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I received the group text message from my niece around 9:30 Tuesday morning.
…”Jacob died in his sleep Sunday night,
apparently drug related though we
don’t know the exact cause of death yet.”
Immediately after reading the first lines my heart moved up into my throat and I saw in my mind’s eye an image of the author of the text, my beautiful niece Heather. A few seconds later, I thought of the thousands of families who have gotten such news in their inboxes in the last few years.
To escape to the awareness of others in the same situation reduced my sense of
isolation. No need to ask “why our family?” but it increased my sense of horror and overpowering helplessness. In 2017 there were 70,237 drug overdose deaths in the US and 5455 of them were young people ages 15 to 24. The Opioid Crisis has been well publicized but though the numbers have dropped a bit, it’s not nearly over, as the politicians would have us believe. I learned later in a phone conversation with my niece that a friend of her son died of an overdose a few days before he did. http://teens.drugabuse.gov/drug-facts/drug-overdoses-youth
“I will let you know of
any services planned…”
As I moved back to the particulars of this situation I thought of how my brother’s daughter Heather and I have always had a special bond. When Heather was a 30’s something not yet married schoolteacher she traveled long distances to be with me after my son Kenneth died of AIDS at age 31. At his service she joined my daughter Corinne, who, being 7 months pregnant, felt the need of vocal support, and the two sang a beautiful duet of Amazing Grace. She helped clean out Ken’s storage bin and took home to decorate her classrooms the collection of paraphernalia he had used to celebrate each and every holiday on anyone’s annual calendar.
Fifteen years ago, Heather traveled a thousand or so miles again to help me celebrate the life of my daughter, (her cousin) Corinne, after she died of breast cancer at 42 ½ years old. By this time Heather had married and was a young mother. The young child she brought with her that everyone made such a fuss over was Jacob, her now deceased 18 year-old son.
“there is lots of support here
but sad days are ahead.”
These past few years Heather has been a single mother of two teenage sons and I remembered, when I saw her at a funeral in Texas the spring before last, how we’d spoken of what a daunting task this can be. Raising children to adulthood has always been fraught with difficulties, but in today’s culture, parents and grandparents seem caught in a tsunami of bad juju we seem unable to protect our offspring from. I was happy to hear from my sister that lots of people showed up on Heather’s lawn the day after this happened and that the community is rallying around her and the other family that has experienced a similar loss. As our young people are being lost in the dawn of their independent lives, we are all aggrieved and bereft.
My answer –
Aunt Sheila here –
Oh! Dear One!
As someone who has felt
the sad days ahead that you
are referring to –I wrap you
round with infinite love and
wisdom. Call when you get a
minute to talk.
Sheila
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