Visiting her in rehab…those two-hour drives to visit her in rehab. We couldn’t get there fast enough. I’d be so excited the tears would come every time I told someone: “I’m going to get to see Maria tomorrow!” I was like a little girl going off to visit my mom or dad because I didn’t live with one of them; it would always be an open house, a special day when family could visit. I’d spend the week before shopping and shopping, filling packages for her…just to see her smile, to surprise her, to delight her. I was sure to get everything she asked for, everything she could possibly need, along with lots of surprises…and I’d wrap everything; because if I could find the paper that was pink enough, and get the bow to be big enough, she’d never use drugs again. This would do it: she’d love this sweater so much, or get such a kick out of the new Hello Kitty pajamas that she would forget all about heroin.

I’d get out of the car scanning the grounds for her like I’d been at work all day and couldn’t wait to pick her up from kindergarten. She’d light up when she spotted me and would always say, “What took you so long?” We had our “family meetings,” with her counselor who used to say, “I like to end my meetings with hugs,” as if that would be a problem for either of us. I’d hug her and hold her, and play with her nose and her hands, and stroke her hair and touch her face like I was touching the Holy Shroud in the Vatican…as if whatever you got to experience in the Vatican was a guarantee that it would all work out.

And my letters! I’d write her every night with candlelight nearby: those long supportive letters that always ended with: Do the Right Thing. She’d write, too…that humor of hers, that resilience she had; her letters read more like letters from college…never bitter, always hopeful, hinting at gossip, lined with gratitude, and just the right amount of sentiment. No one in this world could ever make me laugh as she could…and she looked radiant up there: healthy, happy, a social butterfly: they all gravitated toward her and I was beyond proud.

That was August. She spent her summer swimming in the pool, getting her G.E.D., attending groups, and performing her assigned tasks. They told her when she completed the program up there she should go straight to college. G.E.D.? What a joke that was: she could have taught the course. She was an honor student with perfect attendance until she got to ninth grade and started smoking weed…and doing everything else she could get her hands on. Once she lost all interest in academics I used to tell her: “Maria! You don’t get stupid!” And even though she had a major attitude by then I still sent her to Austria, Switzerland and Germany the summer she was seventeen: “to expose her to the finer things in life as my father used to say.” I still have the album with all of her photos from that trip. I marked the cover boldly: “Maria’s First Trip to Europe.” So you can imagine, leave rehab and go straight to college, sounded great to me…it was August.

She called me so excitedly in October. “Mom! I’m head of the decorating committee. I need a costume and send lots of stuff. We’re having an open house on October 29th…you have to come!” I sat in an Alanon meeting where the topic was “Tough Love,” and several members insisted on giving our addict children nothing! They had to earn it! I announced that I had just sent my daughter everything feasible for her fall festival. “After all,” I said, “it might be her last Halloween.” But, yes, she should leave rehab, I kept thinking, and go straight to college. She had two months left to live.