Enable

Enable, according to Webster’s North American Dictionary, means: (1) to provide somebody with means; to provide somebody with the resources, authority, or opportunity to do something. (2) make something possible; to make something possible or feasible.
Just add an “er” to the end and you can easily become the person doing these things for someone else; the “enabler.” I am not really sure that makes sense. If you think of the free-will that we all possess how are we really enabling somebody else? Would they not be doing “it” if we didn’t authorize it, provide the resources or the opportunity for them? Where does free-will come into that? Are we to assume that the “enabled” would not find a way to do whatever “it” is without the help of the “enabler”?
When my brother, who is on his way to becoming an addiction therapist, was my brother, the heroin addict, my mom use to say that she should not have enabled him. I could never really understand how she did that. He didn’t live at home, he was well passed the age of consent, she didn’t give him money, nor did she authorize the use of illegal drugs, so according to Webster’s she really doesn’t fit the definition.
What she did do was love him unconditionally. No matter how far down he sank he knew she loved him. When he was ready to get help, guess who he went to? The one person he knew would not judge him, or throw him away, but would get him the help he needed; Mom. Was her love enabling? Maybe by somebody’s definition; somebody who doesn’t have children or who has never had to watch as a child tries time and time again to end the pain of their existence.
The principal of my son’s elementary school called today to give me a piece of her mind. When my son called in horrible emotional pain and asked me to come to his school and help him, I went. I was cleaning the house, not at work, or school just home doing chores. I went to the school. I helped him get it together and got him back to class. The principal told me I was enabling him. The child who had not been out of bed for fifteen hours because he was too depressed to move. The same one who goes to school day in and day out and he truly believes everyone there hates him. This child whom, at the age of eleven, begs everyday just to die and end the pain that his life, seems to him, to be.
So I listened to this woman who works with kids, but has never had any of her own. She has probably never stood at the grave of a child who succeeded in permanently ending the pain. I doubt she has ever sat in the psychic ward waiting room to spend thirty minutes with a nine year old that the hospital will only let you visit every other day. A child who you must have enabled, in some way, to attempt suicide. Enable-provide the resources, authority, or opportunity to do something. This does not fit me or the relationship I have with my child. If I have enabled him then it was with unconditional love so he would be able to come to me and tell me that he was afraid he would succeed in killing himself this time, but he didn’t want to die; just to stop the pain.
I listened and I held my tongue. I did not apologize for my actions. I did not agree with her. I did not tell her I would not run to his rescue again. But I did wonder how somebody with so much education could be so ignorant. I felt sorry for her. She had probably never had the chance to love somebody so unconditionally that she would give her life to make theirs better. Give everything to make their pain end even if it was just for a day. Just long enough to make it through one more school day.
If that is enabling then yes, I am an enabler. I will continue to enable my child to live in this cruel world one more day, year, decade, lifetime. I owe that to him because I am his mother. I don’t know if others can understand that. Those who are not mothers, fathers, grandparents. Somebody who has never stood by the grave of a child and tried to comfort a mother who found her child dead on the bathroom floor. I stood beside her and wondered if one day I would be standing where she was?
I listened to the principal and I thought about what she had said. I thought about what this all really meant. I asked myself…Would I stop the pain if I could? Would I take away my son’s disorder? Will I work to find a cure for his illness? Will I continue to love him unconditionally? Yes. Yes, to all of these questions. Yes, he is lucky to have me and I am lucky to have him. I will be fortunate if my child is with me for another day, year, decade, lifetime. If he is not, I will know that while I had him in my life I loved him with everything I had to give and he will have left knowing that. Never doubting my love or how I enabled him to grow, live, and love unconditionally.