Wednesday's Woe - Silent Epidemic Killing our Kids ~Tommy and Angie Prince

Wednesday's Woe

Silent Epidemic Killing our Kids

~Tommy and Angie Prince

Tonight, we as a family watched the first in a series of the Henry Granju story on a local Knoxville television channel (WBIR). This thirty-minute episode is the first in a series about the silent epidemic killing our kids. Sobering. Sad. And haunting.

Katie Granju, Henry's mother, is a new "blog friend" of mine. (You may be familiar with her blog at mamapundit.com.) Katie and her family are graciously sharing their heart-wrenching story with us in an attempt to save other children who may even now be at risk to this silent but deadly epidemic.

Katie's own son Henry, bright, talented, and handsome, got caught up in a drug addiction that along with the drug world that surrounded him ultimately took his life at the tender age of 18. Robert Allison (Henry's maternal uncle) said that the hard narcotics we think of as the ones that hard-core junkies shoot up on, are now available to our kids in pill form...

Tonight's episode traced the tragedy of this bright child whose soul was captured by addiction and whose will was overcome by his craving for more. At age 14 when Henry first smoked marijuana, he said, "Oh, THIS is how I'm supposed to feel!" Scary. It's as though the drug takes the rational part of the brain and holds it hostage, meanwhile slowly destroying his body while his mind is on hold and his body is "feeling" good.

Katie and Henry Granju

The show was very well done, but it was gut-wrenching. Being that my daughter went through a similar process of losing her identity into that swirling world of junk, even if in a different form, it hit home with me...

Then a client calls me to help her walk through what she as a parent should do with her pill-addicted child...

It is all too much.

It literally terrorizes my heart. It paralyzes me. Kids self-destructing. Bright kids. Beautiful kids. Talented kids. Sensitive and Loving kids. It kills me.

Back to Henry's story. This one child had such a huge impact on everybody who was related to him. Brothers. Sisters. Cousins. Uncles. Aunts. Grandmother. Mother. Daddy. Step-mother. I was struck in the show by how many lives were emotionally undone by what Henry was into and how it was destroying him little by little, and now, are all undone by his death.

His mother knew Henry was going to have to get clean or die. Everyone was helpless. This was his only choice, and no one knew how to help him. They tried everything, but still, were helpless.

We are professionals in the field, and we didn't know how to help our own child to Stop.The.Madness.Before.It.Is.Too.Late.

And it was.

Katie and Henry Granju picture thanks to mamapundit.com

Tuesday's Trust - An Invitation to Visit the Shambles of My Life

Tuesday's Trust

An Invitation to Visit the Shambles of My Life

"How does someone dress to attend the shambles of her life?"

~Weeping

...If I were to send an invitation to visit the shambles of my life...

How many people would take me up on that?

The curiosity seekers, (or as my friend calls them, the "lookie-lous")?

The compassionate's heart is too deeply triggered to visit...

The complacent are too afraid my disaster is contagious...

Let's face it...

I am now a tragic story.

I am now the mother of a dead child.

I am now the mother of a beautiful daughter drawn into the evils of drugs.

(Were boundaries needed, or did boundaries kill?

Who knows? Who will never know till Heaven's Gate...?)

All I know is I loved her.

I did my best.

I prayed through e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. I did.

And she knew I loved her.

And she loved me.

And I prayed so hard for her soul.

And her soul remained tender to God.

And I still have no clue what can be done for one hooked by evil drugs – even ones as "tame" as marijuana...

("Tame"?! I think not! Just ask the young man who passed out on the road from the effects of marijuana and his morning prescription of antidepressants in his system, who ran off the road in such a passed-out-state, crashing into a row of hardwood trees that didn't budge even for a 2-ton SUV traveling at 60 miles per hour {his foot never hit the brake as the car was still running and the cruise-control was still on when the rescue workers arrived at the crash}, killing all 3 of his friends including my child, all of whom he had invited to go with him to the beach for his family's reunion... I'll bet he no longer thinks marijuana is a "tame" nor "safe" drug...)

Yes, I do have some peace.

I know she is in my Lord's arms.

