[cashhurt]

Well, by the time my nephew had graduated from high school, he had also been in at least 4 rehabs, been in and out jail multiple times for stealing, had been removed from the house by authorities after his parents had had enough.

But it was this never ending cycle. He got in trouble, went to jail, got out went to rehab, got out was given this celebratory dinner for some reason and then things went back to normal and then a week later here we would go again.

But, this wasn’t only happening in my nephew’s home it was happening in ours. I had taken the sudo duty of answering the midnight calls that he was in trouble and could I go. His dad had checkout completely and disowned him so I was called upon to make up for the void. But this came at a price. Because I now had a front row seat to it all. And I saw it all. I saw his pain, his inability to control what he said was an aching in his bones. However, I also saw an uglier side to all of this. The side that no one wants to talk about.

I saw how quickly we as parents can come to our wits end to the point where we buy a ticket and just want the problem to go. I saw a grandmother who covered for her grandson, would actually go to drug dealers to buy him drugs, clean up the blood splattered walls where he would shoot up, I saw this same woman tell her grandson out of anger and frustration that she wished he would die already.

There was so much more that I saw, that I’m sure many of us have seen and worse, and I didn’t know the answer then and I don’t have it now.

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