Category: Mental Health

Love, Mental Health

Really, they want to cancel Dolly now?

Katrina Russell

So, apparently people are angry at Dolly Parton. Yup, that’s a thing now. Dolly Parton. Loved, andidolized.. charity giving.. women empowering.. free loving Dolly Parton. They are mad at her because she made a commercial for the Superbowl encouraging people to follow their dreams.

This is what the woke culture has become. People are angry with Miss 9-5, because she is encouraging people to create their own businesses doing something that they love. People are angry with the women who has fought back against sexual harassment literally longer than I’ve even known what it was. People are angry with Dolly Parton because she is encouraging the patriarchy.. of.. wait for it… working.

Yes, encouraging people to work is supporting the rich man’s patriarchy. Encouraging people to strike out on their own, and yes.. work, work, work is degrading somehow. I don’t know about you, but I was taught that I could accomplish anything that I want.. it I WORK FOR IT. That is literally the American Dream. The dream is not that if I whine for it enough people who have earned it should give it to me.. that’s not what makes life worth living. That’s not what gives people purpose.

This has become an ongoing phenomenon. I have noticed. People are becoming more and more nihilistic. People are losing their reasons for being in an ill attempt to prove their intelligence and their wokeness. They won’t be the sheep to follow what society has deemed to be the building blocks of a good life. What does millions of years of evolution know that they haven’t figured out in their lifetime,

We have become a society of “marriage is a trap to tie you down”, “working hard is a trick to keeping making money for rich people”, “Consumerism is evil”… “So, let’s swipe right, hook up with random people, yell at corporations that they are stealing from me because I buy all their crap, but don’t actually have any money to pay for it and have nothing of purpose to call my own.. and need an access of anti-depressents to help”

Seriously. If you were to ask anyone over the age of 60 what they love about their lives it would be their family. If you were to ask them what they were grateful for it would be their ability to work for and support their family.. that’s it. That’s what makes life worth living. Now some people have passions. They love creating art, or growing/caring for plants, making music. When you ask them what they are grateful for and they would say that are grateful that they were able to make a career in something that they love… and all of it, from the marriage, to the kids, to the job. to the passion, to the career.. all of this takes work.

If you were to ask anyone over the age of 60 what they regret you’ll hear things like, not having a family, not taking a certain vacation, not following the dreams they had for their passion.. all of which requires work. If anyone tells you that work is just for rich men… they are the ones holding you back and trying to keep success in the hands of rich men.

Love, Mental Health, parenting

When did wanting love and family become taboo?

Katrina Russell

Hey, remember when being a mom was like a thing women did? Like, when people asked, “what do you do?” and they responded, “I’m a mom” and that was cool. That was enough.. why did that change?

Now, I’m not saying that women shouldn’t work. I think that if you have a passion for something you should go right out and work for everything that you desire. I’m also not saying that if you need the money that working is a bad thing. You have to feed yourself and your family and that is important… but when did it become shameful for a woman to be a mom. Like, a stay at home, take care of your family mom?

From the beginning of time moms have been a thing. In fact without moms there would be no more people. Being a parent and raising new people is the most important thing that there is. Making sure that these new little humans don’t turn out to be serial killers or wastes of space is very important. My father used to say that the most important job in parenting is creating independent people. But that takes a lot of work.

Childcare is a huge industry. Mostly run by women. The service industry is also huge and also mostly employs women. House cleaning companies mostly employ women.. these are all industries that have skyrocketed in the last few decades because women entered the work force.

Now again, I’m not saying that women shouldn’t work, or that all women should be mothers. If a woman decides that motherhood is not for her, by all means.. good on you.. if you decide that you do want to be a mother but you don’t want to give up a career that you love, that’s great too. But how many women out there LOVE their jobs. How many people out there LOVE their jobs. Most people can’t wait till the end of the day or the end of the week. I don’t know why having a job became the goal.. like it’s so prestigious to spend most of your waking hours doing something you hate just so that you can pay someone else to take care of your kids and clean your house.. because guess what? That’s their job.. you pay someone to do the things that you are shamed for doing for free, because it’s not real work. How is this good?

People complain all the time that the cost of living is so expensive. Well, this is because the market follows the money. When most families were one income families the market reflected that. Add a whole knew income and suddenly everything doubles in price. So you’re literally working to buy things that everyone could afford to buy before we all pushed to work jobs that we hate.

Again, I’m not saying that the Women’s Lib movement was bad. I believe women have the right to do and be anything that they want. Which includes being a mother and a wife. We always hear that on our death beds we never regret the deals we didn’t make but the family time that we missed. That we don’t look back fondly at the hours at our desks, but the moments snuggling with out loved ones. Our family and the people that we love are our reason for living… so why should a little girl be shamed for wanting to grow up and get married and have babies? Isn’t that what most of us want? When did wanting love and family become taboo?

bullying, Mental Health, Politics

SJWs and Privilege

Katrina Russell

There is a lot of talk about privilege lately, and there is something that I’m beginning to notice. A lot of the SJWs who speak about white guilt and privilege are actually privileged and I seem to actually feel guilty about it.

I’m pretty sure that’s where the disconnect lies. A girl that I have known her whole life posted a… I want to say meme, but I don’t think that’s what it’s actually called, on Facebook. She is a very sweet, very smart girl, but also very privileged. I’m not saying this as an insult as the post stated. It is not an insult. It is just a fact of being. She was raised in a two parent family. Her mother is a teacher and was there for her everyday after school. She always had a nice house. She always had big family parties, plenty of food, after school activities. She was given her first car. Her parents helped her with high end college.. she was quite privileged and I am very happy that she was because I love this little girl (she’s 24, but I’ve known her since the day she was born so bare with me).

The problem is that she assumes that because she had it so well that everyone else like her also had it as good. She doesn’t understand that there are people out there like her, and by like her I mean white, that did not have a two parent family. That did not have a mother at home waiting for her with an after school snack to help her with her home work. Some of us lived with single parents who worked all day and were too tired when they got home to cook. Who looked through the couch in hopes of finding some change so they could walk to the store and buy a candy bar or bag of Jax so they could eat that day.. some of us lived in Volkswagen Pintos as a toddler and again in a car as a teenager when they were kicked out of the house.. some of us had drunken step father’s who would hug and kiss us smelling of beer, and telling us how if we were just a little older they’d have married us (when we were 9).. some of us were kidnapped as a child and brought to live in a cult till we were rescued. Some of us spent years hiding from our mother so that didn’t happen again.. some of us didn’t have birthday parties, and had to walk to work everyday for months to save up and buy our first car. Some of us had to actually work full-time while in college to pay for it.. and some of us, even going through all that understand that we are still more privileged than others.

My problem with white privilege and the message that it sends is that it’s actually racist. It assumes that white people are better than people of color. It assumes that just by the fact that someone is black that they automatically had a worse life than someone who is white. Now I’m not saying that I wasn’t more privileged than some.. I was.. everyone is. But that does not make my life, in general better than anyone else who happens to be darker than me… which as a pasty girl of Irish decent is pretty much everyone.

I would never categorize someone as being less “privileged” than me.. as if I were special for some reason, just because of my skin color. As if someone who is black or brown couldn’t possibly have had a better life than mine because of it. That is racist. I’ve known black people my whole life.. they are everywhere if you haven’t noticed. They are not all inner-city poor people. They do not all need us whites to help them out of their situation.. they are not all less than privileged because of their race.

From what I have seen of the SJWs they conflate black with poor. They conflate inner-city with criminal. They conflate white with better. They conflate white with master.. whites can either save or destroy at their will. We are either “helping” the poor black people or we’re “oppressing” them. That’s racist.

People talk about how blacks are portrayed in the media and on TV, and maybe they are right. When I grew up the Huxtables were on my TV every night. He was a doctor (the character, I’m not going to get into the actor), she was a lawyer. The kids went to college. They were strong, smart, independent people who happened to be black. This was how I was raised. This is my understanding of people, but a lot of TV shows, movies, and music is written with blacks being either poor or thugs. This is the same Hollywood culture that cries to defund the police and that Black Lives Matter. The way I see it black lives only matter to the SJW white elite to the point where they can be tokens for their political ideology.

