Day to Day happenings in my life

Stand firm

"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" 

Prompt: Firm Stance
“Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.”
Abraham Lincoln
Is standing-your-ground completely possible to achieve? What do you think being assertive means and how well can you do it?

Assertiveness is not something I’m very good at. I can always see everyone’s point of view, that’s my problem. But there have been a few occasions in my life where I’ve stood firm, no matter how much I wanted to please someone, this mattered to me.
Bear in mind I’m almost eighty and the occasions have been few, so that must tell you how strongly I felt at the time.
My beautiful son, who had never been rude or in anyway disrespectful to me his mother, started taking drugs, at first smoking marijuana, which I hadn’t known about. The first time I found out he’d stuck a needle in his arm I let him know how disappointed I was and tried to help him. But it appeared he didn’t want my help, so heart broken I told him he needed to leave home. Because we’d been so close and he knew what his actions were doing to me he left.
After a while after seeing his decline, lost jobs, stealing etc. I said I could no longer bear to see him and told him he needed to leave the State, get away from everything, his druggy mates etc. He was not to return until he’d sorted himself out.
I was made to feel by many to be the worst mother in the world. Even my tough, (on the exterior) husband couldn’t believe I was being so hard. But I knew what I was doing was right, although risky.
Our son rang me every day on his journey to the other side of Australia. He was driving his old car getting some labouring work on the way; this was before cell phones, reversing the charges.
He was often hungry and wanted to come home but I said,”no,” and sent a little money.
He went fruit picking, cleaning, labouring in fact he was so busy trying to survive he stopped taking drugs. He stayed away a long time. He began working on the Australian islands off Queensland, he taught people to water ski and surf.
Today he is 50 years old. He manages a rainforest resort and a cattle station. He has a beautiful family.
Would it have been so if I hadn’t taken a firm stance? Nobody knows do they?