Four Years....

Oh God

It’s been four years

Four years today

Seems like ten

Seems like yesterday

I shutter

I shake

I remember

That phone call that came

As we headed out the door for dinner

“Can I come home?”

“I need to come home”

To detox

He was at college

Junior year

Only back 

For a couple of weeks

Prodigal Papa’s face

White with disbelief

Terminating the call

Filled with grief

He relayed the words

With anguish he spoke

“Our son is hooked on painkillers”

He wants to come home and go to bed

To detox…  

“shake this ‘thing’ off”

I remember…

Where we were standing

What I was wearing

Where we were going

Where we had been

In one moment…

Everything changed

Our lives were no longer

What they had been

The day my son

In my mind

Became a Prodigal

We called a family meeting

Met at a restaurant

To try and get to the bottom of 'this'

So ignorant to the disease

The monster we were dealing with

Addicts lie

They construct and construe

Elaborate stories

Maybe they even believe

Deceiving themselves

that they have it all under control

We fell

Hook, line, and sinker

Believing that he had sought out help

Later finding that Dr. Google had prescribed

This respite from life

He had a doc at college

And a shrink

Both working with him

Prescribing pills…talk therapy

Both accomplices to this crime

That led to addiction

Anxiety…depression

Initiated his fall

From grace…from life

From family

His inner demons

His pit of despair

His pain

Searching for relief

From Life

Thus started this journey

Our journey…our knowing

With many twists and turns

His beginning…only he knows

Wishing we had known then

What we know now

The nature of the disease

The all-consuming passion

Of addiction

Would we have done things differently

Could we have saved him

Saved us

From the chapters that we’ve written

The roads we’ve traveled

Different characters, different outcomes

I still tremble

My insides churn

At where we’ve been

At the things we’ve tried

At the paths we’ve traversed

The initial pain

That day

The emotions

So real

So raw

A tear released

trailing its way down my cheek

Many follow the first

Revealing the heartache

Still present

Wondering if God really does 

See

Each tear I’ve cried

Heard

Each prayer I’ve prayed

For deliverance of my Prodigal…

My son…whom I love

Deeply…unconditionally

With all his flaws and foibles

The boy I bore

From this broken womb

Who I continue to bear with

As he makes choices

As he writes his story…his future

“Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy”  Psalm 126:5