Our son is in recovery, he has to my best estimate, 12 months clean. I know that he relapsed last June when my Father, his grandfather, passed away. He has made a lot of changes in this past year, some good and some not as good. He found out last June that he had a daughter who had just turned a year old and the babies mother is now pregnant with his son, due in September. She also has an older son from someone else.

For a while they were living with her mother until they moved into a hotel room for 4 months with the 2 kids. During this time we heard so many different stories as a way to manipulate us into giving him money. During the 4 month period we did end up paying approximately $800 towards the room so they didn’t get kicked out. We paid directly to the hotel through travelocity, never gave them money. If it had just been our son we would not have done that. When there are children involved my heart takes over. I bought groceries for them, sent a few dinners to them through grubhub.

In December of 2017 they were given a transition housing apartment. A spot had finally opened up for them and they were able to move from the hotel. They have been living there since December and it’s now July. They were just given vouchers for section 8 housing so now that search begins.

We have some furniture for them when they do find a place to live. I think it would be nice if they were close with the kids and all but then I think I don’t really want HIM close. I’m so torn. I don’t want this kind of relationship with my son, I want to be close to him, to be able to do things together, to not have to follow him around my house so he doesn’t steal something. These aren’t good feelings.

We have done more for him the past year then we had be doing and that’s because of the kids. I hate to see them suffer for his mistakes. We just had a birthday party for his little girl, cake and ice cream and dinner. I got her a big balloon to take home with her. I made their Easter baskets because he had no money. I bought Santa gifts and filled their stockings all because no child should miss out on making those childhood memories. Tradition has always been important to me and I hope that get passed on to the next generation.

My point is, this was not my hope for recovery. I guess I imagined a perfect world where everything would be great. The past would be the past. And it makes me sad that I’ll never have that perfect family. I know now that there isn’t such a thing as a perfect family, everyone has problems……just not these problems.