I decided to clean them up for the Goodwill bag. The shoes looked like they had been worn maybe twice, in almost perfect condition excepting the third cat’s worth of hair attached to both. As I wiped them down with a damp rag I tried to remember when my son would have worn these shoes and why we bought them in the first place. They were obviously dress shoes and their size of 8.5 indicated some years ago as he now wears a size 12.

I realized these were the shoes that we bought to go with his graduation from junior high school outfit. He was so proud of those clothes- we had spent the afternoon shopping for a nice jacket and pants, dress shirt, tie, socks and shoes. No easy feet to find something to fit his tall, lanky and incredibly thin waisted frame. I wanted him to feel beautiful and successful- see a future version of himself making a living and being proud of who he is. Like the many shopping trips for my daughter’s school dances this outfitting adventure seemed important to my son’s perceptions about himself.

It was a wonderful day and in retrospect I am thankful for its memory. The shining light of my son’s eyes as he looked at himself in the Macy’s dressing room mirror. The immediate way he put on his outfit to show his older sister and the very careful way he hung everything up high and away from the constant encroachment of cat hair that follows our every step. He must have tried that outfit on 5-6 times before he actually wore it for the occassion it was bought.

There was a time when my son was proud. There was a time when we shared a fond moment between us that was unabashedly tender yet not awkward. I need these affirmations now that my son has exited my life in such a strategic and precisely cruel way.

These old “new” shoes will still go to Goodwill as there is someone out there that can use them I’m sure. The person who wore them however will never leave my heart though he may try to walk himself straight out of it. I will use the sweet memory of that day to get me through to tomorrow.

I found myself profoundly sad these last few weeks. The kind of sad that settles in your joints like a bad cramp where  remaining perfectly still seems the only protection against. There were moments when my body positively shook with sobs that I could not contain,  like dry heaves of an emotional state. I spoke with my counselor about all this and she reminded me of how much the ritual of graduation- the pomp and circumstance of it all is not just for the graduating senior. It is also for ALL the parents, collectively gathered in a space of pride, love and hope to unabashedly applaud their last 12 years of parenting. Their roles in their children’s lives as they guided them into adulthood. It is a place to quietly acknowledge the feat of parenting that at our deepest core we know is our true responsibility as people bringing forth children into this world.

How empty for me was that Saturday night when my son’s class of around 900 kids gathered at the Verizon Wireless Arena for the 2010 commencement ceremony.  Driving around town that daywith out of state cars parked in front of various houses festooned with balloons.  The backyard chatter of  family and friends gathered in honor of a student’s accomplishments.  I tried not to conspiculously slow down and crane my neck to see with my own eyes a tableau I so desperately wanted myself. I wondered if any of my parent friends and acquaintances heard a gap in the roster of names, a space where my child should have been. I wonder if they noticed the sound of a mother’s heart breaking above the din of cheers and applause.

No helping my fragile emoional state that I heard more from my son in that week leading up to his graduation than I had in the last six. The night of graduation  a 2:15am  text tinging through on my cell phone shatters my numbness.  I see it is from my son who dropped out of existence 6 weeks before graduation, asking me if he could move back home. My mind forages for possibilities-is he at a graduation party depressed and dangerous?  Who are his friends now and how do they view him? Why is he wanting to come back home after the only reason he said he was staying home to begin with was so he could finish high school and get his diploma?

There are so few comforting answers for a parent who faces the meandering actions of a child with a substance abuse problem. There are plenty of books, blogs, support groups, and even former addicts who all have their thoughts on the subject however our experience is unique and at times I resent the constant pull to frame it within someone elses lessons. My son will not admit the spiral he has once again initiated and I am just too damn tired to point it out to him again.

So my reply text  to this child whom I remember so clearly coming into our world almost 18 years ago says simply r u safe? His reply in the affirmative prompts me to spread some rationality on the subject and say  we’ll talk in the morning OK?  His OK Mum is the words on which my tired mind clings as I try to fall asleep.

I wonder if there will ever be a year that I am not happy to see pass. I can’t remember the last time I celebrated the change in digital numbers from 11:59 to 12:00 with the tipsy abandon of a young woman full of belief and demand for her future. I am so much older than my years, as if having been born my soul was interrupted somewhere around that age of 12 and my awareness of the world around me took a dark and sinister turn.

How often do I call out the younger me who saw her life encapsulated by the livings of her family- her babies and loving, adored husband. I look out through the same genetic eyes yet the vision is horribly askewed and nothing, nothing is what I had believed for me.

I did not see myself alone in this world. I never would have expected watching the Waltons, The Brady Bunch, Eight is Enough that my life would not resemble those characters. I did live much of the chaos of a sitcom however there was not a partner to confide in at the end of the day. There was not another to take my fears and gently remove them from my shoulders so I might sleep the dreams of self-worth. The questioning belief  that I arrived in this world alone, lethargic and dulled to the birthing adrenalin and so now stand, clinging to a realm in which I still feel most comfortable rings loud like a children’s jump rope song- I came into this world alone and through it passing I will be alone. Sing-songey cruel words for a heart that so desperately loves.

