#thisdoesnthappentous

Our son is 9 months old. He’s perfect. Everything he does is for the first time, we take pictures, we post them on the Internet, our friends congratulate us and him. He just mastered crawling forward, he’s working really hard on standing. He’s mostly breastfeed. We’ve tried cloth diapering but his thighs are too big. Everything we do is for him. We want him to have the best opportunities and that starts right here at home. He knows he is loved, he is nurtured, he is content and he is happy.

This is what every mother wants, I think… for the most part. You want to protect them, it’s a fierce instinct. I don’t think I ever felt this much love and protection ever before in my life, and I’m an old first time mom at 39.

The other night Sam was coming down with a cold- runny/stuffy nose, slight fever, cough. We went to bed. We co-sleep… And I’m forever thankful we do. For the second time he woke us up after 2am with a croupy, barky cough. Having a hard time catching and keeping his breath. We sprung into action, like we were old pros, taking him outside, then into the steam of the bathroom. Calling 911 and taking our perfect little croupy angel over to the hospital. Whispering to him that we will protect him and that we love him more than anything else in the world….

“This doesn’t happen to us…”

Part of a text message from my best friend the night before. At the same time that my wife and I are scrambling to get our perfect little guy off to the ER, my friends daughter has been missing since around 10 am the morning before. And if that’s not enough she’s been threatening suicide and she’s been doing heroin. Her perfect little angel baby. The little girl who potty trained too early, who ate all organic before that was the “in” thing, who’s blue eyes could light up a room. This little girl who is now a woman, finally shows back up at home just as we are hopping in the back of an ambulance.

And it doesn’t stop. My friend has a fight on her hands, and so do we. Our struggles couldn’t be any further apart. The next night after hours of fighting and talking with her my friends perfect little angel baby leaves the house- with money, and her nightmare starts up all over again. Waiting for the phone to ring telling her some horrific news… Feeling helpless. Feeling alone. And just waiting.

Meanwhile Sam and I are walking the floor, because it’s not enough that this perfect angel gets a cold and croup, he’s cutting an eye tooth… And he likes the rhythm of my humming and walk/dancing up and down our 60’ trailer. For 2 hours we walk- anytime I stop he gently lifts his head and looks at me. I start right back up. It’s late and I’m going lobstering in the morning- but I don’t care because all I want to do is take care of him. To help him through this tooth, and then we will celebrate his 3rd tooth… And wait for our next little hurdle.

I love our hurdles, they make me cry, laugh, smile, proud… Our friends and family love them too… I think- they comment, they react, they even remember and say something when they see us out and about.

These first hurdles are the ones that embed our babies even further into our hearts. We wouldn’t do the things we do for our babies for anyone else… Not even our wives or husbands. If they have tooth pain, we give them Tylenol and tell them to call the dentist. If they go missing for hours we go past worried to pissed off- and when they roll in the house we let them know how mad we are.

But not our babies.

My friend and her little angel are going through something steeped in shame. Nobody talks about it. Nobody admits if they have a family member addicted to heroin. Nobody is posting pictures, nobody is writing statuses about it, nobody wants the stigma… So everyone stays quiet.

“This is the world Sam is growing up in” my friend writes me. I read that a couple times. This is the world that so many mothers babies are living in… But not my baby I think. I want to help change this. I don’t want to think about all the moms worried about their “perfect little angel babies” and whether or not they are safe, or even alive. I want to help open up conversation, create support, and work together to overcome this drug, this addiction, this “hurdle”.

I write my friend back that it doesn’t have to be… We don’t have to stay quiet, we don’t have to let this drug tear more and more families apart, we don’t have to watch as nearly a whole generation is consumed into this lifestyle. We don’t have to keep waiting... Waiting for someone to die…

We need to talk about what is happening. We need to work together as a community… We need to be open, honest, loving and supportive. We need to make the change happen, not wait for it.

So I write this blog…. And wonder what the next steps should be while my friend waits patiently in the ER for her baby to be admitted into a treatment program.