I Was Angry At Heroin

Three days after my daughter died of a heroin overdose, I wrote this “Letter To Heroin” and posted it on my Facebook page. 

I remember lying in my bed unable to move, tears streaming down my face. Never had I felt pain like that and it was unbearable. 

I posted the loss of my daughter on my Facebook page.   Words of love, support and understanding from family and friends flooded my post.  It was comforting and overwhelming at the same time.  Nothing felt real and I just wanted the pain to stop.  And then I began to write. 

I wrote for about 30 minutes as the words just flowed out of me. It was a release of my anger. 

It wasn’t a release of my shock, pain or sorrow but it was a release.  I feared losing Kelsey every single day since I found out she was doing dope. I needed something to blame and heroin was the obvious choice. But I didn’t want that evil white powder to think it defeated Kelsey or her family.

Although the deepest part of my being was ripped apart, I knew that she was still mine. I think that’s where my writing came from. 

It felt good to write this letter to heroin. I needed to get out the anger I was feeling that Kelsey was gone. I shared my story with my husband, then on Facebook, at her memorial service and now I would like to share it with you.

My Letter To Heroin

Addiction for me is the purest form of evil I have ever experienced.  Heroin addiction digs its claws into a person and never let’s go. 

At first, it’s like a lover seducing, calling and whispering to you.  Once the seduction is over and you’re hooked, you can think of nothing else.

Ahhhh, it’s got you now but maybe you’re not interested anymore so it waits in the shadows to pounce when you’re not expecting it. It waits and whispers to you, “It’ll be okay.  Just one little hit won’t hurt.”  It bides its’ time for you to show any sign of weakness or vulnerability and then the obsession takes over your brain. 

You can think of nothing else. 

It doesn’t care that it ripped your family apart, caused your parents to yell and scream and want to walk away.  This immoral evil laughs when your brother becomes estranged from you and you lose all your friends.  It knows it’s doing a good job when you get arrested, close friends OD and die, and you pawn whatever you can for your next taste of the evil elixir.

There is a sly smile every time you lose a job, crash a car and become an expert at lying to your family.   It knows you’re entangled in its ugly vine, you can’t escape and death is looming.  It puffs out its chest with bravado when death becomes inevitable and heroin now feels victorious.

Well Guess What? 

That bitch may think it won the battle but it definitely hasn’t won the war. 

Yes, I will crawl up in a ball in my bed to grieve and may never want to get out again but I will.  I will rise up and out of that bed every day and put one foot in front of the other and push through in honor of my daughter.

My daughter may no longer be on this earth in her beautiful physical form but her spirit is living on. 

Her sparkle is living on. 

Her kindness is living on. 

She is living on within me so heroin was not able to steal that away from me and never will.  My family is together and stronger than ever.  We have been lovingly supported and accepted by our extended family and friends.  We have been able to educate and share our struggle with others without living in shame and isolation anymore

No, heroin did not win because I will never let it win.  It can think it can add another notch to its belt but I know better. 

I knew who my daughter was.  She possessed a purity of spirit, a kind soul, was full of wanderlust and had an incredible sense of innocence that heroin was never able to touch with its grubby claws.
 

So heroin, you didn’t win.

I won!!!!         

Written In honor of my beautiful daughter, Kelsey Blaire Lohr