Too many people are not far removed from knowing someone who has died from an accidental overdose. This is especially true where we live as we are only about a ½ hour away from Kensington, Philadelphia’s notorious open-air drug market. A friend of our son, who was about 30 at the time, told me that she and her friends had gone to more funerals than weddings. When I was about 30, if I heard that someone my age had died, the first thing I thought of was an accident. Now if I hear someone around 30 has died, I’m not as quick to assume it was an accident.
The first time a death from an overdose directly impacted our family was in April 2012 when two of our best friends lost their son, Dan. He was the oldest of five boys, and when one of his brothers called our son Bobby at work to let him know that Dan had passed away, Bobby said he needed to leave because his brother had died. That’s how connected he felt. He was closest to the two youngest boys, Ben and Tim, and as with Bobby, we lost both of them to addiction and mental illness.
Knowing the right thing to say or not say and knowing the best way to respond to our friends’ grief has worked in reverse. It hasn’t gotten better with time and experience; it has only gotten more challenging. I felt less able to support them in their most recent loss than I did the first. I could find some words when Dan died and was there for them when Tim died, but I was pretty useless when Ben died. When Carol, Ben’s mom, called to tell me about Ben, I screamed in her ear. Two years later, that scream is still there. Just beneath the surface.
Carol wrote the following poem in 2014, two years after Dan died. As she says so beautifully below, we can choose “peace over anxiety; acceptance rather than anger; hope over despair.” Even though our lives have been forever changed four times over, we can choose to believe that the pain we feel today is a reminder that this is not our forever home. And we can choose to rest secure knowing that Dan, Tim, Ben and Bobby are forever with the Lord.
I CHOOSE
Life was forever changed two years ago,
Early on a Saturday morning.
As I sit on the floor of this room
that was once occupied by our son,
I choose not to allow the memory
of the horrific discovery
be my only thought.
I choose to picture this room
as the place of a Holy visitation.
I choose to picture bright light
breaking through the darkness of a raging battle.
I choose to visualize the broken chains
that bound him to addiction
lying on the floor.
I choose to be proud
of the countless battles that our son won
throughout his journey.
I choose to believe
that although the enemy won the battle that day,
God was victorious.
I choose to let the cleansing tears
of a broken heart flow
because I know that Jesus wept.
I choose to lift my hands in worship to my God
and thank Him for the gift of 32 years.
I choose to believe
that although this world is far from good,
my God is good.
I choose peace over anxiety;
acceptance rather than anger;
hope over despair.
I choose to believe that the pain I feel today
is a reminder that this is not my home.
I choose to rest secure in knowing
that Dan is forever with the Lord. . .
I choose to believe
that even though I am living
In the pain of Saturday,
Sunday is coming
And it will all make sense
When I see Him Face-to-face.
—Carol Krawiec, 2014
