Every time

I was blessed to be with loving spirits last night at the FACE THE MUSIC fundraiser in Noblesville.  I was there amidst the soulful music and wonderful performers and appreciative audience as well as those newly formed friendships I have in the loss of my 16-year-old son Sam from a deadly synthetic drug, 25i-NBOMe, still just 21 months ago.  I knew that my love when Sam was on this Earth was expressed most immediately with my family as a mother’s love.  I now express my mother’s love for Sam most immediately to those that I have never met before and may never know in combination with those who know what loss and pain means and I remain in contact with many. 

I was to speak for only a brief time last night in between band sets with two fellow mothers championing causes for heroin recovery and the dangers of teen alcohol use.  Mothers I know so well now from the pain we have endured and continue to in order to somehow, in what ever way might be possible, make this world we live in a better place than when our son’s left it.  Still as I arrived last night and felt the comfort of those around me in common goals and heart, I quietly asked myself, “Why do this?  Why speak?”  These are the questions I ask myself moments before each chance I have to share publicly my beautiful Sammy.  And I never really know the outcome of what I might say about Sam because it is intangible. It just is.  So still the questions come.  Last night was no different.  

After I speak, what happens is honestly, what keeps me doing it again.  It doesn’t ease my pain or take it away but it does let the rest of the world know that exists.  Many of us live with pain that cannot be seen on the outside; I talk about my pain so that everyone may know. That is my life now after my son was unknowingly given a drug made by a dealer that was basically poison; it hurts.

The other thing that happens when I speak is always some sort of unknown.  This past Thursday, speaking at the Kiwanis luncheon in Bloomington, my lifelong friend Robin and I sitting at a stoplight and she glances over and sees written in graffiti on a nearby utility platform, Motz.  One of Sam’s endearing nicknames short for Motsay.  Sam’s brother, Nick’s as well since they share that last name.  Last night in leaving the reception hall something similar happened as I weaved through the tremendous number of people gathered.  There seemed to be a clear pathway amidst those standing and sitting at tables so that I could exit with ease except as I did so there in the passage way was a penny on the floor that blended in with the floor tile color.  A glimmer of it caught my eye though, so I had to stop and so I did what we do according to the rhyme, “Find a penny, pick it up…”  Until I speak again next week and far beyond… #muchlovetosam