HOW DO YOU COPE?
I
LaNaye Perkins
sat alone in the recliner reading his note through
my tears. It was filled with sadness, despair,
and all the reasons why my 23-year-old son had
decided to end his life. I wasn’t able to go with my
husband as he rushed our son to the hospital. I was
recuperating from the damage mold had done to
my lungs and needed a breathing treatment. There
was no time to waste, so I had to stay home and
wait for news from the hospital.
Since we live on a farm with family close by, I left
most of the lights off in the house. I didn’t want to
alarm anyone, at least not until I knew something.
I just couldn’t bring myself to call anyone. Who
could I call? What would I say? I couldn’t even
DOZ Magazine | December 2018
wrap my mind around what had happened yet, let
alone try to explain it to anyone else. The only one
I could talk to at that moment was Jesus.
It had all started when the Lord woke me up an
hour earlier. He let me know my son was in trouble
and I needed to check on him. Fear gripped my
heart as I called up to him and asked him to come
downstairs. What I didn’t know at the time was
that he had taken an overdose of painkillers and
muscle relaxers. If I hadn’t insisted on him coming
downstairs, he would have gone to sleep and
slipped from our lives forever. We wouldn’t have
known anything until the following morning when
we found the note he had left us by the coffee pot.
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