Demons Have My Son

What dreams are these that torture my son at night?
Which demon haunts him?
Show yourself coward!
God’s blood wasn’t shed for you!
You are nothing.
A shadow.
A long forgotten fear.
Leave him now and run to the shadows where you belong!

It’s the drugs.  Again.

It may be the hardest thing a man must ever do.  Sending a son away.  Storming off into the late day.  So much anger. 
Where did that come from?  We have lived through so much, his mother and I.  This, though; the worst. There is no rest. 
No peace in the house. He lies; he steals (even from us).  I’d sooner have died from the cancer I have than see him destroy
himself this way.  I’d rather I live on the street than him.  I think, “Can I make a trade Lord?  His life for mine?”  And then I
wonder; do I have the courage to make such a bargain?  I really don’t want to die.  In the end, I hope I would.  The choice
was never mine in the first place though. 

I see him now, his gaunt dark and looming frame.  God! How he has grown!  His soul so restless now.  It wasn’t always this
way.  He was a soft, almost zoftig baby.  His kisses always wet and messy.  His first “big boy” shoes, his most prize possession. 
In the car, he was always rocking, bouncing off of the back of the seat.  Should I have seen his restlessness then?  As a young
boy, he was always on the go.  Should I have seen it then?  Friends invited him everywhere. He did everything.  Snowboards,
motorcycles, camping trips, weekends away; his mother and I thought he was just active.  How could we know?

I wonder, was it the cancer?  It would be nice to have a real culprit in all of this.  Something to blame.  Neat and tidy.  Like putting
your finger on a map, “it all started here!”  We came home that day, sat the boys down and told them.  “I have cancer, but we’ll get
through it.  Don’t worry.  I’m too damned tough to die!”  It turns out (so far, at least) that I am (too damned tough to die).  But, back
then I wasn’t so sure.  The boys were scared, especially our youngest.  I think it frightened him more than either of us knew.  I
blame myself.  My focus wasn’t on them.  I was so damned sick. 

It seemed like overnight.  One day he was a little boy out playing in the back yard, the next day he was stealing my oxycontin, crushing
it into a spoon and snorting it.  What the hell happened?  I blame myself for that too.  We, no… I.  I should have locked up my pain pills. 
We caught him of course.  The insurance company won’t let you have so many of those that you could lose count.  You have just enough
to get through the month.  So, when we came up short one month his mother and I put our heads together.  Must be a mistake we thought. 
Maybe we miscounted.  So, we counted.  The next day, one fewer than we knew was there the day before. 

When we confronted him, his denial was strenuous.  I nearly gave in and decided to look again.  Finally, though the truth won out.  It was him. 
Then the whole story started to come.  The nights he snuck out through the window in his bedroom.  Hitching into town at midnight. 
Going to parties.  Smoking dope.  “I just like getting high,” he said.  I was shell shocked.  Where the hell was I when all of this happened?  The
steroids the doctors had prescribed had kept me up all hours of the night and I didn’t hear him?  What am I?  Deaf?  I must have been.  It was
only then, when his mother and I thought back, that we saw what we know now to be the signs.  His anger, his grades.  He stopped playing sports. 
My God!  I’ve read all of the articles about teenaged drug abuse.  How did I miss that?  I felt as though I’d been in a coma and had just woken up.

Five years. Five years from then to now and it has only gotten worse.  Out-patient clinics, NA (Narcotics Anonymous) meetings three and four
nights a week for what seemed like an eternity.  Only later, did I find out that when I would drop him off, he would skip the meeting and hookup
with friends.  He barely graduated from high school.  We think they just passed him through to get rid of him. 

Finally, we had had enough.  One fight too many.  One lie too many.  So much stress.  He left home.  He’s been back twice, but it has never
worked.  Even still, he’s our son.  As I write this, he’s asleep on our couch because he’s been tossed out of his “room” for the night due to some
drama with someone else.  Just for the night, though.  In the morning he’ll have to get his act together and get his living arrangements figured out. 
For now, though he’s asleep.  His sleep is tortured by nightmares and shadows.  He moans and mumbles curses and moves constantly. 

No real rest. 

Demons have my son.