I used to have a phone full of my son. Not pictures, though I had those too. I mean contact entries. Numbers stacked like Jenga blocks. Street outreach workers and shelter phone numbers. A friend who spotted him on the corner by the Kroger. The officers who understood that turning him in was not betrayal. The probation officer who would actually speak to me and the one who always hung up on me. The Dollar General by Goodwill. That stretch of sidewalk was his frequent landing spot. There was Wi‑Fi there and a daily stretch of kind people who would purchase something for him, a drink, a pack of cigarettes, and sometimes even socks or a sweatshirt if it was cold.
When a friend texted me, I think I see him, I did not ask for details. I grabbed my keys. I have always been the one who goes. When there was a warrant out, I found him and turned him in. Not because I wanted him punished. Because I wanted him alive. We never pressed charges for anything he did to us. We held a line that said, Your safety matters more than my pride and more than my fear. Parenting a trauma-impacted kid means learning a new map and driving it at 2 a.m., not knowing what is in store for you when you arrive.
Once he sent me a picture of himself at that very spot, slumped on the curb outside Dollar General, the Kroger sign like a lighthouse with a tired bulb. Apparently someone did a story on him. A student paper. Maybe a local paper. No one is sure. He was too high to care. The image landed in my messages like a stone in my stomach. My boy made into an object lesson for strangers. I did not rage. I did what mothers do. I cataloged the details. Hoodie. Shoes. He still had his glasses, although they were held together by duct tape. His pupils dilated. His face with no spark of life. His hair, grown out at the roots, with unkempt locs pointing in every direction. His beard patchy, his hair does not grow in certain areas. The angle of his jaw when he is trying to look tough and just looks young.
I saved his numbers like they were lifelines. I saved them because sometimes they were all I had. I would call them one at a time, praying for contact. And then one day the list started to shrink. We didn’t even notice at first. I stopped waking up in a panic in the middle of the night wondering if he was still alive. I started sleeping soundly waking up every single morning to a text from him.
He started to contend for his own life. He found a tiny foothold, then another. A girlfriend he wanted to take care of. Sobriety he wanted to keep. A room for rent he did not get kicked out of. An apartment key. Yes, we are paying for it. No, I am not interested in a debate about that. We are considering this his college education. We will remove supports as he increases in capacity and in stability. When you research addiction, one common thread that increases time sober is stable housing. Housing first keeps him from being kicked out into the wind. Safety first gives the brain room to heal. Then a job. The order is messy, just like trauma and addiction. I have learned to make peace with progress that does not follow instructions.
Today I am looking at a different kind of screenshot. One contact. His actual number. Not a friend’s phone that he borrowed. Not a case manager’s desk line. Not the store where they let him stand inside when it snowed. Just his name and a clean little blue bubble. I can find him. I can hear his voice when it is tired and when it is trying. He calls me no less than 12 times a day. I know obnoxiously too much about his daily activities. It’s like we are making up for years of lost time.
Is it easy now? No. Mental health is not a straight road. Recovery is not a staircase. It is more like a sidewalk outside Dollar General, cracked in places, gum spots that never quite come off, but it still gets you from here to there. Some days I still lie flat on my face and pray. I asked for this privilege, and I meant it. I asked to trade crisis for care, chaos for consistency, survival for growth. Some days I complain a little. It helps me cope. Driving six hours for every single appointment is a lot. Seeing him healthy and healing is worth it.
