'Grief' a photo essay
It’s easier to judge than to listen. Margaret, grieved for her deceased son Jon, for decades after his death. She tormented herself with the 'what ifs'. It was a palpable grief that quickly turned to a stream of tears when talking about her son's death, as though it just occurred.
Margaret's sadness had a rawness to it, acting as a conduit to keep Jon close. Jon's friends used drugs until he began using them, too. Margaret kept early memories of Jon in framed photographs adorning the walls and sitting atop end tables. The scenes depicted a gentler time of his childhood and family life.
When questioning why drug use takes someone you love there's never one definitive answer. Do parents cling to the ‘straight’ persona of their child, or does the loss of their innocence to drug addiction become an unanswerable source of pain?
If attempts at rehabilitation fail, parents are often left with defeat knowing they lost their child twice, once to the hope of recovery and secondly to death. Anyone who has loved an addict knows this pain.
What is a normal timeline of grief? How does someone grief-stricken find a way to join the living?
