Twelve years ago, my friend, Mandy, asked me if I could recommend a therapist that might work with her. I was happy to introduce her to my therapist, Ann, who was helping me work through childhood trauma, and also giving me the tools to navigate a life that got turned upside-down. At that time, all I could carve out of my rushed existence for therapy was once every three to four weeks. Life moved fast, and I had to keep up, or so I thought.
Mandy made an appointment with my therapist for the following week. A few weeks went by when I decided to check in with my friend to see how it went. “Did you like Ann? Isn’t she great? She helps me so much.”
A few weeks later I sat in Ann’s home office and rambled on for a full hour about my 16-year-old son Christopher, who was a high school junior. Some seniors were giving him trouble in the hallway at school. Christopher, not one to step back from a problem, had words with them for several weeks. I thought it was boy banter, but I clearly missed that mark. One of the seniors called him out after school at a most inconvenient time for my son. Baseball practice for his school varsity team was that same day. He was not planning on going to the fight, as to him baseball was the essence of all life in the universe. But his friends urged him saying if he didn’t at least show up it would be social suicide. So, he went thinking it would be a little scuffle and at the most he’d be a few minutes late for baseball. He was told to go to the train station after school, which was a mere few hundred feet down the hill from his school. He did not expect what he walked into. About one hundred cars were there waiting. Pretty girls on the hoods of cars, phones out filming.
My son was attacked from behind with no warning by two seniors with steel toe boots. They kicked his face like a soccer ball and left him there bleeding on the ground, until a friend loaded him into his car and dropped him off at our doorstep. My husband, Christopher’s stepfather seeing the severity of his injuries, immediately took him to the hospital.
I got the call at work that Christopher was at the hospital, and I should go right away. I walked into the ER, to an unrecognizable son. His right orbital cavity was crushed as well as other structures holding up his young, beautiful face.
After two surgeries, nine titanium plates inserted into his face, he was sent home with a refillable bottle of ninety Percocet. I found a neuropsychologist that did extensive testing to help us to figure out what should happen next. He had sustained a brain injury and trauma that left us wondering what school he should go to the following year. My therapist, Ann was a godsend at that time, helping me to process all that was happening with Chrisotpher and also my 23-year-old daughter’s substance abuse disorder.
Ann looked at her watch, signaling the end of our session. I stood up, handed her a check from my purse, and scheduled an appointment in four weeks. I stepped out of her door, but then quickly stepped back in, casually looking over my shoulder. “Oh, Ann, by the way, Mandy said you had a death in the family.” (I’m thinking a great aunt or something like that.) “I’m sorry to hear. Who was it?”
“My son.”
“What?”
“It was an accidental overdose.”
Stunned and ashamed, I stood frozen in the doorway. I had spent an hour discussing my alive son, while she was mourning the death of her 28-year-old son.”
“I don’t, I can’t believe what you are saying. I am so sorry. Ann, I can’t believe you are seeing clients.”
She told me something that stuck with me.
“I have decided to do what I want when I want. That’s all I can do. If I feel like sleeping, I sleep. If I feel like walking in nature, I do that. I clean the house, and I write when I want. And I want to work with you. I am only seeing two clients right now and you are one of them.”
Today is February 19, 2024. Exactly two months ago, December 19, 2023, my son Christopher died alone in his truck from a fentanyl overdose. Anns words have stayed with me all these years. I write these words now, because it is what I feel like doing. I bought a new violin, because I feel like playing. I practice yoga when I want, and I sit in my chair and do nothing for hours. Sometimes I bake a cake and decorate it. Today, I completed the New York Times crossword puzzle without cheating. I think I will go and eat a piece of cake after these words are down.
I do what I want within the limitations of my budget and circumstances, and always had that ability. I permit myself not to speak with people who treat me poorly, or just don’t feel good to be around. I owe nothing to nobody.
There will be circumstance/people/ things that want more from me. I can decide what and how much I give attention to. The loss of my son has devastated every bit of me. To wake up is exhausting. I don’t have energy to care about what I think I should be doing. I cut right to the good part, whatever that might be in that moment.
I waited for a true horror to unfold in my life, to give myself permission to just be however I want to be. I didn’t have to earn it that way. I didn’t have to earn it at all. I was born. That is enough.
I wish Christopher could see me sitting in a chair doing nothing. He would be proud. He always said I was too intense and worked more than I should. Now, and for however many years I have left, I might spend a lot more time in that chair. But I might also work around the clock or perhaps run a marathon. I might try deep sea fishing or ski the big hill when I go to the mountains. After all of that I can go back and sit in my chair for hours, stare at the wall and do nothing, but only if I feel like it.
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