A Mother's Love Story

This has been one heck of a roller coaster ride! Over the last 8 months since my son died I have seen more, heard more, felt more, cried more, and done more involving overdose than I ever thought about in my entire 48 years of life. That to me is sad. I should have been more involved from the beginning! Not just for my son's sake but for the masses of others out there suffering. My heart is not just breaking because my son is erased needlessly from this world but also because there are more dying every single day! Collin would have hated all of this. He was kind and loving. His heart would also be broken for people he's never met. Broken for the thousands of people without faces to so many but for us they more than just matter, they are connected by a common thread that can't be cut. Like a part of us, family of sorts. So this fight doesn't end just because my son is no longer here. It will go on! So on this day of overdose awareness, I beseech of you to search deep i

Today marks the day that we haven't had your smile for nine months now. It also comes with the Bittersweet passing of your Pap Don. So I know that he is with you now. You have an entire family up there with you. For me left down here, it's a bitter with the sweet kind of moment. Bitter because of the bite! The sting of death no matter how my heart and mind know about the afterlife, I still have immense pain. The sweet because I believe that you are all together having nothing but sheer love, joy, and walking with our Lord. In the days and weeks and months to come I will experience Joy, laughter, pain, sorrow, and my expectations of my self are always higher than anyone Else's. Above and beyond the noise and confusion of my own mind and of this world is something so much more important...My love for my children! My love for my family! My love for my friends! Most importantly my love for my Heavenly Father! I miss you my son more than my lungs can handle air Sometimes! I

There are just days when I wake up and they are beautiful, and I can go out into the world and do and be and function like I did before everything went so horribly wrong. I still think of you often on those days. I still weep in silence and speak your name, but it doesn't make my heart ache to where I am paralyzed from it. Then there are still those days where I get so overwhelmed by the pain of knowing that I will never, in my lifetime, see, touch, hug, laugh with you, or share another Moment with you that it shakes me to the core of my being! I want any other Mother or Father out there to hear me on this. It is ok to be a total mess sometimes. To wake up and feel like you've made no progress and that you just want to hide from the world. Do not feel like you are alone in this! The sad fact of all of this is that even if your family and closest friends do not understand why you are the way you are, there are millions of people out there who do! The number is growing daily. I

As I sit here caught between joy and brokenness my thoughts Always go-to my son. He is always with me. Ever present even in his absence. Even with the birth of the baby, and no matter what anyone says, I look in that sweet baby boys face and I know deep in my Mom heart who he is, can tell me Differently! Even though this is a bittersweet Moment in time. Even though I cannot meet him yet. Not hold him or sing our songs as I did with his Daddy and his siblings. My heart is already there. Here in this beautiful place with my own babies, with one of my forever friends, trying so hard to celebrate life, I feel torn. I want to run, go to my baby's boy and just hold him and whisper in his ear how much his Daddy loves him. How much we love him. How beautiful and smart and important he is already at only 10 days old. His Momma did a wonderful job and his is perfect in every way possible. I am humbled by God's blessings, grace, and mercy. I want to shout from every roof top how good He

These past few months during the summer days hasn't been as easy for me as I would have liked them to be. Usually summer flies by so quickly, with things to do and kids running in and out. This summer was quite the opposite. I found it to be a lonely and quiet one. My youngest not so young and my oldest out on their own. With Collin permanently gone from our physical lives, the obvious empty space unable to be filled made it almost unbearable. All of my children made their best attempts to Always be there and make me laugh and share their lives with me. Letting me know what family is for. Allowing me to grieve yet not letting me forget that I have a responsibility to them to be present for them. Not just present but alive in spirit, body, and mind. This isn't an easy task. My mind is cluttered with memories and shattered by grief. My spirit crushed by the loss of one of my children, a hole that can't ever be filled. My mind playing tricks on me and constantly forgetting t