My mother found out where I’d be spending the next decade of my life the same way most families do — a phone call, a courtroom, and then a long silence where she had no idea what to do next.
Nobody handed her a list. Nobody told her which number to call if she couldn’t afford the trip to visit, or who to talk to about keeping the rest of our family together while I was gone, or that there were people — whole organizations — built around exactly her situation. She figured it out the hard way, mostly alone, because that’s what you do when nobody tells you there was another way.
I think about that a lot, now that I spend my time talking to families instead of just living inside one that’s going through it.
If you’re a parent, a sibling, a partner reading this because someone you love is at risk of walking a road like mine — or already has — I want to tell you the thing I wish somebody had told my mother. You are allowed to ask for help. Not just permitted — genuinely, structurally allowed, because there are people whose entire job is to help families in exactly your position. NC CURE exists because people like you built it. Centers like Community Transitions exist to help families stay connected instead of drifting apart under the weight of distance and paperwork. NC 211 exists to be the one number you call when you don’t know which of the fifty other numbers you need.
None of that makes what you’re carrying light. I’m not going to tell you it does. What I will tell you is that the isolation is not required. My mother did this alone for longer than she needed to, not because there was nothing out there, but because nobody told her it existed. That’s a mistake I don’t want repeated on my watch.
If you take one thing from this: you don’t have to have the whole plan figured out today. You just have to make one call. Start with 211 if you don’t know where else to start — they’ll point you toward whoever’s actually equipped to help with your specific situation, whether that’s keeping a family financially afloat, getting a kid connected to a mentor before things go further, or just having somebody to talk to who’s been where you are.
You’re not the only family holding this. It just feels that way in the quiet.
— Brandon