My greatest joys have been as a mother. Yet each passing year reminds me that this is a false pretense as my mothering is exposed more and more as a flawed attempt to alleviate all reality from my children’s lives that we are no different from other families. I could not keep up with the Joneses, nay not even the welfare serviced poor as what money I did earn went back into keeping us housed and medically covered.  How do you explain that to a child born a princess in her own mind’s eye without clouding her future possibilities of actually obtaining the status she so ardently seeks?

How do you compensate for a child that so desperately craves a father figure that he finds solace in a shared connection of addiction not understanding that the genetics that gave him his life can without interest take it away?

There are so many visions I run through my head where I come out more likeable, more attractive, more successful. At the very least more worthy of the two lives I brought into this world. I want to live to see my children break the shackles that I have unwittingly placed on them. I don’t know if that will be possible as I feel my body degrade and flag with the constant damage my head imposes upon it. I do suspect that I will be alone for more New Year’s Eve contemplations, maybe not too many more as the road seems to wind ever more narrow and my ability to navigate the turns becomes more constrained. I came into this world alone and so shall I leave it as I watch the glittering ball fall.

My god, how desparate my son must be to make such a calculated move to assure his arrest. While others see only the mischief and actions of an out of control teenager with a substance abuse problem, I know what he is doing. He is methodically getting bolder and bigger with his discrepancies. He is screaming for attention so they will arrest him and put him someplace where he is safe from himself. How horrifying it must be to power struggle with your own self for survival.

He knows that if he doesn’t get into a lock down facility soon he will kill himself with what he is doing. While I initially react with anger and betrayal because he is disrupting our world single-handedly with his offenses I make myself see how he is trying to wrest control from his addict self by sabotaging the free for all spin that he’s fallen into.

This addict- he gets really pissed at my boy and that’s what terrifies me. The addict deciding to cut his losses and take the whole system down. Oh god, please let my son have the cunning to outwit this imposter. Please let him remember I am here and will fight by his side every step of the way. Let him feel my love even as he pushes me away with venom and disdain.

I feel myself wanting to be still, breathless almost so the universe passes me by. Don’t notice me- don’t notice my kid… just keep moving on and forget that we are even here.

17 years later the night is as still, humid and dark. I was hot with hormonal fever back then and at age 46 am probably experiencing the same now though at the end of a milestone rather than the beginning. I have the dull ache of womb memory happening in my gut that seems to accompany these eves, twice every year without fail regardless of whether I can write it off to PMS or just wonder at the cellular recall of our bodies.

17 years ago I contemplated the effortless transition of moving from me to mother. Tonight my mothering wrenches from me like the guardrail screams at the oncoming headlights. There is no time to react though it is all in slow motion. I know with certainty it is going to hurt.

My beautiful boy, the son born to me on tomorrow’s date at 7:50 am in the morning will celebrate his 17th birthday without family and without fanfare. Of course there will be celebration in my heart but he is unaware and focused only on himself. He fights his battle of substance addiction in a safe home with peers and able staff. They understand him better than I can claim to right now and it’s that reminder that makes this a bearable event.

As I cradled him to me many years ago, his face ruddy with new breath and his eyes curiously watching mine I saw only that moment in time, only our connection as mother and son. We had traveled a rigorous journey for many hours and we had come home hand in hand, knowing our places in each other’s world.

I wish I could recapture that feeling tonight. The notion is there but the reality is such that I can’t pretend my son will come home again. We have traveled together for 17 years yet are in two separate places far, far apart from each other. While I strain to keep visual contact with my son, he turns and walks away without a look back.

Tonight, before the memory of labor threatens to rip from my heart all that I cherish about the eve’s of my children’s births, I consider the magnitude that one small event has had upon the world. The ripple effect that knowing my son has had on all who have come into contact with him. I pray that he can find strength in all the moving waves of energy that surround him, all those who love him and all those who believe in him. He doesn’t need to turn around to know my heart. I only hope that the knowlege keeps moving him forward. Happy eve of your birth my beloved boy.

I know intellectually that this is what is best for ALL of us. It is my heart that refuses to cooperate- only feeling the remorse of a parent begging the brain to back off and let it break. Slow.

I walk the rooms of the house while my two realms battle; the weeping heart and the weeping intellect and the bewildered phrase on my constant moving lips is that it can always get worse, it can always get worse.

My beautiful sensitive 19 year old daughter got so angry with me tonight that she tossed aside the eggshells lining our house and spoke her words of pent up hurt with sputtering ferocity and stark color in her cheeks. Her rant, deserved as it was addressed something so base to my nature that I’m still reeling with it’s impact. Reeling with the understanding that I have such an ugly quality to me and that I have never seen it or noticed it as such.

I don’t really think my daughter was being oversensitive. I think it is something that has laid deep-seeded and festering in her for years and tonight like some kind of freakish scene from an Alien movie it bored its toxic head right out from her flesh and into our family room.

I am an embarassing bully who makes fun of her in an effort to bond with her friends. There. It’s out. What I am.

