Nothing could’ve prepared Bonnie Kane, of Bensalem, for the death of her 20-year-old son in 2017.
Morgan was known for his big heart and selflessness, never hesitating to befriend someone who was struggling or, quite literally, give the clothes off his back to a person in need. All the while, he was fighting his own demons.
After battling drug addiction for some years and getting clean twice, Morgan was given a fatal dose of fentanyl by a “friend,” who, explained Kane, was trying to push him back into using. This same friend once called Kane “mom” and slept at her house. Kane was the one to find her son deceased.
“It doesn’t matter how old they are. I could’ve been 80 years old. If my son died at 50, I would still not be OK because it just doesn’t feel natural,” said Kane. “But you have to find new purpose. If you don’t find purpose, then what are you doing? Because you will not be OK.”
A new purpose was soon discovered, with Kane obtaining her master’s degree in mental health counseling. Kane was already a Pennsylvania Licensed Massage Therapist and Intermediate Myofascial Release Therapist, in addition to a spiritual medium, but she wanted to do something to help individuals — especially kids, teens and young adults — who are facing similar struggles to Morgan.
“If I could help kids not get to the point his friends were at, the ones that contributed to his death, then that’s even better. Kids relate to me. I’m very down to earth. I’m very open-hearted,” said Kane. “I’m a mom to all in a lot of ways.”
Kane completed the internship for her master’s degree at Saint Vincent Home, a group home in Bensalem that offers social services and educational resources to teenagers.
“I felt like I was around all of Morgan’s friends again. They’re good kids who had a bad shake at life,” she said. “I was stressed that I wouldn’t find something [an internship], and then the Catholic Church popped in my head. I’m not religious, but I believe Morgan popped the thought in my head so that I’d reach out to them.”
Now, in addition to working part-time at Saint Vincent Home, Kane is the founder of Bensalem’s Mind Body Soul Wellness Center, where clients of all ages can receive holistic treatment for emotional, physical and spiritual wellness through mental health therapy, Myofascial Release and more.
Yet understandably, the discovery of this fresh purpose was not immediate. After Morgan’s passing, Kane held much anger for some time. After all, the two shared an extremely close and special bond for the entirety of his life. She fondly recalled the “smirk smile” he’d give her when he wanted to say something funny, but knew he shouldn’t.
In fact, it was Kane whom Morgan turned to for help both times he wanted to get clean. Even when Morgan began stealing from his mom, a common action of those in the throes of addiction, he didn’t take anything too important — just a few video games that he knew she didn’t play anymore.
“He left the case and just took out the game,” Kane said with a teary laugh. “It wasn’t until after he died that I realized he did that. He didn’t use long enough for me to be mad at him like some parents get.”
Still, Kane was mad that her son was gone, especially given the fact that he had been clean for four months. For several weeks after his passing, Kane found herself drinking at least 10 beers every Tuesday night (she found Morgan on a Tuesday), and feeling confused about her actions the next morning. Realizing she couldn’t continue in that manner, she made the instant decision to stop.
It’s not lost on her that she could’ve kept numbing the pain and self-destructing. This was especially true when she started physically “falling apart,” having been diagnosed with breast cancer and cancer of the uterus a year after Morgan died, and undergoing a full hysterectomy.
“I honestly know it’s because he died, and that the areas that gave him life were being attacked,” said Kane, who said no one else in her family has ever been diagnosed with cancer.
But she knew that’s not what Morgan would’ve wanted for her. Kane, who has been cancer-free for five years, no longer has such anger in her heart, even toward the friend who gave Morgan the fentanyl. This friend is currently incarcerated and, each December, Kane attends a parole hearing.
“How do you hate somebody who you know? It doesn’t mean I didn’t for a while. I was very angry with him. I just learned that I’m not someone to hold hate in my heart, and I have to forgive him for my own health and my own sanity. So I did. It doesn’t stop the pain, but I really do forgive him,” she said.
Of course, some days are still hard, with grief rearing its ugly head when Kane least expects it. One day, she saw a child at the store who looked just like Morgan at that age, and couldn’t help but cry. Recently, Kane learned that one of Morgan’s close friends got married. Though she’s happy for the friend, it’s devastating to think about how life is moving on without her son, and how he’ll never get to experience such an important milestone.
“I miss everything about him,” said Kane, who honors Morgan twice a year, on his birthday and death day, with a barbecue. “The best way to say it is, wherever he was, I was. He was always home, and his friends always came to our house. Every one of his friends would call me ‘mama,’ they always knew they could get food. And if there were a lot of them, I was ordering pizza. My house was the place to be, especially when they were teenagers. In some ways when he passed, I lost all that, too, all the kids. You don’t realize how much you lose sometimes until it’s gone.”
When Morgan started using heroin, Kane questioned where she went wrong in her parenting: “I remember asking him, ‘Why? What am I missing? How does somebody go from marijuana to heroin?’ And he just said, ‘Nothing, nothing.’ ”
Kane later learned that a friend gave Morgan a joint laced with heroin and didn’t tell him. It was at that point that Morgan, who wanted to experience that same high again, made the switch. But even during his addiction, Morgan maintained his big heart. After his death, Kane learned that, while in Kensington with a friend on a cold winter night, he gave to a man, who was likely in the throes of addiction himself, the coat off his back and $5.
While much of the country is pointing its finger at the border crisis as the main reason for drug uptick in America, Kane begs to differ.
When asked what can be done to prevent others from experiencing the same fate as Morgan, she said, “With how kids are struggling today, stop saying, ‘I don’t know why this is so hard on you, you have it easy.’ Because the kids don’t. And that’s just ignoring what they’re trying to say. Mental health, a lot of people think it’s just the crazy side, but a lot of it is the anxiety and stress levels through the roof. If we can take mental health seriously and make that a little more normalized, as well as insurance companies not forcing deductibles and copays on people for mental health, I think there would be more people who can work through pain and trauma. It’s the microtraumas that everyone ignores. Listen to your kids. Pause.”
Samantha Bambino can be reached at sbambino@donnelly.media
