From the Inside

The past week I have been thinking a lot about all the great times our family got to enjoy with Lauren. I was reminded that life is not a guarantee. Some of us get to enjoy loved ones in our lives for a very long time, my mother is 91 this year. Others endure the loss of a loved one within months or even hours of their entry into life. Either way, it hurts!

There are so many awesome times I can remember having with LaLa (Lauren). In this picture, I think the expression on her face says it all. She loved to jump and climb and hang upside down. She was an adventurer in this life. One of her favorite things to do when she was a toddler, as well as Evans, was to sit nestled on my lap on a recliner we purchased for Nereida to sleep in when she was carrying our twins, LaLa and Evan. It became impossible for Nereida to sleep in a regular bed. Each night I would place Evan and Lauren in my lap, one in each arm, and we would turn that rocking recliner into the world’s largest, and fastest roller coaster, a wooden one of course. I would lean it back and we would climb, climb, climb and climb until we came over the crest, shooting down the 80-degree slope. Rocking to the left, and then the right, and finally shooting out the bottom at 100 miles per hour, WOW! All in the comfort of mom and dad’s bedroom. We would all laugh, Evan and LaLa would let out screams of great joy, and they always wanted another ride! Now as I think of it,

now as I think of it I am wondering if that is why Lauren had such a love for roller coasters. To the left is a picture of a trip Lauren and I went on to Hershey Park, a place we visited many times when Evan and Lauren were children, on that trip our goal was to ride every roller coaster, which we did. Hershey Park ranks 7^th for most roller coasters in the world.

A very special time that I will always cherish is when Lauren and I got to fulfill and lifetime dream of mine to visit the Cloisters in New York. The Cloisters, now a part of the Museum of Modern Art, was a place I saw photographs of that inspired my interest in photography. You can read all about it in “A Day I Won’t Ever Forget”.  It was a very special day for us, I was glad I was able to spend it with “LaLa”. I have never experienced that with any other person. For the moment, I do not think I will ever go back, I want to leave it as a once in a lifetime thing I got to share with my “sweetheart”.

There was another time when I had a deeply fulfilling experience with Lauren. Although I am not sure I could say it was pleasant, it was very powerful. In many ways, it drew Lauren and me closer together. It’s funny, although she struggled with lots of feelings of not fitting in, she naturally had a way of building very deep relationships with certain people around her. She often told her mom that she was her best friend and she valued that. She greatly inspired her brother Evan. What he loved most about her was her ability to completely engage in conversation with him. Even if he knew the topic was of no interest to her, she had a way of helping him feel that at that moment “he” was the most important thing happening. WOW, that’s quite a gift. There were many others too. After her passing away, several young girls explained how Lauren went out of her way to make them feel accepted and welcome when they came to her high school as new students, and even a few from some residential programs she had been at.

Early one morning on a date I just can’t remember anymore, Lauren shared a piece of her story that drew us very close. You can read about our conversation in the post “Conversations”. As we spoke it was obvious to me that this was a moment when Lauren was beginning to connect the dots of how she became addicted. She shared about her unhealthy connection to her weight. She talked about how her insecurities lead her to choices that did not help, and I think in her mind, she was beginning to realize how that ended up in addiction, although she did not say that. At that point in time, Lauren’s mom and I had no knowledge of her addiction.

A friend of mine who has someone they love trapped in addiction went through yet another crisis that is going to lead to much pain in their loved one’s life. They said an interesting thing as we talked. “We are working on loving them where they are at”. That is the best thing they can do because what matters even beyond the addiction is the relationship.

I also had a conversation with my son about many of the victories LaLa had won and a few of the lost battles. We reminded ourselves that a huge part of recovery is helping them relearn that life can be fun again. That our loved one can have fulfillment in life without the drug or action of choice. And that’s where the special moments and connections we can make with our loved one’s matter.

Todays featured image is by Brooke Shaden entitled “From the Inside”