Parenting

Left alone, feeling a tenuous thread stretching taut skin over adipose tissue and tender flesh—pink, vulnerable womb empty; umbilicus severed; blood dried and brown. Perspiration beads on my brow, my breasts are heavy with milk. The letdown eases the waning contractions, starts to erase my recent memory of pain.

On March 11, 2017 I lost my beloved twenty-five-year-old son to the disease of addiction. He was a beautiful, creative and compassionate person with enormous potential. Receiving the call from the police that he was dead from an overdose was a nightmare no parent should have to experience. Driving to his drug dealer’s apartment to identify his body was not close to any situation I had read about in parenting books as he was growing up.

Two maxims come to mind when I think about parenting, maybe because I was pretty lucky until the teen years. 

In the early years, I didn’t need maxims. As a single parent, I needed support and friendship, child care, a good job, health insurance, and a bit of luck–all of which we had as a family.  

As a family medicine physician, I’ve uttered some rendition of that speech numerous times during my career. Yet, when the tables are turned, those words were less than comforting.

5:30 am. Alarm goes off. Time to pump breast milk for my baby.

6:00 am. Husband feeds the baby, I wake up the three-year-old.

6:15 am. Feed the kids breakfast, pack lunches, get the kids in the minivan.