The Purple Cup

This is a purple cup. 

It’s a small, plastic, beach toy for building sand castles.  It was part of a set but, the others were lost years ago.

I hang on to it because of my son.

About 14 years ago, we were camping at the beach in Carpinteria.  My wife’s mother had given Nick this set of plastic toys to play with on our trip.  He was thrilled. He was excited. He spent the whole weekend making sand castles with the new toy that Grandma gave him.

It was important to him to make really good castles because he wanted to make Grandma proud.  He wanted us to take a lot of pictures to show Grandma all his hard work.

Toward the end of the trip, we were making castles down by the water.  The tide was coming in and it caught us off-guard, knocking over our latest creation and washing it back into the ocean.

Along with the castle, this small, purple cup was picked up and carried out into a vast, uncaring ocean. It was nearly sunset, and the light wasn’t very good.  The cup is a dark purple. It is almost impossible to see in the cloudy, churning water, even in the best of light.

Nick chased after the cup and began crying hysterically.  “My Cup! My Purple Cup! Grandma gave it to me! We need to find it!”

My wife and I did what any parent would do.  We joined him in his hopeless quest to find the long-gone purple cup.  We were making an honest effort to try and find it but we knew that the odds were against us.  We were searching while mentally preparing our “Well, we did our best but we just weren’t able to find it.” speech.  He refused to give up and was crying hysterically the whole time.

His crying attracted the attention of two teenage girls who were playing in the nearby surf.  They saw how sad he was and offered to help.

So there we were, the 5 of us, looking for something that we knew was long gone. We knew we’d never find it but Nick refused to give up hope so, we all kept looking. As long as there was a slight chance of finding it, we would not let him down.  The sun had already set and there were only a few more minutes of daylight left.

Nick saw the cup first.  He pointed towards where one of the girls was standing and shouted “My cup!”.  Sure enough, there it was floating in the water, violently being tossed around in the crashing waves.  The girl headed for it but the tide took it back before she could get to it.  It was lost AGAIN.  But, this time, we at least knew where we should be looking.

It was a very dramatic next few minutes.  With 10 eyes covering the dimly lit, foaming ocean, we felt we at least had a fighting chance.  Two or three more times we saw it and lost it. The ocean didn’t care whether or not we got it back.

Finally, it washed in close enough to one of the girls feet and she was able to rescue it from the cold, unsympathetic ocean.

Nick was SO HAPPY!  The tears were still there but, they were happy tears now.  We thanked and hugged the strangers for helping us in our time of need.  Well, Nick thanked them but he didn’t hug them; he was holding onto his purple cup with both hands and refused to let go.

I don’t know where the rest of the set is, but I still have his purple cup. Even my wife and I have separated since then, but I still have the cup.

Two weeks ago, I learned that Nick has been smoking meth.

We knew that something was terribly wrong but we didn’t know what.  He graduated high school in June and went into a downward spiral after that.  It took us months to finally come to grips with how bad he had gotten.

He wrecked my car, punched holes in the walls of the house, verbally abused his entire family, and wanted nothing to do with any of us.

We tried everything we could do but, once we finally realized how bad he had gotten, we pleaded with him to go to rehab. Finally, he agreed.

He’s there now and I hope that he is making progress.  I am scared for him. I know that this isn’t something I can do for him. I know that no matter how much I encourage and support him, it will ultimately be his decision. 

Nick is now the tiny, purple cup.  He’s lost. He’s been swallowed up by an uncaring, unfeeling  ocean of addiction that doesn’t give a shit if he ever sees the light of day again.

The small boy who cared so deeply for his family is gone.  I know he’s out there, taking a beating in the tide, somewhere, but the light is getting dim and I can’t see him.  

This time, I’m the one standing on the shore, screaming his name, and crying hysterically at the same time. I want him to come back in but I’m afraid he can’t  hear me over the breaking tide.

I don’t know if I’ll ever find my son again.  I’m hoping that with the help of my friends, family, and maybe some total strangers, one of us will be able to help him pull himself ashore again because I really miss my little boy.

I’m hanging on to the cup for him.  I hope to be able to give it back to him one day.