June Gloom

By Sherrie Ann Cassel

Yesterday was a tough day, 5 ½ years since Rikki, my beautiful Rikki, left this world and broke my heart in the process. I try to not ruminate about the hell we went through when he was struggling, but sometimes when I’m looking at his picture, or watching old videos of him when he was fine, beautiful, not addicted, I get really sad. Generally, I try to think only “happy” thoughts about my beautiful boy, but still, the darkness can emerge as unpredictably as a Texas tornado.I thought about the young and tortured man who died on January 22nd, 2016, at 5:55 p.m. His mind was tortured. His body was ravaged by addiction. Where was my beautiful son that day? He was a shadow of his former self.

I watch the videos and I hear his laugh and I see his vibrant and brilliant personality. I see his joie de vivre. I see his passion for life. I see his hope for a future with his little boy, but when I think back on those last few months with him, I don’t know where he went. I’d catch a trace of him every once in a while. His sweetness and kindness never left him – even as his mind began to go.

I cannot express enough the horror I felt each passing day that my son was being destroyed by addiction; I felt like each new day I had no idea whose life I was living. I was helpless to help this amazing human being no matter how much I begged for him to get help, no matter how much I had to admit about myself to reach him, no matter how much I sobbed or pleaded with God to save my son, there was a point of no return where all hope was lost – even as I unrealistically held out for a miracle.5 ½ years…in 6 months it will be 6 years my baby was lost to me. That’s significant, I guess. I try to make sense of my grief cycles. I try to normalize my pain so I can function in the world and maintain wholesome relationships, but I have my days.

I cried yesterday and this morning, just a little, not like I used to when I was first beginning the grief process, but enough to know I was feeling the loss of my son’s potential. He was so beautiful.I kept myself distracted with nonsense things to do. I don’t know when the last time I had a meltdown; it’s been a while. Do you get “past” them? I’ve been told by parents whose children have been gone for 25 years, and they still have days of deluges. I know there is not a “standard” for doing grief; I tend to go longer and longer periods of sustained calm…and then the weather will be gray, or I’ll see something he would have loved…or I watch his son grow up without a father, and I weep for all the lost opportunities for my son and for us without him.

Does that make sense?

I work hard to “be happy” – but my efforts don’t always work. I spoke with my best friend in the whole world today. I kind of raised her so she always felt like mine, but now that we’re in our almost 50s and almost 60s, we’ve finally achieved an equality that makes us more friends than parent/child. She is a person who knows me almost as well as Rikki did. We laughed and it felt good. Yesterday I texted one of Rikki’s friends, like a brother, really, to ask him to not forget Rikki and when he thought of him to please text me to tell me. I was desperate for a connection with the Rikki who was well and who will always be remembered as the amazing individual he was. I was feeling really lost yesterday, even though I put on a brave face, and I soldiered on.

Isn’t that what we do?

I did every single thing I knew to do to save my son. Yes, I know better now and if I had known then what I know now, I would have been better at self-care and hence a better example to him. But I was so desperate to save his life and I looked desperate, wild, crazy, defeated. I know how much I love him and how hard I fought to keep him here with me and our family. We were in a battle for his life, and I was in a battle to keep my sanity during the most insane time in my life. We lost one battle and I’m winning the second one. I keep hanging on to today and trying to let go of yesterday – even though it keeps me tied to my son. Happy memories are better for me and for my relationships. I have had 5 ½ years to catch my breath from the horrors of addiction and 5 ½ years to sort through the things that hurt us and the things that benefitted us and helped us to have more good years than bad ones. The bad ones were doozies toward the end of his life, but I love him, to the core of his Soul.

I miss him so much and I am sad that his life ended so dramatically and traumatically, but I am so grateful for his beauty, his brilliance, his kindness, generosity, gentleness, humor, grace, forgiveness, and undying love for me and his son.

I’m going to let those thoughts be enough for me today. Yesterday was a feat in soldiering on. I chose to not let my sadness turn into an entire day of sobbing. I could have and I have on many occasions, and I know meltdowns are unpredictable, but just as I was getting ready to go into day two of a grief funk, my best friend messaged me, and we messaged back and forth until I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t breathe.

And that was really good. Today I had to honor my son by talking about how wonderful he was – the bad years were really just a short time in proportion to his 32 years, even though it seems like the addiction years lasted a lifetime – and my heart tells me that the addiction years will bleed into my life for perpetuity. After a day of trying to keep my shit together, today I will put on a smile and keep focused on how lovely and delightful my son was. We both deserve that kind of peace. I just miss him is all.