Mommy Dearest

Over the years, my Mother and I have had, at best, a somewhat strained relationship, although for the past few years, we somehow were both able to put this to rest and have enjoyed what has very much felt like a normal and healthy one. To say this has been like a breath of fresh air does not even begin to do it any sort of justice. As this was something I had dreamt my entire adult life of having, I was careful to ensure I did nothing to jeopardize it, although I wouldn’t have just accepted it without question had I felt that there might be possible negative consequences. In fact, in order to reach the previously unattainable, I had had to completely severe absolutely all ties with my Mom for near two years. Drastic action begets dramatic results it would seem.

Growing up, there was just Dad, Mom, my slightly younger brother and myself. When I was five, my parents decided it was time to leave the land of our birth, Ireland, to try our luck in another country halfway around the world, Canada. While I have some very vivid memories of this time, I certainly was far too young to fully comprehend the drastic, not to mention dramatic, changes occurring within our little family. Immigrating to a new country is daunting enough when one is young, single with their whole life ahead of them, I can’t even begin to imagine the stress involved for a couple just a few years away from forty with two small children in tow! Not only this, but they had to do it completely on their own as no one else from either one of their families had done this, nor would anyone ever do it.

What this meant was that neither my brother or myself had the luxury of being part of an extended family while we grew up. Although we had a total of nineteen cousins, we rarely ever saw any of them as an ocean separated us and still does. While we were fortunate enough to spend many a summer vacation visiting and getting to know them all, it was never quite the same as if we had been able to share our daily life on a regular basis with them. On occasion, I sometimes found myself filled with envy if one of my friends had the opportunity of being able to get particularly close to one of their cousins simply because they could – location…location…location.

Yet, in reality, as I grew up, this was really nothing more than a minor handicap because all in all, I was darn fortunate enough to have a pretty idyllic childhood. My folks were amazing enough and neither myself nor my brother were ever victims of any sort of abusive treatment. We were treated more than fairly, and certainly didn’t lack for much of anything growing up. I seemed to naturally gravitate towards my Dad, while my brother seemed to be my Mom’s favorite. I most definitely was my Daddy’s Little Girl, and I surely managed to stay this way until he passed away in 2003. We shared similar interests and I always found it much easier to confide in him than I had ever found in my Mother.

While she doted on my brother who could do no wrong in her eyes, I struggled to simply get along with her at times. She could be overly harsh and critical of me if allowed, but as long as my Father was alive, it rarely happened. From time to time over the years, I’d find myself worrying what would end up happening to our relationship once my Father was no longer around to temper our behavior and treatment of the other.

Then in 2002, my father was diagnosed with cancer. After his first month of radiation and chemo, he found himself getting weaker and felt that he could no longer drive himself safely back and forth to the hospital. As my Mother had never learned to drive, he asked me if I would drive him back and forth to his hospital appointments. Of course I agreed without hesitation but this also meant that I would be responsible with having to take him five days a week, every week for approx five to six months.

Although this obviously greatly impacted my life as well as my own immediate family’s, I didn’t mind doing it in the least and would gladly have done it again without hesitation. As some days I was required at the hospital for near eight hours, plus had to be there Monday through Friday, I quickly found it was impossible for me to continue to work full time while I did this. Luckily, I had an amazingly empathetic boss and was able to take a six month leave of absence without pay remarkably easily. Tragically, she found herself in a near identical situation with her own father a mere two months after me so…

I began driving my Father on a regular basis about the second week of July and continued to do this every day until just before Christmas of the same year.  My father managed to finish all of his radiation and chemo treatments a scant six days before Christmas Eve. Christmas that year was nice, although we already knew that my father had ended up not responding well to either one of his treatments and wasn’t going to be really getting any better.

This was confirmed before the third week of January had even started. In the interim from Christmas til this time, I had returned to work and was trying my best to settle back into some sort of routine. I was barely back at work, when my father was admitted to the hospital for what ultimately turned out to be the rest of his life. From the moment he went in, I made sure that I visited each and every day though it became increasingly harder to see him suffering so much as it got closer and closer to the end.

