ADDICTION REPLACED HER FUTUREWITH A DEATH CERTIFICATE.
Today, I was given McKayla’s death certificate.
A piece of paper confirming that my beautiful granddaughter lived, and that her life is over.
I looked at it and thought about how many certificates and pieces of paper we collect throughout a lifetime.
They record our beginnings.
Our accomplishments.
Our independence.
Our love.
Our families.
Our future.
McKayla's life began with a birth certificate.
Then came the little certificates, the ones that may not seem important until you realize they were marking her life as it unfolded.
Kindergarten graduation.
Elementary school graduation.
Swimming lessons.
Horseback-riding lessons.
School achievements.
High school graduation.
Each one said:
McKayla was here.
McKayla learned.
McKayla grew.
McKayla accomplished something.
There should have been so many more.
A driver’s licence giving her the freedom to go wherever life took her.
A college diploma, degree or course certificate from something she finally discovered she loved.
Perhaps a marriage certificate joining her life with someone who loved her.
Then one day, the birth certificates of her babies, little pieces of paper carrying her name into another generation.
There should have been certificates of achievement, new beginnings and dreams coming true.
Instead, today I received her death certificate.
The final piece of paper.
The one that replaced every certificate she never had the chance to earn, sign, hold or celebrate.
Addiction did not only steal the life McKayla was living.
It stole every life she still could have lived.
It stole the education she may have pursued.
The places she may have travelled.
The career she may have built.
The person she may have married.
The babies she may have held.
The woman she may have become.
All those unwritten chapters were reduced to one cold, official document declaring that there will be no more.
Her birth certificate announced that her life had begun.
Her death certificate says it ended.
And between those two pieces of paper lies every certificate addiction robbed her of.
People talk about addiction as though it only steals today.
It does not.
It reaches ahead and steals tomorrow.
Then the tomorrow after that.
It steals graduations that will never happen.
Weddings that will never be planned.
Babies who will never be born.
Dreams that will never have McKayla’s name written across them.
Today, I did not simply receive proof of McKayla’s death.
I held proof of an entire future stolen.
A future addiction erased before she had the chance to live it.
McKayla deserved more than a death certificate at 27.
She deserved a lifetime of papers bearing her name.
Documents celebrating where she had been, what she had achieved, whom she had loved and the beautiful life she had built.
Instead, addiction gave our family the one certificate that ended every possibility.
McKayla Jean Jones.
Mickey JJ.
Forever 27.
Her last certificate may say she died.
But we will never allow it to become the only thing the world remembers about how she lived.
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