If someone points out that the biggest problem for the POOR blacks is single motherhood, high school drop out rates, and gang violence, then the person is a racist. If someone points out that, though blacks have the 2nd highest percentage of people living below the poverty line (Native Americans being the highest), they are only 20%.. meaning 80% are not. 80% of Black American’s are just like everyone else and getting by just fine.. that is racist. Anything said that DOESN’T describe blacks as a victim is some how racist… that’s racist. White, upper class, privileged Americans should not get to dictate how people think about anyone else.. that’s racist.

Addiction, Mental Health

Anger: The drug of choice

Katrina Russell

Have you ever known someone who was angry? I don’t mean like, “I’m mad that Burger King stopped carrying curly fries.” angry. I mean truly to their core angry. The person who festers on every wrong and injustice ever put upon them. Hitting every light on their way to work. Getting whole milk in their coffee instead of soy. Every relationship they ever had ended badly, or they had one that was so bad that they could never imagine entering into another because all people of their chosen sexual interest and all romances are painted with the brush of evil.

Have you ever tried to have a conversation with this person? Like, an actual one. One in which the person listens to you and actually hears you? It’s not as easy as one would think. People who are angry are almost impossible to reason with. The amount of cortisol and epinephrine running through a person’s system makes it very difficult for that person to listen to anything anyone has to say that doesn’t follow the narrative that’s pushing those chemicals.

In some cases anger becomes the drug of choice. It doesn’t matter what they are angry at. A person, a system, or life itself. Everything is someone else’s fault. They are always the victim, and anyone who tries to change their mind on this fact is the enemy. There is a clear line in the sand that must never be crossed. The person has to stay on that side of angry. On that side of justified. On that side of victimhood or else they’ll have to take a look at them self and see that they are the problem.

I know that when I’m having a bad day everything suddenly goes wrong. I wake up late, I can’t find my keys, I fumble and drop my keys when locking the door, my purse gets caught on the screen door handle, that causes my coffee to spill all over me.. and I haven’t even left my porch yet.

That is a sucky day. But the reason it is so sucky is not because the keys and the door are against me. It’s because my mind is otherwise occupied by the angry drugs coursing through it and I can’t focus on the keys, the lock, the door, the coffee.. and so on. I am rushed. I am distracted. I AM. And that’s the key. I am those things. The only way to change those things is to change how I react to those things. I take deep breaths. I learn to laugh at myself. I keep a spare shirt in my car for the MANY coffees that get spilled. I make better decisions.

It’s a scary thing to realize though. No one wants to “be a loser”. They don’t want to think that had THEY done something differently that the outcome may have been better. They want to blame someone else for their misfortune. Much better to be a victim, than to be a loser, and let’s face it, the angry chemicals are way more fun than the depressive ones, and a lot less complicated than doing the work.

When someone is stuck at a job they hate, and someone mentions that they could possibly get a new job. That’s paramount to assault. They are stealing their identity. The person couldn’t possibly just change their actions. That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of it works. They are stuck. Their boss won’t give them a raise or a promotion, so obviously they’ve stopped doing the extra work because no one cares anyway. They can’t go to another job because???? they have bills to pay??? and looking for a job is hard work.. and it’s not like anyone is going to hire them because their boss won’t give them a good reference… and… and .. you just don’t understand. No one understands.

People stay in crappy relationships, because it’s “easier than leaving”. Have you ever been in a crappy relationship? They’re nothing easy about that. Now I’m not talking about actually physically abusive relationships. Those are a completely different situation and they need real help sometimes getting out of. That is a fact of there being a predator and a victim. I’m talking about the crappy relationships in which you don’t talk anymore. You don’t have fun anymore. You don’t care anymore. People just cling to them for the sake of it. Because it’s what they are used to and it gives them something to complain about.

