There is hope for those who lose children to drug addiction
A heart, once broken, may never be fully restored. But it may be made beautiful.
That may be the wisdom on display as parents who have lost their children to drugs smash beautiful pottery into pieces at Crystal’s Heart Healing House (CHHH).
Then, they gather up the pieces and bind them together again with gold.
“You can still see the scars of the brokenness, but it’s a new creation,” Noreen D’Onofrio said.
Noreen D’Onofrio runs CHHH, a retreat for parents who have lost their children to drug addiction.
When she lost her daughter Crystal D’Onofrio to drug addiction, it left a hole in her heart, she said.
“I never dreamed this was going to be my daughter’s or my destiny,” she said.
But in her life since then, she has learned that even these wounds can become beautiful.
In 2017, Noreen D’Onofrio came to Gilmer County to grieve her loss.
Then, she saw a “miracle in the snow.”
“It was a perfect snow heart left in the tree,” Noreen D’Onofrio said.
Newly-fallen snow captured in the trees behind her house had formed the shape of a heart.
Somehow, seeing this heart mixed with other experiences to give her an idea. She would open a home for parents dealing with the loss of drug addiction.
“I was still broken and really messed up,” she said. “But that gave me some kind of peace.”
At the house each year, CHHH hosts two five-day retreats for eight to 10 mothers or couples who have lost children to drug addiction.
“Nobody wants to talk about it,” Noreen D’Onofrio said. “It’s got such a horrible, ugly stigma attached.”
At these events, parents grow close with each other as they share memories of their children. They make art, share memories, do therapy and process grief together.
Attending the retreat costs $800 for each attendee. But she is committed to offering at least one free spot each session. For those with parents, children or personal service in the military, attendance is free.
“Our goal is to have no mom ever have to pay,” Noreen D’Onofrio said. “But it’s still so new.”
The event is open to both mothers and couples who have lost children to drug addiction.
Those interested in attending or giving can learn more at https://www.crystalsheart.org/about.
No one plans to become a drug addict, Noreen D’Onofrio said. For her daughter, the slide into addiction began when she took Vicodin painkillers after a cheerleading injury.
“That’s where it started,” she said. “Then she started getting into mixing alcohol and Xanax and different things.”
From there, Crystal D’Onofrio moved into OxyContin and other drugs.
“You could be a judge, you could be a doctor, it doesn’t matter,” Noreen D’Onofrio said. “It’s a chemical balance, and your body becomes dependent on these things.”
Although she tried 12 different rehab clinics over the course of seven years, Crystal D’Onofrio proved unable to break her addiction.
“My daughter would cry to me and say, ‘Mom, how did I get so bad?’” Noreen D’Onofrio said.
Watching her daughter return to the destructive influence of drugs again and again was heartbreaking.
“My daughter had dreams,” she said. “She had a family.”
Many of the parents Noreen D’Onofrio invites to CHHH found their children fell into addiction after using prescription drugs.
When talking with grieving parents, it’s OK to mention their children, Noreen D’Onofrio said.
The emptiness of knowing that everyone avoids mentioning their lost child feels worse than the grief of mourning them, Noreen D’Onofrio said.
“I would rather cry and get tears in my eyes but know that you remembered my child,” she said. “No one’s going to leave here fully healed.”