Riley’s Light Still Burns

December 30, 2015 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

385_10208519924902712_7427177614674201900_n Here in Danville, KY a family run funeral home lights Christmas wreaths on their porch during Christmas time. Each wreath is made up of candles that are lit for the people whom they have served in the last two years. These candles, these lights of love, glow from their porch. There are extra spaces each year for those that request that a candle be lit for their loved one. I asked that a candle be lit for Riley.

With a brief service of a prayer, song and poem, beyond a table laid out with cookies, punch and eggnog, we lit the candles representing our loved ones. The wreaths came to life. The candles glow steadily from December 23rd through Christmas day.

On Christmas Eve, when the sun had set, with a heavy heart, I went to visit Riley’s candle. As I drove up, the sight of the candles burning brightly gave me a sense of peace. Riley is not alone. It was a beautiful site to see. The wreaths glowed lighting up the dark night representing those loved ones who have passed on like my son. 920656_929498877144061_8033021330807268661_o

I climbed the stairs, sat down on the floor of the porch, looked at Riley’s candle and immediately began to cry. In true Riley fashion, Riley’s candle was smack dab in the middle of the first row of the bottom of the opening of the wreath. There he was front and center. I watched the flame flicker. His candle was flickering just like his love for others. Like my love for him, the candle burned steadily and strong.

My mind flickers to memories of Riley this holiday season. The pain this holiday season is as strong as when we lost him. I cry for myself and my loss. For the hole in my universe without him here. I miss my sweet baby boy in more ways than I can count. The pain cuts through me leaving me wounded, limp, numb. I want to sit down next to him, loop my arm in his, lay my head on his shoulder and thank him again for being him. His smile, his humor lit up a room. His memories glow within me.

People stopped by to see the candles while I sat there. I sat still during the commotion trying not to invade their moments with their candles. I tried to leave Riley’s candle a couple of times, but ended up plopping back down to watch his light bounce. I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t go yet. 12391257_930852490342033_6848398570400369481_n

Then a woman and a teenage boy pulled up in a car. They went straight to the candles on the wreath on the left taking pictures of the specific names they were looking for. The woman unexpectedly walked over to me and asked if I was there for someone. I replied, “My son, Riley”. The teen boy with her peeked his head around her and said, “I knew you looked familiar. Riley has a candle here? Where is it? I want to take a picture and post it.” I pointed at Riley’s candle and said, “You’ve heard me speak?” He said, “Yes.” He told me that he had his WWRD bracelet. There was more that he said, I can’t recall it well enough to repeat it as I was hanging on to what was happening.

Here on the porch, in the dark, in a town I’ve only been apart of for a short time, a kind woman had just reached out to me and a sweet boy had shared with me that Riley’s story had been heard. There was light coming from a different direction on the porch now.

I have sat in a chair in front of groups of kids to tell Riley’s story in hopes that they will remember that it can happen in just one try, that they aren’t invincible, that drugs kill. Some of the kids line up afterwards to hug me. They say their condolences. They tell me stories of how drugs have effected their lives. As hard as it is to relive the loss of my son each time that I tell his story, I am continuously rewarded with how Riley’s story has made an impact on lives.

Coming from a big city to a small town is rewarding in many ways. The holidays have consisted of lit up store windows, town Christmas traditions, and decorations that line Main Street, but especially, what sticks with me most is how loving and caring people are to strangers.

This woman whom I had not met before that night, a local shop owner, standing on the Stith Funeral Home porch gave me a hug. She went on to invite me to come along with them to their Christmas Eve celebration and even furthered her kindness to tell me about their Sunday afternoons of lunch and watching old movies. If I ever wanted to come, I was welcome.

I am welcome here. Riley is welcome here. His light burns in hearts of teens that never knew him. They feel they know him now. So after a Christmas that was pure hell in so many ways, I sit here thankful that Riley still lights up a room…a porch. Riley’s light still burns.

I Love You, Riley.

What Would Riley Do Bracelets

November 20, 2015November 20, 2015 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

As the requests increase for me to speak and tell Riley’s story to groups, the requests for WWRD (What Would Riley Do) bracelets increase as well. I have been giving the bracelets out to whoever wants one when I speak. My thinking is it is a reminder of Riley’s story and perhaps seeing the bracelet will make a person think twice about using a drug. It also may spurn a person to tell Riley’s story to someone.

