Posted on May 8, 2022 View all news
Happy Mother’s Day 2022! Motherhood blessings to every mother out there.
My motherhood journey forever changed on 7-28-2018, when I lost my 24yr old son Tyler to suicide, brought on by marijuana-induced psychosis. Since childhood, my dream was to be a mother. When I was young, I played out that dream, first with dolls, then on to Barbies. Then one day that dream became a reality, first with the birth of my daughter, then my first son Tyler, and finally my second son.
I love being a mother, but it is the most beautiful, humbling, terrifying, and hardest journey to be on. Once that journey starts, you undeniably, inevitably change. You no longer think of yourself first, and you become a worrier for the rest of your life, in a way you never had been before. You worry if your children are happy, are they safe, am I doing an ok job raising them? You dream of everything for your children.
When you lose a child, those feelings shatter, shift, and intensify. Even more so when you lose one of them to drugs. It’s such a preventable tragedy. Your feelings as a parent, and everything you know about yourself, go down the tubes, at warp speed. So many of us mothers, who lost a child this way, have gone on to fight. Fight to spread the word, to save other children. It’s one of the ways we go on to face another day.
Marijuana, and other drugs, are not safe! They can legalize it, sell it, and wrap it up in pretty packages, but it does kill, no matter what some may say. So please, on this day, and every other, please keep sharing, the medical facts, and the emotional stories, because every share helps, and EVERY CHILD MATTERS!
Thank you, and God Bless!
Sharon Southard
5-7-2022