For the first time since I had been told that he had cancer back the previous June, I started to really feel stressed and overwhelmed. I often found it quite challenging trying to juggle a successful return to work while meeting my own immediate family’s needs – Sara was only twelve when all of this started and had yet to lose anyone close to her from death so…

At the same time, I found I was at the beck and call of my mother without the benefit of any safety net. As I knew that this was incredibly hard on her, I tried not to take some of her many and frequent outbursts personally . I got it. She felt powerless to help her life partner, a man that had looked after her now since 1956 and visa versa. All faults aside, they really were a truly magnificent couple who loved each other deeply until the very end.

OK, this entry now seems to have taken on a life of its own, so in the interest of looking towards a bit of a conclusion on the way to wrapping this all up, I’m not going to bore you with all of the specifics of what ultimately caused my Mother and I to have this serious falling out. Instead, the following anecdote should illustrate quite nicely what I was more of less up against.

By the time my father finally passed away the second week of March, I was pretty much overwhelmed with so many different emotions, never mind feeling so very, very tired. Through the last week of his life, I had spent every night at the hospital sleeping beside my father in a bed that his nurses had put together for me. The following day the only thing that I wanted to be excused from was having to take my mother to the funeral home to finalize our earlier arrangements. I was so very shattered that I just didn’t have it in me to do this. As Jim and I had taken Mom there prior to Dad’s passing, I figured now that it could be my brother’s turn, especially as he had only visited him twice the whole time he was in hospital.

At the time, I really didn’t give this request much thought at all, but it soon became quite apparent that perhaps I should have. My Mom was a little bit demanding of my time the first few months after Dad died. After working hard all week, I rarely had a chance to slow down once the weekend arrived as I was required to chauffeur my Mom around so she could get whatever errands she needed to get done. It seemed as if every place that I happened to take my mother, whenever she was offered condolences, she just had to stop so she could also share a particular story with everyone.

All puffed up and proud, she told everyone who would listen what an absolute rock my brother had been to her, and how she wouldn’t have known what to do had he not been there to look after everything the day after my Father’s passing. Canonization for sainthood must surely be around the next corner. Not one mention of what I had done for five months, nor even the last three months that he spent in the hospital. Nothing at all, nary a word, and, to make matters worse, she did all of this right in front of me, and not just on one occasion, but multiple times. I started cracking up in short order let me tell you.

This was barely the tip of the iceberg and now that my Father was no longer around to temper my Mother’s actions and treatment of me, I found our situation intolerable not to mention untenable. The longer it continued, the more I felt poisoned and shattered, and increasingly more and more depressed. Ultimately, for my own self preservation, I ended up having to sever all ties with my Mother. It turned out to be easier than I had ever imagined, and in the end I managed to avoid my mother and her abuse for nearly eighteen months.

P.S. TO BE CONTINUED

Live Fast, Die Pretty

Another young sole lost forever, gone too soon due to a drug overdose. The newest victim in the city where I live was a teenage male barely sixteen years young. Although, the official autopsy report has not yet been completed, the local media is reporting that his death was caused by snorting powdered methadone. So say many of the deceased’s family and friends, including his mother and her boyfriend and many who attended the same party as the teen. Obviously, I feel for his loved ones loss. A tragedy of epic poportions that should never, ever have even happened, but it did…nothing can change this fact.

My daughter and I ended up getting into a bit of a fight over the whole ordeal too. She was too emotional that she wasn’t quite prepared to actually listen to what I was trying to say. I told her that while I empathized – one of her best friends was close to the family and had to attend the funeral – I also said that good kids do not do some of the things that he had done, and good kids don’t end up overdosing. When she heard this, she lost all sense of reason and nothing after that could even begin to help my position. Whatever…Unfortunately, no matter how hard it may be to hear this, it is true, very true.