It’s true. I do tease and it comes as easily as cussing, or many other vices I have. It’s not intended to be cutting or disparaging but rather lighthearted and endearing. That’s the mommy perception. The child perception is that I purposely use her as a means to make fun of her which is nothing but mean. I belittle and portray her in an unflattering light and my motive is to simply move in on her friends.

I stayed eerily calm at these words being flung at me with venom and pure unforgiveness. I explained that I really did not intend to slight her in front of anyone and that perhaps she was being more sensitive than I expected in the situation. I also apologized and told her that it was never my intention to hurt her or embarass her in any way and that I would be careful not to do that again.

That’s when I realized how deepy ingrained this behavior is in my personality. My family expressed love and solidarity through exaggerated teasing and its so much a part of how I let others know I care about them that I wonder if I’ll be able to open my mouth at all without going back against my word. The laughter behind my actions is gone because I know it bothers someone I love.

It’s a rough end to the day when your child holds up a mirror and the cracks are deeply visible and the image distored and ugly. I will work on sequestering this frolicking voice inside of me that always tried to poke a laugh and friendly banter with someone I care about and in my daughter’s case stay very still and cautious with her intrarelationships. I will try to notice how often I engage in this with other people- in my personal life and in my work life. Are there others with Mt. St Helens potential lying just underneath their smile? Most of all I will try not to punish myself too roundly for this latest awareness. Frankly this won’t be as hard as it might seem-life has pummeled me to the point where I’m only capable of scarring rather than creating new wounds.

Being a parent is so hard when you’re nothing but human.

I love being a mom more than anything I’ve yet experienced in my life. Even better than those free moments of childhood where there is no fear, no worries to comfound and plague but only the joyful moment of being. I love being a mom with all it’s hairpin turns and rolling ups and down more than that memory.

My motherhood is evolving again as my children enter different phases of their lives. My daughter spoke with surprised yet proud candor when she told me she couldn’t believe with the last period on her exam final she was now a junior in college. She said she doesn’t feel any different- like she’s supposed to feel grownup or something. I tried to tell her at 46 I was still waiting but it’s a concept that can’t be discussed really, just experienced.

This young woman soon to be 20 is one of my dearest friends. She is of course first and foremost my daughter but how nice to have her as my pal too. We are enough alike to laugh big and argue hard. Mostly its the laughing that we share and nobody else can set me into a good mood than her tinkling happy giggle over something only she and I find amusing.

Having her home for Mother’s day is a treat enabled only because of a calendar schedule change with her college. Still, it is what will make tomorrow bearable and the suffering in silence easier to hide.

My son, my sweet troubled son will not be with me tomorrow. I don’t know that he’s even aware of the day though I’m sure the community around him will make him so.

Yesterday, I signed him into the custody of an adolescent rehab facility for substance abuse- the second time in almost exactly a year.

His hollow eyes followed my car as I drove away- I did not look back and I only cried for about 10 minutes. I used to cry the whole hour long trip home. I guess I’m getting better at this.

Tomorrow I will ache for my youngest child who is battling a fight I’m powerless to help him with. He has to make the choices on his own and has to continue the battle every day for the rest of his life. A mother’s worst nightmare is watching her child slowly die of his own accord. A mother’s day wish is that he see a life ahead worth living.

I will always be proud of the young man I call my son. He has accomplished much in his short time here and the courage he shows in seeking treatment is one of my happier truths. I will always be proud of my daughter for allowing me to focus on his needs for the last two years while she has been left to handle her own as much as possible. She has flourished and surprised herself with her capabilities and in doing so she finds herself moving forward- away from the mommy nest.

I love being a mother more than anything on earth. Is there unbearable pain in this love? Yes, There are times I feel I cannot breathe with the weight of my worries for the two I love more than my own self. Yes, there is pain.

There is also the belief of unbearable joy. That hope and faith is what keeps me moving forward until it’s time to contemplate the next year’s occasion.

I love being a mother.

I can feel myself isolating because i don’t want to share this anger. Anger at everyone, misguided or not I don’t care. Anger at my kid, myself and the god that put the two of us together. I can’t reconcile the life I’m living with the actions I’ve taken over the years in the name of good, and faith and paying it forward. Why would the universe keep cramming this lesson down my throat?

After close to 11 months of clean sobriety he has fallen in the hardest of manner. Drugs of choice are those that are most addictive in their makeup and clinical bystanders are extremely worried for his safety. I have nightmares of finding him cold and beyond my reach. In many of my dreams I’m slowly drowning in water that rises and tickles my ears as my breathing stops. I think it is my tears.

I wonder whether my animals would be thrown out of routine if there were a quiet transition into sleep rather than anguished cries I only let erupt at night. Would they stare at me expectantly waiting? Waiting for the sounds of human grief and politely looking away until I pull my shit together and out of sheer exhaustion close my burning eyes and count backwards to beckon the still relief of sleep.

Just one night I want to end my day feeling hope rather than despair-no shame, guilt or dread for tomorrow.