When our son, William, died in early December 2012, my good
friend, Barry Walsh, spoke at William’s memorial service. Here’s part of what he said:
“ You know those Googlemap videos when the shot starts with
the entire planet and zooms into a town, a street, a specific house? Imagine it
in reverse, with it going from William to humans in New York, to the entire
state, to the country, and then expanded to the entire globe.
“And beyond that to those in this generation, and then to
those over the past thousand years, and even on to our entire 200,000 years as
humans on the earth.
“In the big picture - the lifespan of all those humans: some
are stillborn, some live to age 5 or 24 or 75 or 113. In the big picture those
ages aren’t so different. 5, 24, 75, 113. Some burn on and on until the
lightning flash of the verb to be is extinguished after 100 or so. And some die
at the mere age of 24. Some are stable stars in the pantheon; others are
shooting stars that burn bright and flame out early.
“Burn on, William. Many will carry your torch. Many will
strive to challenge addiction in all its pathetic, sad, furious, twisted,
noble, fierce yearnings. Some good will come of this; it will be found and
seized and planted.
“Good bye as your father calls you, “beautiful boy.”
Pax William, I mean it.”
Pax William, I mean it.”
Barry
This short video, Powers
of Ten, is an example of what Barry talked about. I encountered it while taking Tina Seelig’s Crash Course in Creativity. Somehow the video and the course give
me hope about William's continuing to “burn on”.
I stumbled across your blog from the Shatterproof website. My son is now 23 and a herion addict as well. He is functioning, meaning he holds a job, but I know he is shooting up. He uses ever last dime for drugs. I find needles, etc. in his room, etc. Yes he lives with us. He has been in rehab 2 times and I left him in jail once for 4 months. He just goes back to it. He is currently also on Suboxone, which he uses during the week but he still wants to get high on the weekends and goes back to his drugs. I am scared to death. I don't know what to do. He doesn't want to change. He says he knows his "limits". If I kick him out, he will go to his grandparents and live, which happened before or find a group to shack up with and steal /shoplift, etc.
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