I can’t very well write about the day of the dead and not mention grief now can I? Things have been hard this past year. We lost my step-daughter to fentanyl last September, she was twenty.

Grief takes many twists and turns and doesn’t ever look the way you think it will. I noticed that I have been pushing down my feelings for a long time. Keeping myself busy, overworking, over extending etc but those feelings don’t go away, they just sneak up and bite you when you least expect it.

I have a few friends who have lost children and I have also noticed the difference in people when someone dies from a tragic accident and when someone dies of an overdose. Addiction carries with it so many negative reactions but no one seems to realize that this is a national crisis. I’m not just talking about drugs either, alcohol is also killing a lot of people. Yet we see in gift shops and online “it’s wine o’clock”, “it’s 6 O’clock somewhere” etc. Masking our feelings with substances isn’t new but for some reason drinking isn’t looked down upon as drugs are.

But here are the facts most people addicted to drugs didn’t start out saying hey I think I want to be addicted to xyz drug. Ask most drug addicts and they will tell you they are living in hell. They sell pretty much anything they own, lose most of their families, and hate themselves but they can’t stop. You see, stopping is very very hard. Not just because of detox (which I’ve heard is a new kind of hell) and after you deal with that you have to deal with all the things that happened to you while you were using, all the things you did to others while you were using and what made you start using in the first place. Recovery is not for the faint of heart and it’s hard as hell. I think addicts in recovery are some of the bravest people because they are facing their demons while those who don’t have addiction issues continue to use things to cover up feelings or issues that we don’t like.

Had a bad day, have a glass of wine, going out to have a good time, well that has to involve alcohol because it’s not fun unless you are hammered. It’s time we stop putting down addicts and start looking at a society that is so difficult to function in that people are turning to things to hide their emotions and feelings.

But I’m already off topic. I wanted to talk about grief. It’s a struggle. Especially the traumatic grief we are going through. The trauma of knowing she was out there using, getting hurt and there was nothing we could do about it was endless torture. Not knowing if or when we would get a call like the one we finally received. Some would think that it’s almost a relief to know she isn’t putting herself in dangerous situations anymore but its not. Now we have to deal with knowing we will never again see her walk through the door, her sister has to contemplate a life without her in it even though they had plans.

When she was alive no matter how torturous it was there was always hope that maybe she would find a way to get and stay clean. I can’t tell you the number of rehabs she was in. How many times we had her arrested just so we would know she wasn’t on the street and was safe. Luckily we united as a family around her. Me, her mom and dad, her sister, we made decisions together on what to do, how to act or react, this saved us in some ways because when that call came we knew we did everything we could and we couldn’t pin the blame on this person or that person.

So here I am a year later, still hurting, finally sitting in it, writing this and maybe hoping that someone else will read this and know they aren’t alone. I won’t ever get over it, her death has changed me, changed all of us, but I will find a way to honor her every day. We have photos of her up throughout the house along with our other kids, we talk about her, quote her, and laugh about some of the silly things she did. She was more than her addiction, she was a young girl who had a family who loved her, who loved animals and even while she was out there she was rescuing cats and helping however she could. I just wish she could have helped herself.