This is creating a financial strain on me since I can be speaking to 250 students at a time. I have created a Go Fund Me account so that I can take donations. I will only be using the money to cover the cost of the bracelets.

What Would Riley Do if given the chance again to try a drug? He’d choose to not do it. He’d say, “It’s not worth it.”

If you feel led to help me spread Riley’s story with these bracelets, donations can be made at www.gofundme.com/WWRDbracelets

Speaking to Save a Life

November 8, 2015 / djuanadreed / 5 Comments

As the weather changes, as the brisk air chills me, as the beautiful colors of fall are around me, I feel like a zombie that stuck around from Halloween. I am staring ahead and putting one foot in front of the other with my arms stretched straight out guiding me to the next destination. All this while there is an ache that is heavy weighing down my heart. The ache does not let up. It hurts.

Perhaps it is the change of weather triggering the sense of the seasons of holidays ahead. Holidays are hard for those who are grieving the loss of a loved one. Perhaps it is one of the waves of intense grief that come and go. That happens. Perhaps it is those things and all of the speaking I have been doing telling Riley’s story.

To speak and tell Riley’s story takes strength in a new form for me. If you have ever heard me speak, I have a small “baby” voice. Yes, it is true. It has been my whole adult life that the phone rings, I answer and the sales person on the other end says, “Is your Mom home?” and my regular reply is, “I am the Mom.” I have to work to speak loud enough for the room to hear me.

I do not speak in front of people well. My mind gets jumbled. I cannot remember everything I would have written skillfully with purpose and order. I have no skill in speaking. I have quit worrying about skill- instead of trying to do it perfectly, I sit down and tell Riley’s story to the students. I talk to the teens as if they were in my home sitting on the couch with me. Mother mode is easy for me.

Mother mode also opens me up to feel for who I am talking to. I want to protect those precious lives in front of me.

To tell Riley’s story over and over is to relive my nightmare. To speak to the students as a mother who has lost her child to drugs, to beg for them to hear his story and make a different choice than Riley made is draining. It is an opportunity I am thankful for.

I want Riley’s death to not be in vain. My hope is that Riley’s story saves a life.

The impact of my telling his story has already shown as teens (both boys and girls) line up to hug me when I am done. Many step up to me with tears in their eyes. Some uncontrollably crying, telling me their experiences with drugs. This is the case often for the teens that are living with drugs and addiction in their family- these experiences have affected them deeply. Kids are coming into the counselors’ offices individually- needing to talk, to share, to ask for help.

If you have been following me over the last year, you may know about the purple WWRD (What Would Riley Do) bracelets that were made by Riley’s friends to wear and remember the unconditional love he gave to others. I have been handing them out to the students when I speak.

I share the original purpose of the bracelets because that is who Riley was. I also tell the students, I am hoping that when they look at the bracelet, they think to themselves, What Would Riley Do? Riley would say it’s not worth it. He was looking forward to college. He didn’t even get to walk across the stage and get that high school diploma. His life stopped at 18 because of trying a drug.

The bracelets have become something the students are embracing. If they didn’t get one, they are stopping in the counselor office and asking for one. Perhaps the bracelet gets thrown into a drawer, ends up under their bed or thrown into a jewelry box. Perhaps in the moment they need to remember Riley’s story, that person opens the drawer, finds it under the bed or inside the jewelry box and remembers a boy like them died by his choice to try a drug.

It is like playing russian roulette using drugs. You do not know what you have. Riley didn’t. There are too many stories to count of teens who have died using drugs for the first time. It only takes one try. If there isn’t death, there are teens in wheel chairs, half blind, in a hospital bed on a ventilator and many others are chained to drugs by addiction. Addiction ruins lives, is difficult to beat and all too often ends in death.

I HATE DRUGS. I hate that Riley is not here on this earth anymore because of them.

I wish I was making a phone call to Riley in his dorm at NAU to hear about his week. Instead I am looking out a window wrapped in a sweater with an aching heart. I am watching beautiful leaves of red, orange, yellow and brown fall to the ground in the breeze wondering how to have more opportunities to tell Riley’s story in hope to save a precious life. FullSizeRender

I LOVE YOU, Riley.

RILEY, MY SON, MY LOVE

October 4, 2015October 4, 2015 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

Around my neck hangs a necklace with a silver charm that has Riley’s thumbprint on it. On the back of the charm is engraved: RILEY, MY SON, MY LOVE. When he was a baby, I rocked him while his head laid on my chest as he fell asleep. My heart was at peace with the warmth of my son in my arms. Today my heart aches in the absence of Riley, My son, My love. A cold charm of his thumb print lies on my chest in place of him.