Good kids do not get suspended three times while in Grade Eight nor do they get expelled from their first year of high school, expecially if they’re attending the most liberal and lenient school in the district – believe me, same school my girls attended and the school and I butted heads numerous times over their laissez faire attitude towards their students and their behaviour. Good kids do not go to parties prepared to snort up whatever pile happens to be put in front of them. Good kids…I could go on but I’d like to think that my point has been made and understood.

I think as parents we want to believe that our children are good kids and because of this, end up excusing behaviour we probably shouldn’t. It’s a terrible way to learn a lesson, but maybe we can all take something away from this tragedy and turn it around. Maybe we need to police our teenagers much more strictly than we do currently. Maybe they’ll hate us for this but maybe they’ll thank us for saving their lives.

Teenager’s Death Sounds Alarms

In most ways, he was just a normal teenager. He got into a bit of trouble, but he was smart and loved, say the friends and family of **** ********, 16.

He called himself “Lightning,” after the Disney Cars character Lightning McQueen, and his sense of humour never failed to light up the room.

Now ********’s light is extinguished, and his friend lucky to be alive, apparently after an experiment with a drug that has appeared suddenly on London streets, a drug far more lethal than many think.

Friends and family say ******** snorted a lethal line of methadone, and drug outreach workers have confirmed a supply of the dangerous powder has hit the streets.

“It is exceedingly lethal if you don’t know what you are doing,” said Henry Eastabrook, an outreach worker with the London InterCommunity Health Centre. “Word is, powdered methadone is on the street right now.”

Perhaps because it is used by heroin and OxyContin addicts to kick their habits, methadone is seen as less dangerous than other drugs.

“I wouldn’t think the average teenager is aware of how dangerous it is,” said Dr. John Craven of Clinic 528, which uses methadone to help opioid addicts.

“Methadone is extremely dangerous, especially if you have never taken it before. It is far more dangerous than OxyContin.”

******** died at a party he attended July 12.

According to several of his friends, one boy brought the lethal drug in a powdered form to the party. ******** and another boy snorted more than the others. All the kids started to feel sick and fell asleep – some of the symptoms of methadone overdose. When the other boys woke up, ******** was dead. The other boy who had snorted more than the rest was unconscious.

That boy ended up in hospital, on life support, but has since been discharged.

It’s not clear if the boys knew exactly what they were snorting, and that kind of experimental approach by London’s youth is alarming police and addiction workers.

“It used to be pot, magic mushrooms and acid,” said Const. Carl Noel, a secondary school resource officer. “Now, there seems to be a popularity of illegal prescription medication, like OxyContin or Percocets. I don’t think they understand the severity of taking those drugs. I think the stuff is available, someone says it’s awesome and they try it.”

Methadone had no business being in the hands of a 16-year-old boy in the first place, said ********’s grieving mother, ******** ********.

“How did kids get powdered methadone? Something needs to be done to stop this stuff from getting into the hands of kids,” she said, tears streaming down her face as she spoke in her south London home this week.

“Kids experiment. But this methadone is very lethal, and 16-year-old kids don’t know that.”

Asked about an investigation into ********’s death, London police said the matter is in the hands of the coroner’s office. Regional coroner Dr. Rick Mann would not comment.

Family members said Mann told them the cause of death won’t be known for sure until toxicology tests are complete in several weeks.

But the family is convinced ******** snorted methadone and believe a crime has been committed.

“Someone got their hands on someone else’s prescription and it leaked out and now my son is dead,” ******** said.

Powdered methadone is so tightly controlled, pharmacists wondered aloud how it could have reached the streets.

“It comes hand-delivered to us,” said one pharmacist.

Every bit must be accounted for, she said, adding there have been no thefts from her pharmacy.

“It is a very controlled drug,” said London pharmacist Suresh Kommineni, adding there have been no thefts from his pharmacy.

