This Side of the Clouds

June 29, 2015 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

It’s a beautiful summer day in Kentucky. Weather is in the 70’s with a breeze. The sun is peeking in and out from behind the clouds. My property is a little over an acre. I have a hammock that sits out in the middle of my backyard of mostly grass. I walked out to the yard and laid on my hammock today.

I found myself staring at the crisp white clouds floating in the blue sky. I thought of how far that sky goes past those clouds. I thought of Riley and then I thought, Is heaven up there? Is he up there? We usually look up for heaven. Where is heaven? Then I started talking to him.

I said, “Riley, I am sorry this happened to you.” I pictured his face, his long blonde hair, his smile and my bottom lip started that quiver that I know so well now. The tears came for a few minutes like a cleanse. It happens like that a lot. One thought, one memory of Riley causes water flowing down my cheeks. It was only a few tears this time. Sometimes that is all I need. I kept staring at the clouds.

I truly am sorry. It shouldn’t have happened. He didn’t plan for it to happen. He thought he was doing something cool on his 18th birthday. He didn’t know. He couldn’t have known that his first try of acid would end like that. That he would die.

I wish he hadn’t tried the acid alone. I wish he hadn’t tried it at all. I wish the person that made the tab hadn’t screwed up. I wish that the little weasel that bought it online and sold it to him wasn’t still walking around and dealing. The kids at school knew who sold it to him. There was a hush and whispering as he showed up at the memorial and as he sat there at the funeral. How does he live with himself I wonder. I want him to stop selling. I fear for other teens lives that buy from him.

I wish LSD wasn’t being made or being sold period. I wish kids realized they don’t know what they are buying. They have poison in their hands. So many teens are dieing on the first try of a drug. They are dropping dead. Teens like Riley, like Montana, like Sam who went looking for something to do on a weekend, looking for a high.

This is the deal…..Drugs kill. There is so much crap out there. Even pot can be laced with other drugs. What you think you are buying is probably not what you are getting. Synthetic weed is killing teens like Connor. It is still legal in many states and sold in convenience stores. Teens are dieing. Dead. Gone because of a chase of a high. It may sound fun at the time. Of course they don’t want to or plan to die. These teens had things to do the next day, things they were looking forward to.

As I find my high in other ways, I wish our teens would learn to do the same. There is so much around us to enjoy. To make our hearts skip a beat, to feel light, free, excited. For me it is the cool breeze on my face, the sun shining, the dirt under my fingernails, the skip of my heart when I climb a tree or dance with no one looking. I like the feeling of finishing a good book, good food, a good laugh, an intense conversation, and winning an argument.

What makes your heart skip a beat? Do that. Not drugs. Skip the drugs, put them away, get help if you need it. Live, Laugh, Love… Grow, Be challenged. Don’t die. Live Please Live.

I’m sorry Riley that this happened to you. You should be here laughing, shaking your head at me, being irritated at my constant questions while asking for a back scratch. You should be laying with me on my hammock having a good long talk about where heaven is. I miss you. I wish you were here. You should be playing your guitar under the blue sky – on this side of the clouds.

I Love You, Riley.

A Roller Coaster Ride

June 8, 2015June 9, 2015 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

Joy! Roller Coaster Ride, Choir Trip 2014

The pattern of Grief is a roller coaster ride. You never know what is coming day-to-day. There are good weeks and there are terribly bad weeks. I have recently made it through some of those terribly bad weeks that came with the one year anniversary of Riley’s death in May. I have moved into a feeling of numb but I am functioning. I am trying to recoop. I am trying to live. Once you go through one of the stages of grief, it doesn’t mean that you won’t ever feel it again. This I have learned. You might visit stages out of order, skip one, come back to another and repeat. My grief is not going anywhere. This I know.

This past weekend I attended The Great American Brass Band Festival in Danville, Kentucky. I took my chair and I planted myself on the grass with my camera in hand. What I saw around me were people of all ages eating ice cream, drinking drinks listening to music while sitting on the lawn. The stage was a gazebo. The backdrop was an old brick building, green grass, trees, pretty flowers with the sun going down and the fireflies blinking. As the bands played, children waved around light sticks. The patrons Moms, Dads, children danced close to the stage to the brass music from the bayou. The weather was perfect. The music was wonderful. Laughter echoed around me. I was thoroughly enjoying myself.

