“When I got the autopsy report, it read: no evidence she had a child. That was hard. When people tell me she loved me, she just didn’t know how to show it, I think back. ’There was no evidence at the scene that suggested she had children.’”
‘I was called into the office. My mom was there, waiting to pick me up. ‘We are leaving your dad,’ she said as we walked to the car. I loved him so much, and I was heartbroken.’
‘I bumped into an old childhood friend. ‘What have you been up to?’ ‘I’m in rehab.’ I laughed, thinking it was a joke. Soon after, I asked him to meet me. I warned him about my appearance.’
“‘I don’t look the same as when you last saw me. I’m not doing too well,’ I said. My face was a mess. I had cuts and blood in my nostrils. In that coffee shop, I sat across from him crying. I was scared of telling anyone.”
‘If my mom wouldn’t have called the cops on my brother, I would have, without thinking twice. He is on a $10,000 unsecured bond. The person pressing charges—our mom.’
“He made the decision to uproot his life and move 1,200 miles to become our full-time ‘manny.’ Sadly, today, I wouldn’t DARE leave her in his care.”
‘I lied to my husband for the last time. He found out I’d been using drugs again, took the kids and left. I was devastated. I begged him to come back, but he was done.’
“I had a miscarriage. Thus began my spiral downward. I was chasing the numbness. I would hide packets of pills around the house anywhere I could, on shelves behind clothes, in boxes, drawers, cupboards, even in my kids’ rooms – anywhere.”
‘I didn’t know who the father was. I continued to use drugs, until I received life-changing news. I was not expecting one baby, or two, but I was pregnant with TRIPLETS.’
“I began prostituting, and living out of hotels. When my daughter was 1-year-old, I left my 5th rehab facility and began getting sick. I assumed this was related to my hepatitis C. It wasn’t.”
‘My half-brother became an orphan at 2 years old, and was finally adopted after 458 days, by me – his sister.’
“Easton attended the second most monumental funeral of his life before he could even talk in full sentences. He became an orphan, unexpectedly, in only 12 days. He’s now a brother to 4 sisters whom he is biologically the uncle of!”
‘I knew my brother had died before I even picked up the phone’: Sister resented her mom’s grief for brother who overdosed until she had a son of her own
“My mom valued my brother’s death more than me, and I was still here.”
‘My dear friend had suffered the devastating loss of her adult son to drug addiction.’
“My friend texted to ask if she could come visit. I was at my worst. My most vulnerable.”
‘I looked at my little brother, knowing he was gone.’: Man’s letter to friends, dealers of brother who lost his life to drug abuse
“How badly I want you to use his life to turn yours around.”
‘I feel so free’: Man loses jaw-dropping 234 pounds while overcoming opioid and food addiction, depression, anxiety
“For about 5 months I did not set foot outside. I never thought I’d live to see this day.”
