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She hadn’t been to see them since they were locked up. She couldn’t bear looking at their faces knowing what they had done to her. To think she raised them all by herself since they were eight and eleven years old respectively, done all she could for them and they had to repay her like this. She thought of past Christmases remembering in detail how she constantly prayed that during the coming year they would turn over a new leaf. But it didn’t happen. They were too deep in drug addiction. What was worse was her daughter had done the rehabilitation programme only to come out worse than when she entered. It wasn’t ‘Caritas’ that was at fault. It was Janet herself. She didn’t take the programme seriously enough. Hardly a week had gone by since she was out of rehabilitation when she read in her diary “TS”. Two letters that might have not meant anything to some people but it did a lot to a mother whose two children were addicted to drugs. TS meant nothing but “Took Smack”. She battled constantly with her children, urging them to enter the programme at Sedqa and San Blas but they didn’t want to know. Her son was aggressive, not that he hit her or any violence of that kind but every time she contradicted him, he would raise his voice and call her all the names under the sun.
A week before Christmas last year she kicked them out of the house. She spent the whole week crying, trembling every time she saw a policeman thinking he was going to bring her some awful news. She was on edge all the time. Every time she heard the police siren, she thought the police were after them. They were in her thoughts day and night and like a fool she asked them to come back home again only to suffer more of what they handed out! O God how she suffered. The computer went missing, the DVD no longer remained under the television set on a table purposely made for it, the radio disappeared, her electric kettle. O God the list was endless. It got so bad that she started reporting them to the police to no avail. There was no proof they took the stuff was their response. She thought of taking her own life more than once but something stopped her. Maybe the thought that one day they would be drug free and back to their normal selves or maybe the thought that if she died, they would be even more eager to be in pursuit of more drugs. Heroin. She even hated the word written down, if only the person who invented it could come face to face with her just once. She would beat the living daylights out of him. She knew they were stealing from shops. They had to. She was only giving them enough money to pay for cigarettes and get a drink yet they came home looking like Zombies. Even when her cash cards and cheque book went missing she was adamant that she wouldn’t kick them out. She had heard enough stories about drug addicts who were found dead in the streets or dumped in some abandoned place. It seemed that she couldn’t find help anywhere. If they didn’t want to alter their lives she wanted them locked up somewhere. Somewhere safe where they wouldn’t use drugs but where? She prayed to God that they might get a prison term not that prison was a place of reform and it wasn’t drug-free either but at least drugs weren’t in abundance like they were on the outside. She wondered again and again how they could turn out this way. She was always there for them, gave them everything they wanted. Ha, what a joke – maybe that was her undoing.
Her wish was granted late November. They were picked up by the police, taken to court and since they were on probation they were given a jail term for two years. Six months in jail and the rest in some rehabilitation programme. She was free free free, what a relief. She could leave her purse lying about the house. She needn’t go to bed with her mobile under the pillow just in case they decided to sell it. The rows she used to have with them were at an end. She was free of them for two whole years. People didn’t realise why she was happy. They didn’t realise that that she’d rather have them in prison than six feet under. They didn’t realise what it was like living with two drug addicts, like living with two tigers ready to pounce ever time she turned her head, it was going to be a quiet Christmas, one she didn’t have for many a year. She didn’t want to go and se them in prison. She didn’t, she wouldn’t. She couldn’t forgive them for the anguish and pain they caused her. She had loved them so much, she still did but somehow her anger towards them got the better of her. She had got good reason. She was naïve enough to think that people who took drugs came from indecent families. True she was a widow but she always led by example, a good example. She didn’t drink, she didn’t swear, she wasn’t partial to gallivanting with different men like most of her single friends. So why in God’s name her? A voice within her knew the answer though. It was the company they sought and their weak characters. They sure didn’t get the latter from her. Mid-December she switched on the radio to hear of another overdose death. Her eyes filled with tears, she wept like a baby. She thought of the day they were born, the first time they said “mum”, their first tooth, and their first day at school. How Janet and Kurt had loved her before drug addiction turned them into monsters. How could she not go and see them? The love came rushing back and with that love came forgiveness. They were paying their dues; she wouldn’t punish them further by not going to see them. The twenty fifth day of December came on a Saturday this year. She would go. She would tell them those three words that she knew meant a lot to them. Three words that said “I forgive you”. Christmas was a time for forgiving after all and she loved them so very very much.
Valerie Borg
Valletta
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