I’ve had some comments here on my blog in the past week or two suggesting that I am not being honest about my failings as a parent, and how those failings played a role in my son’s development of a deadly addiction. I’ll address that topic more specifically sometime soon when I have time, but for now, I think it’s a good time to republish the link to what I’ve written about my own familial version of denial, and how it contributed to Henry’s drug addiction.
Oct 052010
Sep 282010
We have had a big development at our house this month; J is now DRIVING!
AAAAAGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!
She got her learner’s permit recently, after she turned 15 in August. She studied hard and passed her test with flying colors.
This is a parenting first for me – having a teenage driver – because Henry really wasn’t that interested in driving, and frankly, we didn’t really want him driving – for obvious reasons. He did get his learner’s permit when he turned 15, but he basically never drove as a teenager. Ever.
So J is my first teen driver. I played no role in teaching her to drive; her dad handled all of that, and it appears he did a fantastic job. She’s very good, very careful and very confident (I worry that she’s overconfident). She loves to drive, as one would expect, and she wants to do it at every opportunity. Whenever we get in the car, she’s asking to drive. And I find myself wanting to say no more than I want to say yes.
My reason for wanting to turn her down on the driving is all about me and has very little to do with her; even though she is clearly pretty good behind the wheel, riding in the passenger seat with her driving makes me unbelievably, irrationally nervous. As she pilots the Honda minivan home from school or to the grocery store with great elan, I sit beside her, chewing my nails and biting my tongue. I literally have to consciously prevent myself from commenting on every move she makes. Often, I fail miserably, and I suddenly blurt something out about turn signals or following too closely, and I can see that I’ve just made her nervous rather than helping her in any way. But it’s like I am possessed by Satan when J drives; I can’t keep my mouth shut. Something compels me to spew unsolicited and often unhelpful advice.
I will keep working on this. Maybe by the time G turns 15, I will have myself under control.
Today a reader sent me a link to an article by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Daughter of RFK and member of a family that has seen more tragic loss than I can even imagine. In the piece, Townsend quotes her grandfather, who lost four children (and later, several grandchildren) to tragic, early deaths:
A decade after my uncle Joe and my aunt Kathleen died, my grandfather Joseph Kennedy wrote a letter to a friend whose son had died following brain surgery. Here’s what he said:
Dear Jack,
There are no words to dispel your feelings at this time, and there is no time that will ever dispel them. Nor is it any easier the second time than it was the first. And yet I cannot share your grief, because no one could share mine.
When one of your children goes out of your life, you think of what he might have done with a few more years and you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of yours.
You never really accept it; you just go through the motions.
Then one day, because there is a world to be lived in, you find yourself a part of it again, trying to accomplish something–something that he did not have time enough to do.
And, perhaps, that is the reason for it all. I hope so.
Sincerely,
Joe
Sep 152010
Tomorrow, J gets to fly with her very close friend N and her family on their private plane to spend a few days in another country – a tropical paradise of a country with amazing beaches. At a very posh resort.
Yeah. Really.
J is very lucky to get to do this, and she knows it. She doesn’t take it for granted. And N is just about the sweetest, most unspoiled kid I’ve ever met, despite the fact that she leads a very privileged life. I have HUGE admiration for her parents, who have turned out three great kids. N’s older brother S was one of Henry’s best friends until Henry began getting involved with drugs. Then the boys kind of parted ways.
But anyway, tomorrow J is leaving on this awesome mini-vacation with N and her family. She’s especially excited because they will be seeing one of her favorite bands in concert during their three days away.
J has had a terrible, terrible past few months, and I have been so happy to see her getting more and more excited about this trip with one of her very bestest buddies.
J and N, who have been close since kindergarten
Tonight I was getting together J’s travel documents when I suddenly realized that I couldn’t find her passport. Anywhere. At all. Jon and I proceeded to tear the house to pieces trying to find the missing passport with no luck. I knew I’d had it only 2 weeks earlier, when I gave N’s mom the passport # via email, but tonight it was absolutely nowhere to be found.
Finally we gave up. I had to face the fact that I was about to have to call J at her dad’s and tell her that she would NOT be going on her super special, much anticipated trip with her friend tomorrow. I knew she would be devastated, but honestly I think I was probably more devastated. I knew that J would one day be telling her therapist about the time her incredibly careless and disorganized mother lost her passport the night before her special trip.
The weird thing is that I have had this frequent, recurring dream for many years in which I am about to leave on an important trip and I’ve either lost my passport or let it expire. I have some variation on this dream at least once or twice a month. Losing a passport and being unable to travel on a planned trip is one of my weirdest phobias, even though I’ve never had it happen in real life. But tonight I realized that my worst nightmare was actually coming to pass. (okay, my worst nightmare already came to pass, but this was kind of unpleasant at least. An unpleasant nightmare)
I put off calling J at her father’s for as long as I could, but I finally had to call her and ‘fess up. It was really, really hard to tell her that because I’d lost her passport, she wouldn’t be leaving to go to the beach resort tomorrow.
