Insanity, the beginning

It has occurred to me that I haven't properly introduced myself  or my son.  Its important that you know who he was and I can't tell you Billy's story without intertwining my own.  Billy and I were connected like that, long before I became his mom.

Billy was my stepson.  He and I met for the first time when he was eleven.  His mom and I had become friends and she stopped by one day with Billy.  What I remember most about him that day was his disarming smile.  There was something about it that was pure charm with a hint of melancholy.  It would be a few months before I truly understood the melancholy.

As I got to know Billy and his mom a little better I began to see the whole picture.  Billy's mom was a drunk.  Its not libelous, its a fact.  Her addiction to substances both prescribed and poured forced Billy, his younger brother and his mom to live at home with her parents.  In my opinion they were prudish, bitter folks who viewed all but the youngest child as a terrible burden, an imposition so great that the fact that they bore it at all should propel them to sainthood of the highest order.

I am not judging the addiction.  I observed 23 years sober the day we said good bye to Billy.  I messed up every family I touched in and out of sobriety.  I didn't then nor do I now by any stretch of the imagination deserve mother of the year.  I am just telling the story the best I can.

Billy seemed to get the brunt of the anger in household from Grandma and Grandpa.  I often urged his mom to move, to get out of there but free rent meant more money for beer and clothes and parties.  Every time I would visit, Billy would be grounded or about to be grounded.  They all would explain he was out of control, no good and needed to be punished.  Later we would find out that when nobody was around they did and said much worse than what I witnessed.

That beautiful child was called the spawn of Satan, stupid, bad, no good and much worse by these God fearing Christian folks for many years, most of his life.   He was screamed at, berated, shamed and made to live most of his time in his room away from the rest of the family.  His biggest offense was that he was his father's child who they would openly tell you was Satan himself disguised as Bill.

I saw what was happening.  But I did nothing.  There were no bruises, right?  What is there to do.  Sometimes the deepest wounds, fatal wounds are the kind that don't bruise.  I know that now.  I wish to God I had done more then.

Several months later I would meet Bill.  It was a moment of blinding sparks of undeniable chemistry and a deep feeling of recognition I coud neither explain or deny.  The timing was not good for either of us, we were both on different paths then, just able to gaze at each other on our distant roads.  It would be 4 years before our paths would merge.  But at that time Bill and I became friends and I liked him, who he was.  He was witty and sweet and remarkably sane compared to the other parts of Billy's family I had met.

When Billy's mom began to talk about putting him in a program called PINS, which is a sort of voluntary probation I started trying to talk her into sending him to live with his father.  Her parents too seemed to like the idea and so it was decided that they had all had enough of him and Bill welcomed him home.  By this time he was 12 and the damage had been done.  The spirit of this beautiful child had been inexplicably altered and though the wound would fester for a long time, it would be eventually fatal.  There was never an antidote that we could ever find, even though we tried.

I wish I would have done more.  I wish Billy could have seen the beautiful soul that he was.  I wish many, many things but most of all I wish that abuse did not happen to innocent young children who should not have to fight to survive inspite of their circumstance or conditioning.

Billy, I am so sorry.  You were beautiful and special and loved.  You still are beautiful and special and loved.  You always will be.