answers, hope and a long drive
2 minute read
there are no coincidences
There are times in life when you know - for certain - that a higher power is working on your behalf. I’ve been fortunate enough to experience this several times and it’s always reassuring to know you’re not on your own along this crazy journey called life. As if surviving two Fentanyl overdoses wasn’t enough miracle-working in our lives, we received another one in the weeks after John was discharged from the hospital. It was clear that staying in the same city where his friends and triggers were wasn’t setting John up for success so we’d been frantically searching for an out-of-the-area housing solution that would allow him to continue healing physically but to also work on a new, sober lifestyle.
When John’s dad called from California to say that overnight, one of his roommates had packed up, emptied his room and vanished, my heart skipped a beat - ok, 10 beats - because I knew this was our answer. We agreed that we’d rent the room for John so he could be in a safe, positive environment, away from old people and habits and have a chance at a life-reset. Thinking back, there couldn’t have been a more perfect solution for a very, very scary and fragile situation. As it was, John still had PT, OT and speech therapy appointments booked and needed a few more weeks of rest and building strength before he could move. As we started putting the logistics into place it made the most sense to drive John’s car from Seattle to California so he’d have transportation once he was settled. The therapists at the hospital didn’t want him to drive for a year after his head injury but that seemed fairly impossible to impose and miraculously, just 5 weeks after our son had laid in the ICU on life support, he and I packed up his old VW Jetta, applied a little duct tape where needed, said a prayer that the car (and we) would survive the journey and pointed south to a new start.
The 3-day transition was just the right amount of time to get some distance from the sterile hospital, the old memories from home and start to think about what life would look like now. I’ll forever cherish that drive as John and I hadn’t spent that much time together (outside of the hospital) in years. There was laughter when we had to stay in the middle of nowhere at a truck-stop motel, pain when John’s legs cramped up and quite a bit of silence, but all of it healing and necessary. As any parent of a child battling addiction knows, there’s a lot that goes on between parent and child that needs to be forgiven, and it’s not easy. Lies, manipulation, fear, anger, deceit…the list goes on - and it doesn’t just vanish in the terror of a crisis - it lives on. It takes work, and each day is a decision to work at it.
The move has been the change John needed so desperately to get out of the vicious cycle of addiction and all of the horrors that come with it. He did the hard work of a very intensive treatment program and is working part time and going to college - something I don’t think any of us could have even remotely hoped for during those long hours, days and weeks in the hospital, or the 5 years of hell leading up to them. That’s a whole other story to be told but for now we’re focusing on a new life, a season of hope, rebuilding, discovering new things and just living. Just living is the best.
For those of you who reached this last chapter, thank you for reading, I hope our story provides some insight and empathy for the millions of families that are fighting this war. I’d love to hear from you via the About page and please check back for ongoing articles and blog posts.
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And of course, above all else, please talk. Tell our story or your own, so the stigma doesn’t hold our loved ones hostage any longer.