When asked if they’ve thought about therapy, or what they have done to try to bring back the romance or work on it at all.. they just say “you don’t understand”. The most cliche phrase in existence. It’s literally the phrase teenagers say to their parents, who, by the way.. were teenagers once too.

The problem is not that the other person doesn’t understand. The other person completely understands. You like to be the victim. You are addicted to the chemicals in your brain.. you don’t want to do the work. You want to blame everyone else for your problems. We all understand. The question is, do you?

Addiction, grief, Mental Health, parenting

Just trying to make sense of it all.

Katrina Russell

Conversation with my 7 year old son tonight.

Jason: if you and Da never got married how did you make me?

Me: we just loved each other that much

Jason: and then you didn’t?

Me: we still did. We just couldn’t keep living together

Jason: because he did drugs

Me: yeah, it wasn’t safe

Jason: because if I grew up seeing him do drugs I might do drugs and think it’s ok?

Me: well, that’s one reason.. but he also wasn’t very safe when he used them

Jason: yeah.. like when he punch the wall and stuff. He was really strong. He could hurt someone

Me: thankfully he didn’t.. but we couldn’t have him live with us… But we still loved him and he still loved us

Jason: ok

Addiction, Law of Attraction, Love, Mental Health

The Absence of Free Will

Katrina Russell

For those who don’t know there is great debate in the scientific community about whether or not free will is possible. The theory is that time is a relative construct. Therefore everything that has ever happened or ever will happen is happening all at once and time is just how we are experiencing these events. The best way that I have heard it explained was in “Agents of Shield” when Fitz compared it to a book. He said that time was happening all at once but we were experiencing just one page in the book at a time. This was most famously depicted in the “Harry Potter” movies. Especially “The Prisoner of Azkaban”. In this movie Harry knew that he could create his patronus because he already saw himself doing it. Time was laid out and he just had to catch up.

Others in the scientific community think that time is relative based on decisions and that alternate realities are created based on these decisions. Some people use the multiverse theory to explain this. For those fellow geeks out there it was often the plot to “The Flash” TV show. In the beginning of the series Barry often ran back in time to change something and ended up changing everything.. thus Flashpoint is created.

Personally I’m a bit in between. I’m more of a Doctor Who time theorist. I believe that certain things are meant to be and everything else is just happening as it does. I believe certain things are “fixed points in time”. I have noticed that sometimes things happen in my life that had no rhyme or reason but they lead to something life altering. There have been things in my life that I knew would happen one day and didn’t have any idea how.. and they did. I believe we all have these moments and we all see how different our lives and the world would be without them.

Not having any free will is a complicated concept to think about and even more difficult to believe in ones own future one way or the other. When someone can’t fathom having any control over their life it leaves them feeling hopeless and frightened all the time. My son’s father was in this category. He has severe anxiety and depression. He often self-medicated with all kinds of drugs. Whenever I would talk to him about making other decisions. About straightening out his life he would reply with the fact that he had no real control over his life. That if he was MEANT to straighten out that he would, and if he wasn’t he wouldn’t.

This whole theory seemed like a cop-out to me. It felt like he was making excuses for why he didn’t need to sober up. I would remind him that his life was his and if HE made other choices then obviously things would change. No one could make him do drugs. He had to change the behavior himself. He couldn’t handle that answer. He would reply that even if he did change his behavior that it would just be what the universe had done to him anyway. It was like talking to a merry-go-round. His whole perspective that he didn’t have free will left him with no will.

Before I met him he had had a couple attempts at suicide. It always confused me because he had such a fear of dying. I didn’t understand why he would try to kill himself if it was also his biggest fear. Unfortunately I think I figured it out. I think he felt like taking himself out of the equation took away the universe’s control. He was always found by a loved one and brought to the hospital and he didn’t know how to feel about it. I told him that he was alive because he was meant to meet me and we were meant to have our son. That didn’t make him feel any better because it was still something that he felt he hadn’t controlled about his life. Even though our son was a choice we made together, and he loved him very much.