But I bit the bullet and did it. However, before I could get out even two weepy apologies, J calmly informed me that the passport was AT HER DAD’S HOUSE. ACK! Apparently I’d totally forgotten giving her stepmom the passport two weeks ago when she took J to get her learner’s permit. Totally forgotten.
My relief is indescribable. No one wants to disappoint her children, but this would have been the mother of all disappointments.
I’m so glad that I am NOT going to be the mother of all disappointments.
And I know J is going to have an amazing time.
Sep 142010
In my latest blog post over at Babble I’m going all judgy mcjudgerson on a dad essayist who is arguing in favor of letting his preschooler cuss at will. (Hint: I’m anti)
This morning we have our very first meeting (E*V*E*R* – no one has ever offered or asked to meet with us, or even called us til now) with one of the investigator/prosecutors involved with looking into the circumstances of Henry’s death. I am very, very anxious to finally hear details of what the heck has been going on with the investigation and also hear directly from someone who knows whether the authorities actually plan to pursue prosecution against anyone.
I am dreading the meeting even as I am eager to hear what she has in the way of information for us. I know we have some information for them regarding witnesses who haven’t yet been interviewed. I also want to make sure they’ve seen Henry’s medical records which clearly indicate head and chest trauma when he was admitted to the ER of April 27.
Keep your fingers crossed for me that things go well.
Today my blogging from the other day about my current breastfeeding difficulties was noted by one of my very favorite journalists, Lisa Belkin in her own Motherlode blog in the New York Times.
As someone who has been an outspoken advocate of breastfeeding for a number of years, was scary for me to admit publicly that I am having to formula-feed Baby G. I was afraid people would call me a big fat hypocrite – and a few have – just as I was afraid for a long time to tell anyone that my child had a serious drug problem because I was afraid people would blame the attachment parenting style of baby-care that I’ve written about (and lived). But I felt like I needed to be as honest as possible about the problems I have had breastfeeding this time because so many people have been so supportive and kind as I’ve shared our family’s story so far. I may not share every detail of my life as a mother (I chose to remain mum on Henry’s struggles for several years before I spoke publicly about it) but when I do decide to open up about something in particular, I am going to tell the truth. And the truth is that I can’t seem to make nursing work this time because there’s no milk.
(As an aside, in case you wondered, Henry was formula-fed.)
The fact that I am unable to breastfeed my baby this time around doesn’t diminish my belief in the critical infant-maternal health benefits of breastfeeding for populations of women and babies. But my current experience has certainly offered me yet another perspective on the complexities of mothering in general. If only breastfeeding and bed-sharing COULD prevent addiction in teenagers. God how I wish that were true. But they don’t. And neither do spanking, letting babies cry it out, or vegetarian diets or cloth diapers or the right brand of infant formula or a more expensive stroller or two-parent homes or the perfect child spacing or…or…or
Aug 032010
After losing Henry, there are lots and lots of things I regret about my choices as a parent, but there are also a lot of things I don’t regret at all – and wouldn’t change if I could. Things like:
-Always picking him up when he cried as a baby
-Singing or reading him to sleep most nights until middle school
-Never spanking him
-Letting him fall asleep in my bed as often as he wanted until he decided on his own that he was too old
-That one vacation we took that I totally couldn’t afford but where he started to learn to surf
-Telling him I loved him each and every time we spoke, emailed or texted until the day he died
-Never, ever giving up on him even when he seemed to have given up on himself
-Making sure he was surrounded by a big family that loved him like crazy
-Taking him to hear good, live music early and often
-Rubbing his back and feet while we watched TV together, even when his feet got huge and smelly
-Giving him the gift of J, E and later, C
-The trip he and my grandmother took together to tour Shiloh battle sites
-Letting him climb trees and walk around the neighborhood all by himself – in Knoxville and Bell Buckle
-Spending far too much every year to make Christmas mornings as magical as possible.
-Taking him with me to vote
-All the nights I sat next to his bed to just watch him sleep and kiss him on the head before heading off to my own bed for the night
-Carrying him in my arms as often as possible until he got too big
-Spending every possible second I could with him during the five weeks he was hospitalized before his death
-Holding him in my arms and just being with him as he left this world for the next on May 31
I’d give anything to have a chance to spend just one more day with him.
Treasure EVERY SINGLE SECOND with your children, even the really hard ones. Be in the moment. Relish every kiss, every hug, and every boring school play. Never miss the chance to tell them how much you love them and believe in them. Go in right now and watch them sleep. Get on the floor and play with those legos or go for that tenth round of Candyland. Read to them long past the age they can read themselves. Be sure you keep a lock of their hair, and at least one baby tooth.
Parent in a way that wouldn’t leave you with too many regrets if you were faced with the unthinkable.
I love this video – fuzzy tho’ it is – of Henry playing his first guitar. He’s 11 here, and the Henry-sized guitar was a gift from his great Uncle John. This was the first song he taught himself, and he starts off by saying that he’s dedicating it “to my Uncle John.”
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