Methadone is prescribed for pain relief or to help people get off other drugs.

It is dispensed in two forms – tablets provided by drug companies, which can be taken home, and the powder, which pharmacists mix into a liquid.

Methadone clinics provide the liquid form. Most people drink on site, but some are allowed to take the liquid home.

Some people sell the liquid for other drugs. But the liquid can’t be boiled into powder and the tablets aren’t much good ground down either, said pharmacists and addiction workers.

“If someone has methadone powder, it is either stolen or diverted from a doctor’s office or pharmacy,” Craven said.

Any form is dangerous, he hastened to add.

********’s boyfriend **** ******** said methadone users must be aware that the drug that helps them can kill another.

“To leave this around, you might as well have a loaded handgun on the table,” said ********.

Many of ********’s family and friends used Facebook to discuss the need to educate others about the dangers of methadone.

“This is also for the kids that never got the privilege to know ****, to look up the dangers of methadone, and what it can do to you,” said Londoner Steph Lefave in an e-mail interview.

“Spread the word. Everyone has their own **** ********. We lost ours. Hold onto yours. Protect yours.”

Intelligent, Funny Teen Will Be Missed

The next time you see a bolt of lightning, remember **** *******. That’s what many across the city – and particularly in Old South – will do as they cling to memories of the 16-year-old boy who sometimes jokingly called himself Lightning ******** and who died suddenly last week after a night of partying.

The teen’s parents wait for police or a coroner to confirm what they know – that their son died after snorting a powdered, prescription drug, methadone.

In the days after his drug overdose, nearly 1,000 people joined a Facebook page set up in ****’s memory, filling it with memories and general warnings against snorting methadone.

He didn’t know it was methadone, said several friends. Someone brought it to the party. He thought it was crystal meth, say some. He thought it was Percocet, say others.

It doesn’t matter, they insist. All that matters is **** is gone.

On the page, one friend recalled ****’s devastation on seeing a dog hit by a passing car, and recalled him sitting with the dog until its owner came looking for it.

Others wondered if he was responsible for the bolts of lightning seen over London since his death.

“He loved lightning,” said his mom, Colleen Morton. “Called himself Lightning ********. He loved purple, he loved camping, smores. He was a clean freak.”

Clinging to whatever she can remember, Morton said she still has an old Mother’s Day card he gave her as a boy. It was filled with promises, and all of them involved cleaning.

“I don’t remember him crying, ever,” she said. “Does that make me a bad mom? I don’t know, I guess it does.”

She hasn’t stopped crying during a two hour interview.

**** was smart. In and out of trouble since he was young, he won the Grade 8 math award at Princess Elizabeth public school, despite three suspensions that year.

He went to South secondary school for Grade 9, but ended up suspended and at the school board’s U-Turn alternative education program before starting fresh at H.B. Beal last year. Within a few weeks, despite absences, he was excelling in academic math, she said.

“He could have been anything. A doctor, a lawyer, an astronaut. … He could have invented things. I don’t know, maybe this was his purpose in life,” said Morton.

**** was closest with his dad, **** ********. The elder ******** told The Free Press he wanted to talk about his son, but wasn’t ready yet.

“His dad’s not doing so well whatsoever,” said his on-and-off girlfriend of four years, **** ****.

**** still had ****’s skateboard this week. He rode it over to her house the last time they hung out.

“He was good at skateboarding. He was really gifted at a lot of things,” she said. “Literally, he was the strongest, most positive person I knew and he did get suspended and stuff, but really he was polite and very respectful and he was just an amazing guy.

“Everybody loved him,” she said, laughing for an instant as she recalled their first meeting. They were with a group of friends, going to watch Shrek 2 at the theatre.

“Right away, he started telling jokes. That’s who he was,” she said. “He’d tell you a joke, or do anything to make you smile in some way, and then you would just love him.”

There is a lot of pain and guilt among those who love ****. Many contacted through Facebook wouldn’t comment, afraid whoever brought the methadone to the party is racked with guilt.

