It was too late

As I write this it is 468 days, 1 hour, and 7 mins since I received the worse phone call of my life. Through tears she screamed “Lauren is dead”. Those words hit me like nothing I had ever experienced before. It was crushing and it was devastating. In a flurry of desperation, we exchanged pleas about 911, CPR and doses of Narcan, which saved Laurens life five times, but this time it was too late.

Let those words sink in. They are not words you want to have to say about someone you love deeply.

The featured image for this weeks post is called “Melancolie” by Albert György. I believe this camera angle demonstrates its full message. Someone posted it on bereaved parents month, I regret being a part of that group, as I am sure every member does. I don’t know what motivated the artist to create the sculpture, but it powerfully speaks to me. It encapsulates exactly how I feel on many occasions. Yes, even 468 days, 1 hours and 12 minutes later.

It comes out of nowhere: passing a special place where I would always see Lauren coloring in her relaxation books. Sitting with my morning coffee and looking at her favorite spot at our kitchen island wondering why she is not there eating her favorite concoction “carroties”. Lauren enjoyed coming up with little names for all kinds of things. Some of mine were, “Fafi” and “Papaya”. Carroties were mini carrots deeped in yellow mustard, always out of her favorite pale green bowl. Sometimes, it’s just being blindsided with an avalanche of memories. The weight of it produces an emptiness unlike any I have ever known.

Fortunately, in the face of that emptiness I am not alone. I have my wife, my son, and so many around us that encourage us so often in too many ways to acknowledge here.

What really helps Nereida, Evan, and I face the next day is our relationship with the Lord. I’ll be honest, I wish I could explain what happened or understand, but I can’t, it is senseless. The outcome of a broken world. Many months before LaLa died I heard a Pastor sharing his own story, he was explaining that when facing devastating loss, the answers to “the whys” don’t really help …. I didn’t really believe it then … I do now.

Not long after my sweet LaLa passed away, God impressed on my heart a verse from the Book of Psalms.

Psalm 139:12

even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

It comforts me to know, I don’t understand, and I don’t have to, but God is bigger than even my deepest darkness.

One day God really challenged me. When you share with someone that you have lost a child to an addiction, trust me, you have their attention. They are always at a loss for words, understandably. I would often try to share a little hope about all God did in the last few weeks of Laurens life. Truthfully, those last few weeks where just the external evidence of things He had been doing for many years. I would point out how we were encouraged that we will see her again when we get to Heaven. Then one day God really grabbed my attention. I don’t know how He speaks with you, but often with me, He is very direct. I felt, in my heart, Him saying “Really, is that all you got. You’re going to trudge through life and get to the end, and everything will be fine because you finally see your daughter again. Is that all you have?” OR “will the same hope and trust that you have of one day seeing her be the hope and trust that I (God) will be with you as you face this each day.”

Honestly,  I never saw it that way. It changed me, it encouraged me, I was not alone.

This year more Americans will die from a drug overdose than U.S. Troops died in the Vietnam war. Sadly, just like the war, many of them will be our children. I wish I could stop each one. I wish no other dads would have to feel what I feel now. I wish I could find the magic words that would make it all go away.

I am very haunted by a quote I use often by Gabor Mate “The question is not: Why the addiction? The question: Is why the pain.”

Our children are being eaten alive, we have to stop it, we have to fight. They are hurting, broken, confused and latching onto solutions that are destroying them. We owe them something better.

If you are fighting an addiction, please realize how much those around you love you and want to help. Understand how hard it will be for them to live in a world without you.

If you love someone with an addiction, please be honest with yourself and ask: Is what you are doing helping your loved one change? If its not, I beg you, DO SOMETHING ELSE! Find a new doctor or program. Learn about CRAFT. It was Einstein that sad “If I always do what I have always done I will always get what I  have always gotten.” If you haven’t done so yet, please get training in Narcan use  and carry it with you, it can safe your loved one’s life.

If you have suffered the loss of someone really close to you and are having a hard time. Don’t try to do it alone, you need others. A great program that has helped my wife and I is called Griefshare. My wife Nereida hosts a group that meets at our church on Sunday afternoons. If you would like more information about it just reach out to me or check out the Griefshare National Website.

Don’t give up, this war will be won!