Paranoid I’d love the cat more than my first born, I paced the house during labor, my mother two inches behind rubbing my back, promising me I wouldn’t.

I didn’t even like kids. Babysitting twice in high school, once college overnighting for a clan of five, I forbade myself to ever make that mistake.

Not understanding the love of a mother until I became one, I shudder to think the outcome had I had Josiah at 16. Given up for adoption, I’d be serving life for death, killing for him.

Four children later, I don’t understand:

How to survive when you have a son shooting meth? When you haven’t heard from him in over a week, your first thought, “I wonder if he’s alive?” You make the coffee unsure how you’ll make it through the day, let alone the year. You ask yourself, did he not see his greatness, his awesomeness, his talent?

“Maybe if I didn’t get divorced,” the thought never leaves.

Old pictures circulating my screen saver, I yearn for the past when we were happy, life was fun, and everything was good.

Shut down the lies.

I don’t have to understand to hope.

My perfect little boy, insanely gifted, born to conquer yet cursed with a soul eating disease. Noah didn’t choose addiction, it chose him, just like I did from the beginning of time.