The Wall Between Us

The Wall was her charm, her people-pleasing, her lies mixed with a deep care for me, her mother. The Wall was addiction. The Wall was the disconnect in our realities. I had wanted so much to believe that she had left her drug-of-choice in the rearview mirror, even though I saw plenty of evidence of risky behavior. I ascribed this to her Borderline diagnosis and took heart that she was in therapy. Her lies, my denial: we both kept The Wall in place. The Wall had installed itself uninvited: she had been at a party with a friend of a friend, and someone was burning something to inhale. She had no idea what it was, just joined in. Fentanyl was relatively new in 2010 in Seattle. The Wall installed itself in her brain and became a central part of our lives for the remaining 12 of hers. NA meetings, Nar-Anon meetings, then Hope After Loss meetings, therapies and YouTube videos about addiction. And over time, I began to see through The Wall to an ancestral line of Wall Keepers. The Wall’s atoms seemed to come apart to reveal the long generations of abuse and shame that led to addiction. There is a new wall now, of course, the wall of death, but this, too, seems at times to be porous, veil-like, its atoms willing to part at times and I feel connected to her and to the line of Wall Keepers that keep her company.
Christine O