a loss of hope

When I said that we had not had any catastrophes happen, that was not entirely true.

Kain's mother died. It happened last weekend, she died of a stroke, secondary to a drug overdose. That's all I really know. My brother tells me he doesn't know anymore details. I don't really believe that, but that's what he's telling me. Kain doesn't know yet. We have been hemming and hawing, talking it over with his therapists, etc., and the end result is that we are going to hold the drug overdose part until he gets a little older...he doesn't even really understand what illegal drugs are, so it would be really difficult for him to understand right now.

We are going to tell him she died of a stroke, which is true enough for now. I talked to my brother about it one last time this evening, and he told me to just go ahead and tell him. I didn't do it. Not tonight. He's had a really good day, his best couple of days in a long time, actually, and I want him to go to sleep happy. I want to tuck him in and give him one more night to sleep with his hopes that one day his life will go back the way it used to be, that things will work out in the end, that his mother will get herself together and get him and his siblings back. Even though he hasn't even seen his mom in two years, I know that's what he wants and what he still hopes for. I know the hardest thing for him to handle is going to be losing that hope, coming one more step closer to realizing that the best he's going to get in this life is to be raised by an aunt and uncle that he really doesn't want to be with...not because he doesn't love us, but because we just aren't his mom and dad. He wants his mom. And now that can never happen. And I will be the one to tell him. God, give me the right words, if there are any, to tell a child that their mother has died.

Please pray for her.