I know she is safe. Safe from the Enemy that though he killed her, he was impotent to capture her soul...because she KNEW her Lord, and His Love conquered Satan's evil plans for her death, giving her her life back...eternal life to spend with Him and with all who love Him.

But how does her mother make plans as she enters the shambles of her life?

How does one make a living as her life becomes consumed with her child's dying?

How does one walk through a day knowing the rest of her life will be gray, robbed of the color of her child?

It Can Only Be Done In the Arms Of My Lord Who Promises To Carry Me!

And He does...or else...I couldn't make it.

Thank YOU ~ for coming to visit me and love me...in the shambles of my life!

And it really doesn't matter what you wear, for I think we will only focus on one another's hearts and souls...

Picture: Thanks to @LillyAnn

Quote: Weeping, A Fritillary Quilter Mystery, (2004), p. 36

Wednesday's Woe - Weighted Down By the If-Only's...

Wednesday's Woe

Weighted Down By the If-Only's...

or

How do you call yourself bargaining with

"If Only's," when you really

STILL don't know the SOLUTION

(that would have changed everything),

and wouldn't recognize it if it

were STARING you in the face?

On Saturday before "Father's Day," as we were facing yet another holiday without our precious Merry Katherine, when I saw the tears on the crushed face of Tommy, I found myself immediately wracking my brain,

What could I have done to stop her from her self-destructive path so her daddy wouldn't have to feel this pain?!

When I later told Tommy what my thinking had digressed to, he observed,

You think if you could find a way to fix it, IF you could have just done something differently, you think you THEN could control the outcome and wouldn't feel so helpless...

I guess this is my bargaining still going on... I was thinking,

If I somehow could have nipped her first drug-taking in the bud, or made her change her friends, maybe this wouldn't have happened...!

Get Real.

Nip the drug-taking in the bud?

I certainly hope I did not under-react; we tried to establish the importance of having very clear boundaries - Stay away from drugs!

But in looking back, do I really think I could

"Nip the drug-taking in the bud?"

Better think again, as initial over-reaction by overly-controlling behavior could possibly push a teenager right into doing something just TO rebel (e.g., just for the sake of individuation from mommy, for one!).

Make her change her friends?

At the time, I could understand her choice of friends - they certainly didn't seem to be out-and-out criminals: They were risk-takers like her; they were physically-active, vivacious, fun people!

The people I had thought were "nice" people turned out to be stuck-up twits, in love with their own self-righteousness. She could smell that pretension miles away (and if that's who they really were, I'm glad for her discernment). And now, after her dabbling into m.a.r.i.j.u.a.n.a? They would certainly think they were "better" than her...

I can just hear a little self-righteous, pompous twit, with a hidden sin like say, an addictive eating disorder (i.e., NONE of us is perfect!), justifying herself to herself:

Marijuana?! Why, that's unacceptable! But my hidden eating disorder... No one knows, so it doesn't count. I can still hang with the self-righteous. I might even have a chance of being a LEADER of the self-righteous since I don't have a shadow-side to speak of...

...justifies the addicted, eating-disordered Pharisee to herself...

If that's who they really were...unloving Pharisees (Or was this the rationalization of a child already headed toward addictive, "stinking" thinking?),

I wouldn't have wanted to be friends with them either...

So really, we couldn't win...

Real kids with real problems OR "so-called" Christians who thought they had no problems (i.e., Pharisees who'd say,"Lord, thank you that I am not like that despicable sinner over there...") —

Even Jesus was disgusted with the latter and sought out the former.

He made it clear that living by the "letter of the law" within our own power is deadly. Legalism kills... (It certainly does, spiritually-speaking, which, in my opinion, is THE most important aspect of our lives, more important to our Savior than earthly life itself...)

And yet, it was a No-Win situation.

She was repulsed by the

unloving-folks-who-"called"-themselves-Christians, but-who-detested-the-very-people-she-cared-about, her "Jesus-on-the-street."

And yet, her choice to hang out with this other kind of friend was what ultimately...killed her...

Picture - http://twitpic.com/url2z thanks to Lilly Ann