Chains– from Kathleen Donahue’s Facebook
“My Shoes
Don’t judge me because as far as I know I haven’t let you borrow my shoes to walk in…
My shoes have a story
Do you wish to step into them???
They hide many muddy prints
Beneath the dirt are
Blisters, broken toes
My shoes have a story
Do you wish to step into them???
They hardened from many
Beneath the steps of many are
Buried, broken hopes
My shoes have a story
Do you wish to step into them???
They hurt from walking
Beneath the hurt are stories
You may not understand
The miles and miles I have ran
See my shoes have story
Just as your shoes have story
So, do you wish to step into them???
Before judging my path I walk
Remember…
Don’t judge someone’s choices if you don’t understand their reason’s… and second never judge someone by what you hear from others”.
The shoes above are my 35 yr old son’s after he had been “gone” and spiraling in his illness for 9 months. I didn’t see him the entire time. Now, w-e are 2 years later and I haven’t seen him for 11 months. My heart aches at the travesties of this insidious disease. I understand people have free will but this particular “choice” is complicated. The more I read about Purdue and the Sackler family and also of the history of the governments’ involvement in this industry; I am saddened.
We, as a middle class, slightly poor but blessed- family will never recoup what my sons addiction has caused our family. He lost a million dollar business that he built up himself and now has nothing to his name. Each of us in the family, are out thousands of dollars at trying to sustain his life and find recovery for him. He has lost over 100 lbs & its difficult to not want to feed him every day. As it is, I might buy him a hamburger once a month when he gets desperate enough to ask. I do send him the church free lunch into for the homeless, but my son has a disease that tells him he doesn’t have a disease and that he will eat tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes though and he still has enough pride left to not think he is “homeless”. It breaks my heart and I will always have compassion for the homeless & for substance users because I have seen how quickly they can spiral and lose everything. It’s just not so simple as “get a job”.
Please can we stop arguing about choice vs disease, clean vs MAT, who’s worthy of narcan & harm reduction and just save lives where we can????
Thank you😭
“You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Matthew 7:5