Last August he had a scare. He overdosed while driving. He crashed his car and the police came and revived him. He called me to tell me what happened and I told him how lucky he was. I told him he was both lucky that he didn’t hurt anyone else and that because he was driving people saw the accident and the cops were called and he was able to be revived. Had he been alone in his room no one would have known and I’d have gotten a very different call that day. He seemed to agree.

The next day I got that call. He had overdosed in his room alone. He was dead. Part of me believes he did it to test the theory. If he was meant to not die then he would have been found. He could say that it was proof. That there was no reason for him to have been found and yet he was. Unfortunately he never got that chance. To me he fulfilled his life’s goal because we had our son… his choices after that took him away from our son. That’s all on him.

Addiction, grief, Love, Mental Health, parenting

Celebrating Life Even When It’s Over

Katrina Russell

My son’s father’s birthday was March 8.. it was a really hard day. My son just turned 7 a couple weeks before and now he was to celebrate his Da.. only his Da died almost 7 months ago.

It’s hard to explain death to a small child. It’s so final. It so big. But my son… he knows death. He has lived through the death of too many loved ones at his young age. When I told my son of his father’s death he was shook.. he was sad.. he was mad.. he was… well, he just was. This was his life now. He no longer had his Da. He never would again. He didn’t have his Da to go Trick or Treating with. He didn’t have his Da at Thanksgiving. He didn’t have his Da at Christmas or his own birthday.. but on March 8.. we were celebrating the birth of a man that didn’t get any older.

This was Da’s first birthday since his death day.. which I have no idea how I’m going to deal with.. but I still felt like the day should be observed. I still felt like my son should have the opportunity to celebrate the life that his Da had. No matter how sadly it ended.

One of Da’s favorite places to go was Castle Island. It’s a little beach area in South Boston, MA. It was a place that he remembered as a child and he loved sharing it with our son. We would go there for most special occasions. Last memorial day was our first chance to actually get a tour of the fort that is there. We spent most father’s days there and it held a lot of memories of the two of them together. I thought it would be a wonderful to memorialize him.

My son made a card for his Da and we tied it to a balloon and we attempted to send it off. I know.. horrible for the environment. Not really my priority at the moment. I’m going to be honest. So my little 7 year old stood in the middle of the ocean bridge and sent his balloon up to heaven for his Da… and it sunk. And my brave little boy was sad… but he knew that no matter what his Da loved him and knew how much he loved his Da.. and after all was said and done my 7 year old little boy was stronger than I’ve ever been.

Watch “Saying happy birthday to heaven” on YouTube

Love, Mental Health

I Am Positively NOT Always Happy

Katrina Russell

I have been seeing a lot of posts recently about how positive thinking is a horrible idea and how no one can possibly be happy all the time and it’s made me think… WHAT IN THE HELL ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT?!?!

Positive thinking is NOT about being happy all the time. That is just ridiculous. In fact it’s pretty much the opposite. Positive thinking is about KNOWING that bad stuff happens.. and it happens a lot. and it can be really, really, really bad, but that you’re going to be OK. That even though horrible things happen everyday to everyone and that we can in no way control a lot of the bad things that happen around us that good things happen just the same.

Positive thinking is looking around the world today and seeing everything and everyone in lock down over the Coronavirus and not thinking, “Oh aren’t I so happy that the people are dying and business are closing and no one knows what’s going to happen.. isn’t this great?!”, because that would be psychotic.

Positive thinking is looking around and thinking. “Wow, this is crazy. I can’t believe how bad this is getting, but at least I’m seeing people who are helping others. At least we know that this is going to help stop the spread of the virus and, though many will die and that’s horrible, this will hopefully lessen the amount. And after all is said and done the economy will bounce back and we will be normal again.”

Positive thinking is about not giving up in the face of adversity. It’s about seeing the bad things and holding on to hope…. it’s about wanting better for the future no matter how dire things look today.

Saying that positive thinking is having to always be happy is like saying dieting means you never eat again. It’s completely unhealthy and unrealistic… looking for the bright side or hoping for something better at the end of it all.. that’s what keeps the world spinning. Otherwise we mine as well just all stop living and wait for the next asteroid. There’s always going to be conflict and problems.. but it’s how you plan to deal with them that matter.

