Nathan's friend

My son Nathan died many years ago from a heroin addiction. It was horrible. All of it was simply horrible. The estrangement before, the small inching back we had done that I thought was repairing our broken relationship, the hope I felt that he had started college and had a new girlfriend after he left rehab. All of it gone.

For a year, I was numb with guilt when I wasn't screaming with agony. That sounds over-dramatic. I assure you--it is not. It was horrible, too.

Through the years, I have learned to live with the pain and basically gotten through it. I absolutely know Nathan is in a better place. I testify of this. He has come to me and told me and it was a loving experience.

In the meantime, I have done a lot of work to learn how to love, how to stop fearing, to forgive, to embrace life. I am okay.

Today, a comment on a post that I made two years ago came up about Nathan. I'm putting it in this blog rather than paraphrasing it:

It sounds like u are so very terribly misinformed about the circumstances leading up to Nathans death. If the truth intrests u than just ask Me, his best friend and the person that last seen him alive that fateful weekend. Maybe u need some insight into why he was in so much pain and feeling abandoned by his family? Its obvious that none of u knew anything about him or what he was going thru at that time...and THAT is really why he is gone. Sad that after people are gone everyone acts as if they loved them so much but while they where alive it twas a completely diffrent story. I hope that ur god is a merciful one. It must be nice to have someone to blame for the things that hurt us the most in life and loss of life huh?

My response: Thank you for that feedback, (name of person.) I feel badly about it all. As his best friend, I'm glad you were there for him. You don't know the whole story and you don't need to. We all lost Nathan Phillip Kelly and I hope you understand that, trite though it may be, I did the best I could and it wasn't enough. I have to live with that sadness more than you ever will. But thanks for being there for him. I'd love to know the circumstances if you want to share them. I'm pretty sure I know why he was hurting. Huge dysfunctions all over the place. One thing I find interesting is that as his mother, I am totally at fault. Don't you think I would have done better if I could? You don't really know all that happened either and it's okay that you don't. But he was MY son and his loss will always be there in a way you'll never get. I can tell you're angry at me and that's fine. But I don't really know what went on for years before he died. Our conversations were horrible. He was angry and I was frankly afraid of him. I don't need to explain to you. I hope you can forgive me. There's nothing else I can do. Take care.

The thing is, in years past, I would have felt stung, blamed, hurt, attacked by this friend of my son's out-of-the-blue response. I would have wondered why I was being picked on. I would have written something at least defensive if not scathing and felt justified in doing this. I'm not there anymore. If he wants to tell me what happened to my son, I want that information! I have a feeling this friend's anger may cut short any real dialogue we can have. But I'm open to hearing about Nathan's last days.

I do find it interesting that God or my Church gets pulled into any contention directed toward me. I guess me being a Mormon is supposed to make me perfect and if I'm just human and make often horrible mistakes, it's intolerable. What if I didn't believe in God? Would that give me a pass on being the bad mother this friend thinks I am? What does God have to do with it? After all, it is Him I hung onto during those horrible days and months after I got the news.

In the end, I see the Lord's hand in all this. I got this response today instead of years ago, before I had started energy work and learned how to really manifest the life I want. Before I was able to let go of so much anger, negativity, victim think and so forth.

I also, in discovering I am an Empath and learning how to feel other's feelings but not absorb them, was able to understand this friend's loss in a soul to soul experience rather than a me versus him attitude.

Yes, God is good.