All posts by Losing Someone to Addiction

Iguazu Falls Argentina Side Devil’s Throat Hike

June 16, 2025Events, Grief Journey#Argentina, #bereavement, #Childloss, #drugdeath, #griefandhealing, #griefisreal, #griefjourney, #grieving, #grievingmother, #Iguazu, #IguazuFalls, #lifeafterloss, #losingachild, #losingalovedone, #loss, #opioidepidemic, #overdose, #OverdoseAwareness, #penguin, griefLosing Someone to Addiction

Post #57

You can see how it got its name!

Iguazu Falls Guinea Pigs

June 12, 2025UncategorizedLosing Someone to Addiction

Post #56

Soon after Adriana Bertola and I entered the park, we saw a mother guinea pig and her baby. Adriana said they had been waiting for me so I could take their photos.

Boy, that baby could jump!

Iguazu Falls Birds

June 11, 2025Events, Grief Journey#Argentina, #bereavement, #Childloss, #drugdeath, #griefandhealing, #griefisreal, #griefjourney, #grieving, #grievingmother, #Iguazu, #IguazuFalls, #lifeafterloss, #losingachild, #losingalovedone, #loss, #opioidepidemic, #overdose, #OverdoseAwareness, #penguin, griefLosing Someone to Addiction

Post #55

Iguazu Falls Trees

June 10, 2025Events, Grief Journey#Argentina, #bereavement, #Childloss, #drugdeath, #griefandhealing, #griefisreal, #griefjourney, #grieving, #grievingmother, #Iguazu, #IguazuFalls, #lifeafterloss, #losingachild, #losingalovedone, #loss, #opioidepidemic, #overdose, #OverdoseAwareness, #penguin, griefLosing Someone to Addiction

Post #54

Adriana called this one the Giving Tree…

I call this one the Wise Elder…

This one is The Ghost

This one is The Scream

And Dune Worm.

Iguazu Falls Argentina Side Upper Hike

June 9, 2025Events, Grief Journey#Argentina, #bereavement, #Childloss, #drugdeath, #griefandhealing, #griefisreal, #griefjourney, #grieving, #grievingmother, #Iguazu, #IguazuFalls, #lifeafterloss, #losingachild, #losingalovedone, #loss, #opioidepidemic, #overdose, #OverdoseAwareness, #penguin, griefLosing Someone to Addiction

Post #53

“There’s no where else on Earth that I would rather be.”

June 6, 2025Events, Grief Journey, Signs and Wonders#bereavement, #Childloss, #drugdeath, #griefandhealing, #griefisreal, #griefjourney, #grieving, #grievingmother, #lifeafterloss, #losingachild, #losingalovedone, #loss, #opioidepidemic, #overdose, #OverdoseAwareness, griefLosing Someone to Addiction

When my first-born son Tristan was three months old, I ended maternity leave and returned to work. My son proceeded to sleep all day at daycare and stay up most of each night. This went on for six months. I became a zombie, beyond exhausted and barely functioning at work.

Five months into this ordeal, as I was driving Tristan to daycare, the song “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” from the movie Oklahoma started playing in my head. On and on it played, like a broken record. The phrase that stuck the most was “Everything’s going my way.”

Not only had I not thought of that movie in years, but it seemed nothing in my life was going my way. Why, of all things, was my frazzled brain doing this?

Within a month, however, I was able to leave my job and take most of my work home with me so that I could raise Tristan.

Nineteen years later, my precious son died of a heroin overdose on June 5 or 6, 2015.

Since early May this year, I have had a song repeatedly playing in my head, a song I had not thought of in years: “On the Street Where You Live” from the movie My Fair Lady. The phrases that repeated themselves daily were “All at once am I several stories high, knowing I’m on the street where you live… there’s no where else on Earth that I would rather be.” (Lyricist: Alan Jay Lerner).

Why? I had no context, no idea what was being communicated to me.

Today is June 5, ten years after the last day Tristan walked the Earth … The song had been playing like a broken record in my brain for a month …

Bam. It finally hit me:

That was Tristan singing to me.

There’s no where else on Earth that he would rather be than on the street where I live…

Iguazu Falls Argentina Side Rainbows

June 5, 2025Events, Grief Journey#Argentina, #bereavement, #Childloss, #drugdeath, #griefandhealing, #griefisreal, #griefjourney, #grieving, #grievingmother, #Iguazu, #IguazuFalls, #lifeafterloss, #losingachild, #losingalovedone, #loss, #opioidepidemic, #overdose, #OverdoseAwareness, #penguin, #rainbow, griefLosing Someone to Addiction

Post #52

Iguazu Lower Hike Flora

June 4, 2025Events, Grief Journey#Argentina, #bereavement, #Childloss, #drugdeath, #griefandhealing, #griefisreal, #griefjourney, #grieving, #grievingmother, #Iguazu, #IguazuFalls, #lifeafterloss, #losingachild, #losingalovedone, #loss, #opioidepidemic, #overdose, #OverdoseAwareness, #penguin, griefLosing Someone to Addiction

Post #51

Iguazu Falls Cabeza de Vaca

June 4, 2025Events, Grief Journey#Argentina, #bereavement, #Cabeza de Vaca, #Childloss, #drugdeath, #griefandhealing, #griefisreal, #griefjourney, #grieving, #grievingmother, #Iguazu, #IguazuFalls, #lifeafterloss, #losingachild, #losingalovedone, #loss, #opioidepidemic, #overdose, #OverdoseAwareness, #penguin, griefLosing Someone to Addiction

Post #50

I was shocked to find a small monument to Cabeza de Vaca on the lower trail. His fascinating tale of shipwreck, extreme hardship, and surprising gift of healing are recounted in his autobiography, “The Account of Cabeza de Vaca: A Literal Translation with Analysis and Commentary,” translated by David Carson. I had read an older translation many years before this one was published.

In 1528, Cabeza de Vaca, a Spanish conquistador, got stranded on a little island off the coast of Texas. It took him eight years to finally get to Mexico City.

He returned to Spain in 1537, only to be appointed governor in much of what we now call Paraguay.

In 1541-42, Cabeza de Vaca led an expedition that took him to Iguazu Falls, making him the first European to see them.

Iguazu Argentina Lower Hike

June 2, 2025UncategorizedLosing Someone to Addiction

Post #49

There were 3 trails on the Argentina side: lower, upper, and Devil’s Throat.

Here is just a tiny taste of the lower trail.