A message from a son: Be the change you want to happen in your life

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Melissa Killeen

In my last blog post I wrote about one of my clients, Caroline, a brilliant woman who has hit bottom, very, very hard. She is an Ivy League-educated woman, mother of three, and the wife of a wealthy professional in the suburbs of Chicago. But unfortunately, she drinks. After two years in and out of five rehabs, of countless detox stays, restraining orders and divorce proceedings, she is now 8-weeks sober and living in a homeless shelter in Chicago’s city center. She is working with a family reunification therapist to slowly piece together the relationship she lost with her teen-aged children. In the previous post I wrote about Caroline’s fear that her past mistakes would be a permanent detriment to re-unification with her teen-aged kids.

Today she received a text from her 16-year-old son, Samuel. I want to share this with you:

“Mom, this is Samuel. I want you to forget what you’ve done in the past, all mistakes, everything. You can’t change anything that happened, it’s just how the world works. What you can do is be the change you want to happen in your life. The future is full of opportunity, you just have to be able to see through the darkness of despair and go get it. No one is going to get it for you, you’ve got to make the decision to gain the power to stand up to your fears and strike them down. Only with darkness is there any light. Be strong, the future will be what you make it.”

Caroline has kept this text on her phone and reads it every day. It gives her the strength to stay sober, today.

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2 Responses to A message from a son: Be the change you want to happen in your life

  1. Nell says:

    And this is why they say, ” Don’t give up before the miracle happens.” Thank you for sharing.

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