I witnessed one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever seen in my life this past week and something I hope never to see again? a 6-year-old child standing next to a casket holding her mother, gazing at the woman who brought her into the world, but won’t see her grow up.
She looked so small standing there, in a pretty blue dress and white shoes, a single braid down her back, a princess crown atop her head, her story anything but a fairy tale. In a room full of people, she seemed so alone, facing a future without a mother the day after Mother’s Day. As my friend that I came in support of said, ‘There’s nothing sadder than a motherless child.?
Here was a child I don’t know, mourning a woman that I didn’t know and never will, but what I do know is that all children need a mother to love and guide them and this child has been cheated of that? not by a tragic car accident, not by cancer, not by anything that could remotely be called ‘natural causes.?
No, that little girl, as well as her 12-year-old brother, will wake up without their mother today and everyday for the rest of their lives, because of heroin.
Over the past few years I’ve seen far too many police reports regarding overdoses of this insidious, awful drug. Last year, I wrote in depth about Gwyn Brady, a 40-year-old woman who had fought drug addiction most of her life and was staying at Grace Center of Hope in Pontiac, working on staying clean. In the past two weeks, I’ve written two stories regarding three overdoses, all individuals whose lives were saved by emergency responders who administered Narcan. These addicts are getting a second chance at life, but the reality is that the odds are stacked against all of them. The firefighter/medics I talk to have responded to overdoses on some of the same people multiple times. Police officers tell me the heroin addicts they have seen end up in jail or dead.
And in their turbulent wake, they leave other lives broken and children’s innocence shattered.
Narcan spared the life of a Brandon Township woman last month, but will it save her 5-month-old child’s future, or will that baby one day be in a funeral home like a kindergartener was this week, watching a video loop of photos with mom on a television screen, moments forever frozen in time, with no new memories to be made?
The line of attack in the battle against heroin must begin long before Narcan. The only way society overcomes the devastating effects of heroin, halts the cycle and protects the innocence of children is to prevent that first use of the drug. You can’t become addicted to that which you never try.
So what can we do? We can keep talking about it, about the devastation heroin wreaks on lives and we can look and listen to the causes of pain people have, what they are trying to numb. We can be more aware of those who may need help, guidance, a listening ear, a friend. Heroin is not a distant threat, happening somewhere else, to someone else, devastating only the lives of those who seem bent on self-destruction.
Please start early and talk to your own children, repeatedly, about the dangers of drug use. Be a listening ear for someone else’s child and look for ways to support them in positive endeavors. Today, there are children grieving the loss of a parent to something they don’t understand. We mourn their loss of innocence and a care-free childhood. We must work to preserve their chance at a better future.