Liam crawls so fast now! He pulls up to stand and today he even stood on his own for a few seconds. He is starting to learn how to cruise along. Using the couch, or the edge of the bathtub to hold him up as he figures out how to move his feet.
Seeing him sitting in the hallway at my grandma's house was fun. He was wiggling his toes and realizing that he had control of them!
We went down to CA for a few days early this week. It was fun to see my family and watch Liam interact with his Great Grandma Delight and his Great Aunt Jeannie.
We also took him to the beach for the first time. Until I saw him eat sand and sort of had the OH NO MY BABY IS GETTING DIRTY! moment. I am sure I will be more ok with dirty later on, just that first time was hard for me.
Ugh... all bent over like that I look terrible!
But moving away from that....
We also went and saw some of my old highschool friends while we were there. It was so nice to see them all.
While driving to the airport to come home I got a call from my friend... One of my friends from highschool just had his little brother die in a drug use related accident the day before we left. He was using nitrous by putting a plastic bag over his head and he asphyxiated on the bag.
This really shook me up. I am sad for my friend and his family, and sad because the last time I talked to that little brother he was maybe 11 or 12. He was all full of smiles and just wanted to be included like any little brother.
I kept seeing him pop up on the suggested friends list on Facebook but I never thought he would remember me so I never even took the time to send him a Hello and a friend request. I wish I had. Apparently, despite his drug use, he was a pretty interesting guy as an adult. He was into the rave scene and did a lot of light show dancing to go with that. Only after his death did I take the time to look through the pictures on his profile and learn a little bit about him and that makes me sad. I wish I had taken the time before, taken the time to talk to him and learn who he was as an adult.
While part of me is sad for his loss of life, sad for his family and the roommate who found him.... I find that I am also angry with him. Angry that he would do something so stupid just to get high for a little bit. Angry at him for making his family have to plan his funeral and deal with the loss of their son, the loss of their brother.
And I wonder... how will I tell my son not to do drugs? Not to even do the things that seem harmless. I don't remember getting a drug talk from my mom and dad until I had already been exposed to them. Yea, I took some risks and did some dumb things. I shudder to think about them now, how stupid I was to risk my life for a few hours of feeling good. And I am not even talking about enjoying the vicodin I had after my ankle surgery, at least those were from a pharmacy and probably would not kill me as long as I didn't overdose on them and I never lied to get them, or stole, or bought them from someone else. I took them for pain and happened to enjoy the side effects. Which just tells me that I should be careful with those pills now. That it MIGHT become easy to use them when I needed a blur between me and the world. If I know that I MIGHT do that, I can at least watch out for those thoughts in my head.
Maybe I start when he is young. Tell him how dumb people look when they do drugs. Tell him how stupid it is. Tell him that only losers do drugs. All those messages you see in highschool, but I can start when he is 3, 4, 5 years old. I can teach him from the beginning that drugs are terrible things that can make you very sick, if not outright kill you.
I knew it was dumb to do drugs, but I did them anyways. Maybe there is nothing to say anymore except to tell the kids to be careful. To do the research about drugs. Maybe we can do the research together and he can see all the scary things that drugs can do. I can show him that you use the grossest things to even MAKE drugs. And we can start before you have friends who know what Meth is, who know what Acid is. And even the so called natural ones, the plant ones... well, cocain comes from a plant too.
How do I plan for that talk that will come in the future. You know, some schools are starting drug education in lower grades. I don't think we talked about drugs in health class until highschool, and now some schools have a class for even those kids still in elementary school.
I don't want the don't do drugs subject to be a laughing matter like it is right now. (South Park having a phrase of "Drugs are bad, mm'kay?" that is a joke to people. ) I want my son to be the unique one, the child who says "no". All too often, it isn't even peer pressure, it is simple curiosity, or a desire to try something new.
A mother should never have to bury her child. My heart goes out to my friend and his family. I hope they can find some peace one day. And I hope that somehow I can raise my son to never take the risk of using drugs.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment