With my arm draped around my almost five-year-old grandson, I draw him close as he munches on his cheese burger. We’re nestled in a booth at his favorite fast food restaurant.
Then, his question: “PopPop, you won’t let any mean man get me, will you?”
I know why he asks.
Not long ago, we had watched Dennis the Menace, the 1993 family comedy film, in which a burglar (Switchblade Sam) takes five-year-old Dennis Mitchell hostage. The humor reaches its apex when Dennis in effect takes the burglar hostage. As Dennis brings a battered and bruised Switchblade Sam to the police at the close of the movie, the Chief of Police smiles at the burglar, “I see you’ve gotten acquainted with our Dennis Mitchell.”
Eli, Gigi, and I laughed our way through the film, cheering Dennis on as he innocently antagonized the burglar, whom Eli refers to as “the mean man.”
That’s what prompted Eli’s question, but before I could properly answer him, a young lady floated by, as if she were in another world—not a good one.
I had seen her walking the streets several times the past week. I was afraid for her as she teetered from one edge of the sidewalk to the other. “Drugs,” I thought.
Then, there she was in the fast food restaurant, having an animated conversation with herself.
Maybe I’m wrong in my assessment of her state of being: I hope I am. But if I’m right, she is by no means alone. Thousands like her try to maneuver through “another day in paradise,” in the words of pop singer, Phil Collins.
Drug addictions have reached epidemic proportions in our country. Particularly, pain killer and heroin abuse are rampant. Thousands who started out with pain killers— for example, OxyContin, now use heroin. The reason is a simple matter of economics. According to the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy website, an 80 mg OxyContin pill costs between $60-$100 on the street. Heroin, on the other hand, is only about $9 a dose. The risks are enormous, however: more and more heroin is being laced with fentanyl, an extremely potent opioid. In Kentucky alone, fatal overdoses totaled 1,404 in 2016, a 7.4 percent increase from the previous year.
Kentucky Governor, Matt Bevin, has said, “We don’t have the luxury of pretending there isn’t a massive problem. The consequences of the opioid crisis are far-reaching, affecting every corner of our communities.”
As the young lady wandered out of the restaurant, I pulled Eli a little closer to me.
She was a little girl, once, I thought. I wondered if her dad, or mom, or granddad, or grandmother had once held her close and cuddled her, like I had Eli, envisioning a bright future for the child. Surely, they had.
Eli feared “the mean man,” and of course, he should be aware of “stranger danger.” But the “mean man” can come to our children in other forms, too, and he should fear them: a pill, a bottle, a syringe, a powder. The “mean man” can consume and destroy its hostages as surely as a Switchblade Sam.
What can families do to prevent the “mean man,” drugs, from invading our households and taking our children?
The basics sound simple: stay involved in your children’s lives, watch what kind of friends they have, instill in them your core values, make them work and or get involved in team sports, and pray that they will be sensitive to spiritual matters. As a pastor, I underscore the importance of church involvement. Don’t send them to church: take them to church.
But there are no guarantees. It may look easy; it rarely is. We did all those things, and still one of our four invited the “mean man” of drugs into his life.
But, never forget, there is ALWAYS hope. Our one who got snagged by drugs is almost one year clean. It’s still a work in progress.
“Don’t you worry about the ‘mean man,’ Eli,” I tell him as I put his French Fries and burger in the box to take home, giving him another strong hug.
“You’ve got a good momma and daddy who will protect you, and the police will too. And PopPop will come after anyone who tries to get you.”
“You’d better believe he will, Eli, you’d better believe he will.”