The Weight a Mother Carries

 




It’s hard to find the right words when you’re watching your friend break over and over again. I pray for her and her family and I trust that God has a plan for them, I know he does, but sitting back and not being able to fix it for her, or save her from her grief, is hard. I think every good mother worries or at least is concerned for their children at all times, even when their children are adults. In her case, her son struggles with alcoholism and watching him slide down the slippery slope of self harm is devastating to her. She has done everything she can to help him, but she is learning the hard lesson that there is a fine line between helping and enabling. I wish I could carry her burden for a while, just to give her Mama heart a rest. But all I can do is pray, give her a few words of advice and be here if and when she needs to talk.

It’s so hard to see someone you love hurt themselves as well as the ones they love, due to addiction. My dad, a reformed alcoholic said many years ago that alcoholism is a very selfish disease, It truly is. This adult “kid” is apparently on a self sabotage mission. He has so many things going for him, but as soon as there is a bump in the road, he drinks. Even when things are going well, I think he feels he doesn’t deserve to be happy and he self sabotages. What he doesn’t seem to realize, or care about, is how much his alcoholism affects others. I see it destroying his mother, it ages his grandparents, it causes friction in his parents relationship, it hurts his girlfriend and his brothers and pretty much every one who cares about him.

This “kid” I speak of is special, since the day I met him, I have seen something special about him. I know with all my heart if he’d turn to God rather than alcohol, he could do great things. I know that God could and would use him in ways we could never imagine. For now, I will continue to pray for him and his loved ones. I will pray for his protection and for his rock bottom to come safely, for the day he will choose life, and realize that he is made in God’s image, that he is God’s child and he is loved and deserves to be loved. I pray he will learn to see his self worth and learn to love himself. Until that day comes, I will continue to pray for my friend, his mom, for her strength, her faith, and to not lose her hope but to survive the waiting.

I don’t know if he will find his way back or how many more pieces of my friend’s heart will break along the way. Even when I have no answers, even when I feel helpless, even when all I can do is sit beside her or wait for my phone to ring, I will be there for her. Sometimes being a friend means just being on standby or standing in the wreckage with some one you love, reminding them you are there if they need you or want you to be and that they don’t have to face these hardships alone.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When Caring Becomes Too Much: Recognizing and Coping With Caregiver Burnout

Image
  I am writing about this topic because writing helps me reduce my stress. I know although I feel alone in this journey sometimes, I am not, so I’m hoping by writing about it, I will help others to feel understood and validated. I have written a blog post in the past about living with someone with chronic illness, this post will be similar to that, but more on the feelings of burn out. I think like me, many care takers don’t vent or talk about their feelings as much as they probably should. I can only speak for myself but I suspect that there are probably many who feel the same way. Most of the time I don’t say how I’m really feeling because I don’t want to sound like a complainer. Besides, do people really want to know how I am feeling? Probably not. Sort of like how the majority of people ask “how are you?” In passing, but they really don’t want to know, they are just being polite. If they really wanted to know, they wouldn’t ask when passing by, they’d ask when they planned on s...
Read more

Another Day, Another Procedure and a Whole Bunch of Feelings

Image
  Another day spent at Portsmouth Hospital with Mike. Today he had a Fistulagram also known as a Fistulography. It’s an imaging test where they insert a needle and dye and do some imaging to make sure the fistula in his arm is working properly before they can remove the Central Venous Catheter (CVC) which he has had since February. Since Mike has stage 5 kidney disease, this Fistula is a life line for dialysis. He did well during the procedure, even though there was a lot of pressure and discomfort. The test showed that he had scar tissue built up from a previous antibiotic picc line, so they had to open it up with a balloon. He was in the operating room for about an hour and in recovery for another hour. Starting Tuesday, the nurse’s at the dialysis center will try using the arm Fistula for the next 3 sessions. Once it is proven to be working properly, an appointment will be scheduled to get the CVC removed from his chest. He can’t wait to get rid of that thing.  Another upda...
Read more

Update in the Michael Health Chronicles

Image
  As I posted on Friday, Mike’s dialysis fistula placement surgery went well. He had a bit of a tough weekend. Dialysis on Saturday was a bit rough between the fatigue and pain from the surgery the day before. We are grateful it all went well though, a step in the right direction. But, in true Mike fashion, it’s one step up and two steps back. On Saturday we got notice from Lahey Clinic saying that Mike will not be put on the kidney transplant list at this time, as we suspected but it’s still disappointing. After all the tests he went through, his team of doctors determined that he is too high risk at this time and would more than likely, not survive the surgery. He is still considered fragile and has to continue to gain some strength back as well as get his broken back fixed. They will retest everything and reassess in January.  We will not give up, we still trust God’s plans for us no matter what they are. The winds have changed a bit so we must adjust the sails. With school...
Read more