Staring at the band, I focused on the tuba player. Oh, so innocently, I thought… Riley would like this event. And there the sharp edge of grief snuck in. It crept straight to my eyes and they puddled. It leaked into my heart and it ached. It was a quick thought that turned into a slump of my shoulders, a limpness of my extremities and a squeeze of my heart. The joy of the moment was instantly replaced.

You see, Riley was a band kid. He had moved from the saxophone to the tuba his sophomore year of high school. He played the tuba well just like every other instrument he took interest in. On Friday nights, we sat in the stands at the football games to hear him play. Over the years we sat in the seats of the Chandler Center for the Arts for his orchestra concerts. I volunteered in the band’s booster club. Band was a part of Riley.

This being a brass band event, I noticed a lot of saxophones and sousaphones (tubas) in the parade the next day. That didn’t make me cry. I wasn’t crying all weekend. It’s just those moments that all of a sudden grab you and yank you down. Like on a trip to the grocery store I was in the frozen food aisle, I saw a frozen pizza made with white sauce and a memory of having dinner with Riley at a restaurant came to mind. He ordered pizza with white sauce. The instant memory of conversation and laughter during dinner that night hit me straight on. That evening we spent together eating pizza was not long before he died. It was a good night.

So in the middle of the store, in a split second my mind went from what do I need at the grocery store to Riley. The tears welled up in my eyes, they sneaked down my cheeks while I stared blindly at a cold glass door thinking about my dead son that I will never share pizza with again. People walked around me as I continuously wiped each tear until the tears ceased and then I resumed my hunt for the next item on the list.

The realization that this is my life is in my face. I will forever have thoughts of my son and subsequent tears. Riley was lost by a first time try of LSD bought online. My youngest boy who had a whole life ahead of him of college and a future is gone by a decision to mess with a drug. This is my life now because of his decision and the consequences of it.

I am me, but I am not me anymore. It’s like rediscovering life with a hole in my heart. It is trudging through the poop, the waste, the knee-high water that rises in front of me. Like a tide it disappears and reappears. This is grief. It is my life in the absence of my son who was a part of me.

I miss that part of me so very much. I am here living this altered life I didn’t ask for. What I ask is that my grief not be in vain. That the loss this world has suffered by Riley not being in it anymore be a story to be told to young adults who are and will be faced with the decision to try a drug. It is what keeps me telling Riley’s story. It is what has nailed me to the seat of the ups and downs on this roller coaster ride. It is my hope that lives are saved by my speaking out.

I Love You, Riley.

A Story No Parent Wants To Hear

June 1, 2015June 1, 2015 / djuanadreed / 1 Comment

Prom photo taken one week before Riley died.

A year ago, on June 1st, 2014, an article was published on the front page of the Sunday edition of The Arizona Republic Newspaper written by Karina Bland, a well known Arizona journalist. She wrote the article telling Riley’s story through her eyes as she read the very first post that I did on Facebook the day after Riley died, I HATE DRUGS! I didn’t skip a beat, I screamed as loud as I could in my pain asking my friends to tell Riley’s story. I wrote it like I felt it. I told the facts as I knew them.

It was a nightmare that first day. It is an ongoing nightmare one year later. I held on for a long time that maybe I would wake up. That it wasn’t true. That Riley would walk around the corner and say, “Hi Mom”. That I would breath again. After a year of holding my breath, I’m sure it’s true. This is real and nothing will bring Riley back.

Riley is still with us in our hearts and memories. He is changing lives by his fate of trying a drug for the first time. I hate that! But if his story saves someone else from his fate then that’s a good thing in the midst of all the bad.

In the months of June and July, the use of drugs and alcohol spikes. Now is the time to share Riley’s story. The message to teens is: You are not invincible. It can happen. It can happen even on the first try. You don’t know what you are taking, smoking, drinking, inhaling. You can’t know how it will effect you. That curiosity, that temptation to try it is not worth the gamble of your life.

That’s what Riley would say.

I say, I HATE DRUGS!!

I Love You, Riley