On Finding a Lost Soul Face Down in a Ditch
I went to visit a young woman in the hospital today. I'll call her Shannon. She has been in and out of care with heart problems for a while now. I had a hunch, so I asked her, "You're really here because of heroin addiction, aren't you?" Sort of. Her heart really is bad. But it's heroin withdrawal that actually bedded her two weeks ago. She escaped once before against doctors' orders, but her pain brought her back. Her mother died of an OD last week. I posted a piece here about attending her funeral. She died alone. I tried to help guide and mentor Shannon and her siblings when they were kids. God knows they needed someone stable in their poverty-depressed lives. There's considerable question about my rate of success, as I looked at the woman in bed before me. Once I took Shannon's mom to lunch and she told me of torture and abuse at the hands of her then-husband. Shannon today admitted she and her mom both were beaten often. She didn'...