Nobody wants to blame anybody for ****’s death. Boys said to be his closest friends didn’t want to talk, but others did.

“Man that kid could make me laugh,” said Steph Lefave, 22, in a Facebook conversation. “Although I did not have the privilege of knowing **** as long as I would have liked, I will tell you … he did not judge. He did not boast, he didn’t hold grudges.”

His mom is gutted by regret.

“I regret letting him go to his friends so much on the weekends, thinking I had the rest of his life.

“I never pushed those issues. I wanted to let him be a teenager. Maybe if I had put a tighter chain on him.”

She clings to the memory of their final conversation.

“He always said ‘I love you’ and I know my last words to him were ‘I love you,’ and his were ‘I love you, mom.’ ”

The family is planning a public memorial party for **** next Wednesday night at Rouge nightclub.

Funeral March

Well, the funeral turned out to be absolutely beautiful and something Daniel would have been pleased with, if this were at all even possible. Standing room only, too. It was still somewhat weird having to return to the town of our youth especially under these circumstances.

The actual service ended up lasting just over an hour. Both of his sisters got up to speak – he was the middle child – as well as his best friend from high school and also one of his nieces – in total he was uncle to five nieces and one nephew. The minister’s sermon was very fitting as she took time to address Daniel’s two decade battle with mental illness and depression, as well as talking about how he ultimately died. In fact, no one that got up to speak shied away from these normally uncomfortable subjects. To be sure, his parents opened this door originally when they stated in the newspaper’s announcement’s section how their son actually died. This was certainly a most unusual, not to mention brave move on their part. I can’t remember ever seeing something like this mentioned in any other announcement of death in a paper’s personnel’s section.

I certainly can understand their reasons behind doing this. Anyone attending his funeral would have already been familiar with the fact he was bi-polar and had been for decades. This eliminated having to respond to dozens and dozens of people asking how he died. I can just imagine how both of his parents would have dreaded this part of the whole service, but because of the type of people that they are, they would have answered each and every question without hesitation.

Jim and Daniel started high school twenty nine years ago, and except for a few of their class mates that just simply could not make it to the funeral, almost their entire class managed to show up. This fact alone speaks volumes and then some…Its unfortunate that Daniel never was able to recognize this fact. For most of his life, he felt irrelevant, or that he just simply couldn’t measure up to the rest of us. If only he could have taken a step back and actually seen what it was we all saw and recognized in him.

He was a brilliant writer and artist, as well as an excellent student and athlete. Everything came naturally for him though he may not have quite seen it that way. He was one of the best looking guys in high school who could have had any girl that he wanted, but ended up spending his years there single. He was accepted into all of the universities he applied for, and even managed to excel while studying away in a foreign city away from his friends and family.

It was during his final year at university that he was diagnosed with  manic depression – my understanding is that this is now called bi-polar – and even with this, he still managed to graduate. For about half a decade after this, he ended up in and out of institutions, so that by the time he was in his thirties, he felt as if he had really been left behind, and never recovered from this setback.

It really is all very, very tragic. His sisters read some of his most recent writings and while they were all exceptional, they certainly spoke to his current state of  mind. He was filled with far too much  pain it would seem, and nothing on this world seemed to offer him the relief he so obviously sought.

Peace, love and  happiness…

Suffer Well

Jim and I have to go to a funeral in the morning. I’ve only been to three other funerals in my entire life, which is a good thing I suppose. One of our friends from high school committed suicide four days ago. He had been suffering from depression for decades now, and I guess his wife of nine years leaving him recently was just too much for him. He had moved back in with his parents so it was his mother that found him. Even though at one point in our lives, we had all been close, we hadn’t really seen him in the past decade. Out of respect for his parents, though, we are going. Jim’s folks and his still live in the same small town we all grew up in, and they both attend the same church each and every Sunday. I hope that is suffering is over and that he has finally managed to find some peace.