Between the Rage and Fear

I spent yesterday in the hospital with my son, who had overdosed on heroin.  I’d found him that morning unconscious on the bathroom floor. I can’t tell you what it felt like to see him like that, a gray shadow of himself, limp, seemingly lifeless.

He has recovered.  Physically, at least.  But spiritually, mentally?  I don’t know yet.

I wrote about him here, My Wild Child, less than a year ago, when I thought he’d finally made it.  He’d been drug-free, working two jobs, happy, healthy, for over a year. He was in love with a beautiful woman, they had a new baby girl they adored, they were planning to marry.  He was an attentive, tender, sweet father who was his daughter’s main caretaker while her mother worked days, he nights.

I was ecstatic with joy.  My daughter had just married, and now my son, whom I had grieved…