Trying to finnd my way back to the Highway...

About 5 months ago my partner's sister died of Lupes. Andrew managed to get there before she died and that was good, but while that trip enabled him to see his sister before she died it also stuck him in a house with his parents for a week. His wonderful Reverend Father and mother threw him out on the streets at 15 and didn't speak to him for another 15 years in the name of tough love because he had the audacity to come out of the closest and admit he was a homosexual.

After a week with them he felt ready to die. I tried to help but failed him. A couple of weeks later he threw away three and a half years of sobriety and began using drugs again. Now, let me be clear I don't only blame his parents. Andrew is responsible for the choices and mistakes he made, just as I am responsible, and no one else, for my own recent failures in this area. Sixteen days after Andrew started using again he overdosed and died. January 16, four months ago today.

It's killing me. I don't understand why so many who claim to be followers of Christ insist on practicing rejection and cruelty in the name of tough love. Can you imagine how different the story would have been had Jesus practiced tough love with the prostitute caught in the act of adultery by the religious leaders? And not to stray too far from the subject, but if she was caught in the act as they said, where was the dude? Anyway, I have tried and failed to remember a single time where Jesus used cruelty and rejection to deal with sinners. Please wake up; this shit is killing people. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. How did we stray so far from that?

Andrew I loved you. I still do. I miss you so much. I am so sorry I couldn't help you get back out. That I couldn't be enough to comfort the pain you felt. That I let you down. I'm sorry. And I am sorry that I wasn't stronger myself, that I did the very thing that I got so angry at you about...that I went back out to get some more misery and let my friends, family and supporters, not to mention my God down.

I thank God for an earthly father who lives an example of Christ-like love and gave me an understanding of the concept of mercy, love and forgiveness rather than hatred, rejection, fire and brimstone. Because of this I can believe in forgiveness from God, because I have seen it in my earthly father I can believe it from a Heavenly Father. I can accept the philosophy of progress not perfection and release myself from the bondage of legalism and expectations I set too high for myself. I don't have to follow you into the ground, and while I miss you terribly, I pray that I regain my recovery. I can take a detour back onto the route that God put me on over a year ago that leads to a place of serenity, where I can be happy, joyous and free as God wants me to be. I know we'll meet in heaven one day, but it doesn't have to be soon.