TREADS OF GRACE
Raising her two sons as a single mother in Washington, D.C., author Eliza Richards struggles to find a way to support her family and give her boys the best life she can. But as they mature, both sons—quite separately from each other—become addicts. The eldest enters recovery in Minnesota, and eventually establishes his own highly successful addiction-recovery services. Her younger son—bright, brimming with life and vastly charismatic—nonetheless falls into addiction, too, but he cannot escape its hold well into middle age. Despite her son’s repeated relapses and apparent determination to destroy his life, his mother never gives up on him—although she is often encouraged to do so. He lives on a chaotic, treacherous, and sometimes tragic knife edge until, somehow, he becomes determined to change.
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Threads of Grace is a prodigal-son story like no other, the tale of a mother’s unbreakable bond with an exasperating son whom she loves deeply. It’s a story of heartbreak and faith, desperation and, just possibly, redemption. The author is a retired financial advisor in Washington, and this is her first book. It’s one that will make you despair, then profoundly remind you that each of us can always choose hope.
Excerpt
MY SON ROBIN was on my mind; he was almost always on my mind. But this was different. Something was wrong with him. I felt it. But I couldn’t find him. I had tried for several days in that summer of 2008 to reach him in rural northern California where he lived, but he never picked up his phone.
A few times in the past I had hired detectives to look for Robin, but this time was different. Lewis Martinez, a detective I had worked with before, hadn’t been able to find out anything. Robin might be down in the Central Valley town of Visalia, and he might be in the hospital there. But other than sharing that possibility with me, he said he really couldn’t help.
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I called Mark Smith, a physician I knew who the head of emergency services at the Washington Hospital Center, to see if he could make some calls to find out if Robin was in the hospital in Visalia. But because of HIPAA privacy laws, Mark was told by the people he spoke with at Visalia’s Kaweah Health Medical Center that they couldn’t say if Robin was a patient there, let alone what condition he was in if he was a patient.
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When Mark called to tell me he had struck out, he said the only way I could find out about Robin’s condition would be to fly out there myself. I was in my early 70s; I had COPD and long flights weren’t easy, but I couldn’t just sit and hope that Robin—or someone—would call to tell me he was okay.
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So, on July 25, I got on a plane and made an eight-hour, one-stop flight to Fresno and a fifty-mile taxi trip to the Visalia hospital. I told the lady at the reception desk that I was there to see my son Robin Fleming, and that I understood privacy laws and I wanted to speak with the head of the hospital. She told me to take a seat in a waiting area, so I sat for what seemed like a very long time. Eventually, I was approached by a man who introduced himself as Steven Kennedy, a detective sergeant with the Visalia police department.
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He inspected every piece of identification I could produce, then told me that Robin was a patient at the hospital. He had been shot in the heart, liver, and lung and was in extremely serious condition. Robin had been taken to the emergency entrance to the hospital in a pickup truck and left there to get inside on his own. He made it inside before he collapsed and was rushed into surgery, where three surgeons worked side by side to perform a sternotomy, an exploratory laparotomy, repair of the right ventricle of his heart, the bullet wound to his right lung, extensive liver damage, and pack and wash his interior abdominal cavity. The surgeons had not expected him to live, so when they finished the surgery, they draped him with sterile towels instead of closing the massive incision in his chest because it seemed likely that they would have to go in again if his condition worsened.
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As we sat in waiting-room chairs, Detective Kennedy told me the Visalia police had no idea who shot Robin or who drove him to the hospital. Then he led me through a long labyrinth of corridors to an isolated and dimly lit room where Robin was lying in bed. I don’t know why, but while I was traveling I had stopped at a pawn shop—a place I had never been to before—and bought a small gold locket with the last lines of an anonymous poem called “Footsteps in the Sand” engraved on it. The poet asks God why, in some of the most difficult times of his life when God had promised to be with him, he saw only one set of footprints trailing behind him in the sand. God replies: My precious child, I love you and will never leave you. Never, ever, during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.
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I pinned the locket to a light sea-green mohair throw that for many years I have kept at the foot of my bed at home; it was something both boys had liked since they were young and a small comfort from home. I covered Robin with the small blanket—the words attached to it with a safety pin. Just then, he opened his eyes and saw me. I told him I loved him, told him to go back to sleep, and said I would come back.
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When I left the room, Kennedy was waiting outside, and he walked me back to the hospital entrance. When he asked where I’d be staying, I told him I thought I would stay at the motel I’d seen that was adjacent to the hospital, and he walked there with me, he pointed out a restaurant across the street where I could eat while I was in town. He was very pleasant and seemed genuinely concerned about my welfare. It never crossed my mind that at that moment the detective was taking charge of me to be sure that I wasn’t in danger myself. Later I realized that he was afraid the shooter might want to kill me, too.
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After dinner, I went back to the hospital and walked again through the maze of hallways to Robin’s room. I found him sleeping quietly, the mohair throw still draped over him. I was careful not to wake him. The next day, I spent all day at the hospital, although Robin slept most of the time. He would occasionally wake up for a moment or two. I was terrified that he would die—die alone—so I didn’t want to leave him. But I did go back to the motel each night for several nights in a row. Then I flew home to Washington and went back to work, Robin’s condition slowly stabilizing although he was still in terrible pain.
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I returned to Visalia three weeks later. This time I rented a car and I brought with me a book, Water for Elephants, which I had enjoyed and thought Robin would, too, when he was well enough to read. When I saw him at the hospital this time, not only was he well enough to read, but he could also sit up in bed, carry on a conversation, and he had been visited by two friends.
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The next day, I met with Dr. Han Soo Kim—the principal surgeon who had operated on Robin. Dr. Kim seemed to be a kind and gentle man. He told me that it had been an “all hands” effort to save Robin’s life. They had nearly lost him several times while he was on the operating table, but he neither he nor Detective Kennedy could tell me anything about the shooting. And Robin made no comment. He said he had never before seen the guy who shot him, and he certainly didn’t know why he had been shot, nor did he know who had driven him to the hospital and why he or she had rushed away. I didn’t believe any of that.
Endorsements
"This story of a son's long haul to responsible adulthood is nothing short of remarkable. At the heart of Threads of Grace is the mother who never gives up—even when both her sons, her only children, become addicts. If you know one such dedicated parent, or are one yourself, you'll find a comrade-in-arms in Eliza Richards."
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SUE WESTWIND,
author of The Land Erotic and Lunacy Lost
Eliza Richards is a retired financial planner who lives in Washington, DC, which has been her home for many years. Her late father had a distinguished career as a cavalry officer in the U.S. Army, and she is a direct descendant of Francis Scott Key, who composed "The Star-Spangled Banner." She is the mother of two sons and has three grandchildren. Threads of Grace is her first book.
