Happy Father's Day from the Other Side

This Father's Day, our son will have no dad to praise. Not here on Earth anyways. Sadly, our son lost his father to a fentanyl overdose last August. I found him lifeless on my bedroom floor the morning after he died and my mind immediately went to our son Isaac, and how devastated he was going to be when he heard this dreadful news. I was having a mental breakdown myself, but how was our 10 year old son going to handle this? Of course my heart instantly broke for our son. I wasn't even able to call 911, thank God my superintendent was there to do this for me.

When we broke the news Isaac, he was in complete disbelief, for days he kept asking if it was a sick joke or prank. With all of my heart, I wished that it was.

Chais had tried so hard to conquer his addiction, he went to rehab and a men's recovery home and had been clean for over 100 days off of everything, for the first time in his adult life. He found drugs in the recovery home and being an addict, he used them. They kicked him out and he went to the local detox, who would only keep him there for 5 days, the recovery home wouldn't allow him back in regardless of him having nowhere else to go that was safe and regardless of him doing all 3 appeal processes. Chais called me and explained that he had nowhere to go, we had a no-contact order due to domestic abuse, but I wasn't going to let him go out onto the street or to a place where he would go backwards and be back in the drug life. Having a no-contact order for most of our relationship was a major stressor and mostly set him up for failure, as I was his safe place, we were his family.

At that point I had 90 days clean off of all drugs and alcohol. All it took for me to relapse was him suggesting we have a few drinks, which ended up leading to me supporting his addiction and smoking fentanyl myself willingly for the first time. My drug of choice was crack cocaine and I had previously overdosed and died twice by smoking the wrong pipe, and been brought back once by paramedics and once by Chais giving me CPR. He wasn't able to find my drug of choice and his was cheaper and easier to find. If Chais jumped off of a bridge, I would have as well. This is what codependency and addiction looks like.

Every time Chais smoked fentanyl it was like clockwork, he would overdose and I would have to narcan him and on occasion call 911. Chais and I had been in a toxic, codependent relationship since we were 17, totalling 14 years at that point. Unhealthy relationships are so much harder to leave than healthy ones. We were each other's worst addiction. We would have stayed in a miserable relationship until we were old and decrepit and on our deathbeds. It's unfortunate that the universe had to work in this awful way to tear us apart. I believe that the universe did work in mysterious ways that night, because if I was there with him when he smoked that pure, uncut fentanyl that killed him, I would have been dead beside him and our son would be left with no parents at all.

Chais loved our son more than life itself, he had Isaac's name tattooed on his arm. He kept trying to get clean for Isaac's sake, he just had so many demons and traumas that he couldn't cope with. He bottled it all up and wouldn't open up and heal from those past traumas. I wish I could have helped him more. I felt like he was my adult son and I had to be there for him no matter what, because no one else was.

Chais' brother, Troy, died years before to an opiate overdose as well, and they both had traumatic childhoods, with their biological father dying not long before Troy. Their mother and step-dad practised what you would call 'tough love'. Chais told me this was why he never showed me love properly, because he was never shown how to love and he didn't know how to accept it himself. He reached out to his family so many times for help but they were afraid of what may happen in their home, and never had much involvement in his life, so Chais considered my family, his family. They cut off all contact with our son as well.

On the other hand, my family was always there for him, I attended every court date even when I was the 'victim'. I wanted so badly for him to get help and to not have the system fail him once again.

I'm not playing innocent, as I did partake in our fights as well but he had a real mean streak, he couldn't handle emotions properly, especially mine. I believe he was angry at himself for making me feel so horrible about myself. All of his emotions came out as anger, he was angry at himself, his family, God, the entire universe.

Regardless of all the toxicity, what we had was ours. We were best friends regardless of all the bad times, there were many good times as well. We could tell each other anything and laugh and joke about everything, but there was so much stress on both of us having so many restrictions put on us, and having to keep so many secrets.

He was 'a product of the system', being in and out of detention centres as a youth, jail as an adult, was slipped through the cracks in school and never had a doctor as far back as he could remember.

The summer that he died, he spent a lot of quality time with Isaac at the beach and I am so glad that they got that last bit of father-son time together. They were just rebuilding their relationship together when his dad was taken from him.

I also hope that witnessing all that he has, our son doesn't ever turn to the same unhealthy coping mechanisms that me and his father did. I think it has completely turned him off of drugs and drinking. They always say that kids are resilient, but at the same time, most addiction stems from childhood trauma. Addiction is such an evil disease, it stole a father from a son, a son from a mother and life partner/best friend from me.

As painful as it is to lose a partner and a father, I try to take the positives from the negatives and take the signs that I get from the universe and I believe the universe does work in mysterious ways. A force bigger than us kept me out of my apartment that fateful night to keep me here for our son.

RIP Chais Cameron Clowater, loving father of our son, gone but never forgotten, and may we meet again on the other side.