Floundering in the Storm 11-21-12

Anderson, South Carolina


I think I‘ve just had a taste of what it must feel like to have failed at a rescue. There must be a profound angst of heart coming with a failed attempt to throw a life ring to someone floundering in a wind-driven sea. The fading cries in the howling night are devastating. The torment of “if-only” must be overwhelming. Could I have said or done something differently and gained a different outcome?

Awaking, I knew I had a busy morning planned; going to Meals on Wheels to serve up seven hundred turkey dinners for our home bound seniors and disabled. Arriving in the kitchens I found my services not needed as a couple of large families were doing a volunteer project for the Thanksgiving holiday. Leaving our kitchens I drove further into the wrong side of town where I had been told of a feeding program for six hundred in a small struggling church. I arrived eager to help prepare, instead finding the church deserted. Suddenly the entire expanse of my busy morning was freed up. What now? Business as usual?

I’d been back home but two minutes when my phone rang. After seventeen minutes I hung up feeling as if I had not quite thrown the life ring far enough out for one floundering to reach it. I wasn’t even sure if she was actually reaching out for it. I didn’t so much second guess what I shared with this dear friend on the phone as I embraced my utter powerlessness to help her find her way to safety. Yet, I feel like I was supposed to have been home to answer her call instead of feeding the world turkey. I know my waters were parted twice in order for me to be there for her call. I just can’t but wonder if my voice was not louder than those insane ones all around her calling her to certain death.

In my six years of work with addicts and alcoholics I’ve been to plenty of funerals and have experienced the unbounded sadness, even despair, at watching magnificent people systemically destroy themselves with their addictions. Most of the time I can maintain some protective emotional distance from them; sometimes my defenses fail miserably. So it is in this case.

For two years one of our dear women, ‘Cheryl’, has been struggling with rampant drug abuse. For some reason I’ve always had clarity as to Cheryl’s potential and what she could do to carry a message of experience, strength and hope to those still suffering in the storms of addiction. Everything about her suggested she was special in many ways. It’s always been effortless to care about her a lot, perhaps way too much. Bewildered I watch her live with those offering her nothing but slow certain death. Every few months I cross paths with Cheryl, seeing her life journey continuing on an exacting and destructive trajectory. Occasionally she gets near enough to us to grab on and start a journey towards recovery. At one point I felt certain she had both feet on land and was going to begin living a joyous, happy, and free life. Then the insanity-driven waves of addiction would wash over her once again.

Today she called on behalf of a friend having increasing medical consequences of her crack addiction. With no form of ID, no money, no one to care, they find themselves unable to navigate in the world, to gain medical attention. Cheryl called me asking for options. I really have none. All I can do is ask her if she’s really set on dying. I tell her I don’t want to go to her funeral. I don’t want to cry that hard.

Today is her birthday. I ask her if she wants to have another one. Does she want to be alive when her next grandchild is born in the spring? The insane voices of death around her are so very loud. She equivocates, not sure what she’s going to do. She tells me if she is not shooting up tomorrow on Thanksgiving Day she might come to a meeting. Is it okay to bring some of her using friends? I tell her it’s okay to not shoot up and come to meeting today. I tell her it’s today that matters. I tell her she might be dead tomorrow and then it would be too late. She says she will think about it.

I can’t make this dear one reach out and grab the life ring. I can’t make her stay alive. I can’t keep her from making herself dead by shooting herself full of death. I can’t make it stop mattering to me a whole lot whether Cheryl is dead tomorrow, even today, if she hurries up about it. In the insanity of addictions it’s not uncommon to see people hurry their demise.

It’s all about me isn’t it? I don’t want to go to her funeral during the holidays. I don’t want to go to her funeral ever, but I especially don’t want to go look at her in a casket when she should be embracing the Promise of the Advent Journey, not so very far away. The way of Advent promises a way out of those addictive storms which would take us under and suck the very life out of us. . Here at Thanksgiving we express gratitude for the inherent goodness and abundance of life. On the Advent Journey we anticipate the ultimate gift of the One who offers Cheryl life instead of certain death.

I can only hope and pray that tomorrow I get the chance to serve Cheryl some turkey. It would be quite the party if she showed up with her friends and decided on a new way of living. I think it’s time for me to go into my own kitchen and make a major mess. I’m expecting a lot of company tomorrow. I pray Cheryl is in that number.

Blessings,

Craig C. Johnson