater pain when our children leave this existence before we do. But just as we return to our individual lives after life comes forth, we must return to our individual paths after that life leaves us. We are our own individual souls with separate journeys and lessons, and that remains true even after the loss of a soul we thought we just could not live without.
And so, now, years later, I indeed wonder, where has the time gone? How has so much time gone by without my constant awareness of the clock ticking and of time's minutes melding into the great span of years? It's been an amazing, although gradual, revelation to myself: I no longer survive one minute at a time. Sometimes (like at his birthday or his memorial day) I regress to needing to get through the day by each minute or hour. Yet now the minutes of those 24 hours zip by and then it's the next day and the next day, and then, voila! - life has gone on another week and month without my collapse.
I look back at the landscape of my life created in the past few years, and see it painted and sculpted by the grief journey I've traveled. Miraculously, that landscape is no longer barren, but reflects that I have continued to live. I realize all of this really has been my path, and my life. The pain of my losses continues to inhabit my being every day on some level, but it no longer keeps me from continuing on my soul's journey in this existence. And I find myself more than a little glad that somehow, the survivor part of my being saved myself from that journey on the river Styx and returned me to a path of light.
For those who have helped me navigate back to my life, I will be forever grateful. For those who choose to join me or remain with me in the path that is now my life, I will welcome the company with both love and gratitude. And with anyone who dares to love me knowing where I've been, and what the pain of grief has done to my soul, there shall be great love to share.
Where has the time gone? To a place where I have hope that, someday soon, love and affirmation will finally cover over the dark pools of pain.
Copyright 2017
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