Addiction, Giving, Healthcare, Homeless, Love, Mental Health, parenting

We’re not alone

Katrina Russell

I was shocked when an article showed up on my Facebook page today. Sesame Street has created a character whose parents are  addicts. They are talking about actually drug addiction and the opiate crisis on frickin’ Sesame Street. I couldn’t believe it. Since losing my son’s father I have been very vocal about addiction and how it has affected me and my family. I have been very clear that keeping this kind of thing “hush hush” doesn’t do anyone any good and that mental health in general needs to be the topic of more conversations… but I had no idea how many little children are going through the same thing my son did.

According to the article I read of a similar name, “We’re not alone – ‘Sesame Street’ tackles addiction crisis “,  5.7 million children under age 11 live in households with a parent with substance use disorder. That number is disgusting. I’m sorry. I wish I could say it any other way, but it is. It is disgusting to know how many kids out there have parents who are struggling with addiction and mental illness and can’t get the help that they need. How many parents have kids that are struggling with addiction and mental illness and can’t get the help that they need.

I say that they can’t get the help that they need because I tried. I called every long term rehabilitation center that I could find in the tri-state area to get my son’s father into a real treatment program. Not just a 2 week or 30 day dry out, but a real 6 months or a year program. Of course he protested at first saying that it would disrupt his life to be gone for so long, but I finally made him realize that it was much more disruptive to keep having relapses.. to not actually fix the problem and only band-aid the symptoms. It would have been a lot less disruptive on his life to take a year to get healthy then to die alone in a “sober house” with his family 3 cities away and his sober house manager swearing he’s fine… he doesn’t notice anything wrong with him.

I made at least 20 phone calls to every long term facility that I could find all saying the same thing. Sure.. he’s more than welcome.. that’ll be $50,000… right.. how many addicts do you know that have over $100 in their pockets. None of them take insurance.. and none of the ones that take insurance do any real treatment.. they just clean up their puke while they detox and then then send them on their way telling them to find some sort of out patient program like NA/AA to help.. yeah.. stay away from other addicts… but go find meetings where all you do is meet other addicts.. great idea.

I’m not saying that NA/AA are bad programs. They just aren’t for everyone. They have a very strong link to God and surrendering to a higher power and trusting in that higher power to help. Only problem.. not everyone believes in God or a higher power. I know Neil didn’t. I know he stayed clean out of shear will power. He told me repeatedly that everything that he did was for me and our son. That he was living for his family and he knew that he had to stay clean in order to have us in his life.

Now I read this article about Sesame Street talking to millions of kids about their parents. Millions of kids whose mommies and daddies have to stay sober using nothing but will power. My son is not the only kid I know whose parent has died from the crisis.. my son is not the only kid I know that needed a monitor to make sure he was safe when his Da was using. I do not live in an urban city. My child goes to private school. We love in a small town. We go to church every week. To look at us we are not who you would assume would have an addict for a loved one. But that’s the point. None of us are… and we all need to start talking about it if we want to save the mommies and daddies of those 5.7 million children. If we want to save the life of just one.

Addiction, Giving, Love, Mental Health, parenting

The correct way to grieve

Katrina Russell

There is no correct way to grieve and I have done it all.  Grief is different for everyone. It’s also different for each person at different stages of their lives. I was reading some fan posts about a show I watch in which one of the fans was not happy with how the main character reacted to the death of her husband compared to when she had thought her father had died. This fan felt that because the characters reaction wasn’t a breakdown into tears her love wasn’t as real.

I can tell you that I have had a handful of significant deaths in my life, and I have reacted to them differently every time. Some of the differences are based on their relationship to me, some of them have been because of my age. Some of the differences are just because the more loss you have; the more you get used to it.

