I cannot say, as I have heard other parents say, “My child has always been a joy and pleasure; never gave me a minute's trouble.” I cannot say that.

I had a son who was always trouble. He was born cross and irritable; a real trial from the word ‘go’. He seemed to be in protest at having been born, from his very first breath and outcry, through the rest of his life. His 37 years of life were one long outcry of protest, misery and unhappiness. He expressed his tormented spirit through music, poetry and a beautiful American Indian spirituality. But in spite of the pain that was in his heart, he had a wide smile and a hearty, big laugh for everyone, that belied the torment that raged inside him. He had a strange, mysterious wild charm, to which all who met him fell victim. He seemed to be born in the wrong time, the wrong culture, with a crippled spirit, and a body that carried a fatal flaw; the fatal flow of addiction. He put himself and his family through the agony of the damned.

Step by step, he destroyed himself, as we watched with grieving hearts. He rejected every effort to save him. Then came that fateful week. Some mystery reached out to him. His body, his spirit defied every weapon at science's disposal to diagnose and save him and one by one his vital functions failed — and he was GONE.

The word ‘forever’ suddenly had a new and terrible meaning. So, he was hard to love. But, WE LOVED HIM EVERY STEP OF THE WAY. We had him because we wanted him and we loved him every minute of his life. Our grief has been no less because he was not a perfect child. It has just been an extension of the grief we lived with all those years, as we watched him destroy himself; an extension of the agony that we were helpless against, the ‘MONSTER’ called addiction that destroyed him.

Yesterday was his birthday. I longed for the sight and sound of him and the wild, melancholy charm that vanished a year and a half ago. My heart stays full of tears; they are always just beneath the surface. I struggle daily to keep them out of sight of my fellow man, who does not want to share my pain.

So, I come home and sit on my porch in the dark; listen to the rain or the night sounds; stare into space. And I cry — and I cry —and I cry for my CHILD WHO WASN'T PERFECT!

~ Jane Miller TCF/Atlanta. GA