Prescription

I want to say it is a tough week but then it sounds like all the other weeks I’ve had since losing my son, Sam, at the tender age of sixteen.  Sam died overnight from a little-known synthetic drug, 25i-NBOMe, just 21 months ago.  Sam’s year-younger brother and my son, Nick, knows what tough weeks are like.  He’s witnessed firsthand.  What I wouldn’t give to take that vantage point away from him.  I know I can’t.

That doesn’t stop Nick.  When I picked him up from his ski trip last weekend and began to update him on what he had missed in the week he was away, he asked me for a piece of paper.  As the tears were streaming down my face and blurring my vision, I searched through my purse.  I searched past the black t-shirt I’m carrying that was Sam’s that I found under his bed while Nick was away.  Past Sam’s basketball picture button which is right beside the pistachio nut that I found out in the yard after Sam died.  I had bought the nuts at the store and Sam had helped carry in the groceries, grabbed the nuts and went outside to shoot hoops on what ended up being his last day on this Earth.  I remember backing out of the driveway to go buy hanging flower pots for the porch and seeing Sam throwing the nut shells in the grass and picking up the basketball and shooting.  Later, Sam carried the hanging flower pots and put them on the porch; an advantage he had at 6’2” to not need any assistance with. Next to the pistachio nut was the mother’s charm bracelet that Sam and Nick gave me; the countless pennies, dimes and quarters that I’ve found on the ground and never pass without picking up; the Sam’s Watch pen and finally, the small notebook pad for Nick.  I hand it to him.  

Nick takes the small note pad and on a blank page writes something and then hands it to me.  As he hands it to me, he says, “Here, do this.”  As I look at the opened page on the notepad that Nick has written on and handed to me I see the following:  “Not give a shit 2x/day for one month” and a messy signature of“Dr N Motsay”.  I smile in amazement at my young son and his old soul.  Then I look out the car window as Nick puts the car in drive and heads toward home.  A smirk appears on my face as I think about my young son with the old soul.  I look to the sky as I consider how I’ll follow his prescription.  Then I think to myself, “Thank you Jesus… for your sign today.”  #muchlovetosamandnick #missyousammy