My first major loss was my grandmother. She had dementia for many years and when she died I was very sad, but I also had felt like I’d been losing her for a long time. I was in my 20s and that death was more about facing my own mortality. She was the first member of my family that I really knew that died. It was the first time that death really hit home. I went a little nutty about how my life was not going anywhere and I wasn’t married with babies.. and the whole deal. I ended up running off to Vegas and marrying the guy that I had been dating for about a year. Don’t get me wrong, he was a great guy, but we should not have gotten married and after a couple of years and the grief passing we faced that truth and divorced.

My next major death was my mother. One would think this would have been the worst, but it wasn’t. I hadn’t seen my mom since I was a kid. She was schizophrenic and her being in my life was just too hazardous. She had moved to Georgia when I was about 12 and I had very little contact with her while she was there. A few years later she moved back, off her meds, and causing problems. I decided at that point that a mother should not be hurting her children, and that if she were in her right mind that she would agree with me. I never saw her again.

My father googled her every once in a while just to keep me updated. One day, in my mid 30s, I came home to him telling me that he found her obituary. She had died the year before… and I missed it. That was tough. Growing up without a mother was always hard. She didn’t help me pick out my prom dress. She wasn’t there to give me advice on dating, or tell me not to get married. She had never been a part of my life, but I always knew that she was out there, and that gave me a little peace. Maybe someday she’d get herself on track and look me up… but that day never came, and now it never would… and with that I just closed a chapter.

A few years later, 2015, was the worst year of my life. I woke up one morning to find my father dead in his bed. He had been sick for years, which is why I had moved home, but I wasn’t expecting that. His death crushed me. I found him and tears, screaming, horror. It was the worst experience of my life. It was exactly something that you would expect. My son was only 2 at the time, and I had to put on a brave face around him, but there was a lot from that year that I don’t remember. I was on auto-pilot. I had to clear out my dad’s stuff, take over his business, put in order all of his life.. and I did.. because I had to.. but I don’t know how I did it. And I don’t remember most of it.

In that same year my dad’s longtime girlfriend died.. on  my birthday. She was older and had been sick for a while, but that didn’t make it any easier. Losing her was like losing another parent. She was a link to my father. To my childhood.. Hell, she was the one who knew everything about everything. She was my go to in life when I had real questions… now, who was going to be there for me?

A little over a month later and right before Christmas my dog ran out of my front door and was hit by a car right in front of me. And not just hit.. hit, knocked to the other side of the street.. ran over.. then ran over again and dragged away. Some people don’t understand the impact of losing a dog, but for me this was like the proverbial straw… I had to choose. It was either going to destroy me, or I was going to use it to strengthen me. It was 2 days before Christmas and I had a 2 year old sitting in the house waiting for me. I held my breath, cleared up my tears, and did everything that I could to give him the best Christmas that he could ever have.

That was almost 4 years ago, and for a long time the worst of it was over. I was getting on with my life. I could only do what I could do and I was learning everything that I could about helping other people. To me, helping others made me feel better.

A few weeks ago a new phone call came in. This time it was my son’s father. He had been an addict. He had been clean for almost 2 years… he was my best friend.. on his sober days… and August 14, 2019… he was dead. My face went white with that call, but I did not shed a tear in that moment. I looked at my, now 6 year old, who was playing with a friend and I thought, “I need to be as strong as I can… for him”.

I have broken down a few times. My son has seen me cry, and knows how sad I am about Da being dead.. but I am holding it together. Not because I didn’t love my son’s father, but because I still love my son.. and I still love me, and I know that the best way for me to work through my grief is to help others. I have been writing about my experience with death, with addiction.. with loss. I have been helping out with my son’s school, and extra-curriculars. I have been attending to my son’s father’s final estate.. I am going to attend a wedding this weekend.

I am doing all of this because I love my grandmother, and my mom, and my dad, and my Mary, and my dog, and my son’s father… and my son, and my life… and the best way to make all of life worth the pain that comes with it is to keep loving and keep living. I live for all of those that I love that can’t anymore. I am teaching my son to do the same so that one day he will live for me when I’m gone… in the way way future. Because I plan to live and love and help others as much as I can for as long as I can.