Sad ... very, very sad

finally my emotions have caught up with me. this is long. i need to write it. *sigh* i knew this was going to come, but it has taken me by surprise.

this is going to be very long, i have a lot to write about, a lot of emotions to figure out.

i'm exhausted.

robby, amy, and i drove about 2 hours to another town to pick up some of robby's possessions. it was a great trip. we met with my dung friend (accountability/prayer partner and best friend) for lunch half way and had a great time. she has lived this whole ordeal with me step by painful step and has prayed for him probably more than anyone. although she has never been a mother, she has wept and rejoiced with me.

lunch was great. she sees the remorse and change.

then we went another hour and more to a small town in southern ontario to pick up his clothes. i realized how sad this whole mess has been. he told me a lot. amy said about ten words the entire time, she's shy around me. he was only there for two months. when he came back to toronto, he found out there was a warrant for his arrest. he turned himself in.

he told me about jail. about places he had been. about the house where he lived. *sob* the other family that he lived with. i always thought it was the girlfriend, her mother, i really didn't know the entire extent of what kept him there so long. until he told me it was the father. you see when i met them very early after he went there, the father and mother were separated. it seems he came back.

robby said that *kevin* was the only father he had ever known. it had been the father ... not the mother ... he was looking for. *sob* i honestly didn't know.

he told me about jail. how scared he was. he told me about crime. how powerful it made him feel. he told me about the drugs. how they make him feel better. *big long sob*

so we get to this run down house. he owed them money. they had all of his good clothes there. the drugs and crime paid off in nice clothes. i had given some money to him to give to them. it really wasn't much money. he got out of the car and stuck his head back in the car and asked if it was really ok with me. i said, if you owe, you pay. what you reap, you will sow and if you owe, you pay. we'll work it out together sometime.

so he goes into the house. amy and i stay by the car. he comes back with shirts and pants on hangers. meager load it was. not everything was there. the best of the clothes were long gone. he was so sorry. i just shook my head and said ... let's go.

so off we went. exhausted.

he had his hip hop playing on the radio (how do they listen to that stuff???) and i'm getting a headache. i'm driving without my cast (found out that driving with a cast is illegal) and my ankle is hurting. he's so tired. amy is quiet. he falls asleep. we fight toronto rush hour traffic.

i call bill.

he's home with the worst siatica he's ever had. almost crying on the phone. the doctor has told him he has to take a week off. oh, how i know how rough this next week is going to be. bill is more like a bearthan anything else when he is sick. we are at least four hours more than i expected. bill is mad i am so late.

i think i am going to cry but i am too tired to do so.

we come to my house. first time in five years. there is the suit robby wore to his grade eight graduation hanging in the closet. it was big, he was heavy, could it fit? i brought it out and sure enough it fit. beautifully. he tried it on in the driveway. the neighbours see him and run over to congratulate us. he looks so beautiful. amazing.

so we have the trunk open and he shows me this bag that has all of his "jail" letters in it. he leafs through, shows me a couple of pictures of the other family, letters, things. i realize there has been another life i have not been involved in. other people he called family. other people he called 'mom and dad'.

i don't even know how to share what i am feeling. hopeless. like i'll never get my son back. like i've lost so much. grief. maybe the grief i should have felt years ago. anger at him. anger at myself. anger. sadness.

i drop him and amy off at a coffee shop in the neighbouring town he lives in. as we're driving up, amy spies a young man who is a friend and climbs out. robby stays in the car. she comes back with a quarter wanting to know if she can call to "get some stuff" for this guy.

*sob*

will it ever end? will he ever get straight?

robby and i talk for a while. i'm going to go back home with his stuff in my trunk. he is going to come over after church on sunday. (he's going to the lutheran church up the road with nancy)

he gets out of the car. with the wrinkled suit on. i'm biting my tongue trying not to ask him to put his grubbies back on so that he doesn't ruin the suit when he gets stoned tonight. but i shut up.

i watch him walk up and shake the hand of the man (about 40!!!!!) who is obviously the dealer. i want to cry. he turns around and looks me straight in the eye. gives me a wink and a wave. doesn't even seem to care that his friends can see him doing so.

i want to cry.

truth has come out ... little bit by little bit of where he has been, what he has been doing and who he has been doing it with.

i want to cry.

in some ways it was easier before.

if you've read this far. thank you. i need to get it all out somewhere. once again i'm not sure how i feel. i just know i need my Lord more than ever before. i've got a huge pit in my stomach and i want to go back so badly to those times when i would nurse him as a baby, rocking in the rocking chair in his nursery, with kelly at my feet on the soft carpet reading a book out loud ... the monster at the end of this book - it became his favourite book and she now reads it to her precious daughter.

i want to put him down in his crib, sleeping, peaceful and safe.

and i cannot.

*sigh*

i can only place him in the hands of his Heavenly Father, along with my aching, broken heart ... and wait.

be still

know

He is God.