That print of Riley’s thumb was taken from his cold and lifeless body. My son’s thumb… a part of his precious hand that I held whenever I got a chance which was not often enough as he grew taller than I. My son’s hand that I reached over and touched as we drove to get his wisdom teeth out. His hand that was laid out before me as I picked a splinter out of it while tears ran down his cheeks when he was eleven. His hand that I gripped tightly as we crossed the street when he was two. His hand with his tiny delicate fingers wrapped around my finger while I nursed him as an infant.

His hand that I will never feel or touch again.

The thumb that I kissed while tears streamed down his sweet three-year old cheeks when he touched something hot. The thumb he stuck out when he was seven as he stood on the sidewalk in front of our home with the intent of hitch hiking to go see the World Wrestling Federation Championship in Las Vegas. The thumb that strummed his guitar, touched the ivory of the piano keys, held a pencil in school, maneuvered a gaming controller, tapped on the computer keys, and the thumb that was raised in the air on that Christmas morning that he placed a new purple Dinosaur Jr. beanie on his head.

His thumb that I will never feel or touch again.

When I think of Riley, I find myself reaching down to put my thumb on the charm that holds his thumb print. As if I can reach him through that piece of silver. As if the creases of his thumbprint will absorb into the creases of my thumb so that somehow I am touching him again.

I cannot touch him again.

There is touch of a spouse, friend, sister, brother, but there is a special energy, a bond, a connection that moves from one hand to another between parent and child. I miss that bond of touch that Riley and I shared from his birth to his death. The memories span from when he was little and would run up to my leg to hug it to the hugs he gave me as a teen when he picked me up off my feet and held me tight.

That feeling, that touch, the Riley hug that I will never have again.

We use our hands while we are looking out for, protecting , soothing our children. The love we carry for our children is a sacred love that we do not give to anyone or anything else in this world quite the same. I raised Riley with all the knowledge I had yet the curiosity of a teenager got the best of him. He carefully held a tab of acid and placed it on his tongue at the beginning of that fatal night.

Drugs kill, maim, destroy people and their families. Using drugs is playing russian roulette. Teens need to know how little control or knowledge they have of what will happen next when they try a drug. Death happens to teens all too often on the first try of a drug.

Because of Riley’s decision to try a drug, he is gone from this earth. Riley’s touch is not reachable. I cannot get to him. I will never feel the touch of my son’s hand in mine again nor the feel of my love’s thumb wiping away my tears saying, “It’s okay, Mom”. It took only one fatal decision to end all of that and more.

Tell Riley’s story to someone perhaps it will save a life.

I Love You, Riley.

I Can’t

September 25, 2015September 25, 2015 / djuanadreed / 2 Comments

What if I don’t want to go there? I know it has been a long time since I have posted a blog. I have many blogs started. I can’t finish them. I close my computer and walk away.

I want him here. I want him to say something to make me smile. I want him to say something to make me mad. I want him to say something that makes me frustrated. I want him to say something that makes me think. I want him to say something.

He can’t.

I want him to ask, “What’s for dinner?” I want him to ask, “Can I have some money for coffee at Coffee Rush?” I want him to walk into the hall carrying a pair of pants asking me to wash them. I want him to say he’s going to bed and ask if I will rub his back. I want him to open the front door and say a friend is here and 5 others walk in behind him. I want to sit on the couch with him and talk about something, anything, please anything.

We can’t.

I want to see him walk in with new vinyl that he scored at Zia Records. I want to hear some new music playing upstairs and ask who is that. I want to hear him playing his guitar. I want to hear his laugh again. I want to smell his smell as he picks me up off my feet. I want to touch his soft skin.

I can’t.

Riley was awesome. He really was. He was the light in a room. He went through life smiling and causing others to smile. He gave away hugs and they hugged back. He is gone never to speak, smile, hug again. That happened in an instant.

A fatal decision made to try a drug for the first time took him from me. It only took one try to die. Stopped. Ended. Riley. I won’t ever hear his voice again. Touch him. Kiss him. Make dinner for him. Wash his clothes for him. Hand a $20 dollar bill to him for coffee again. See his shoes at the bottom of the stairs. Pick up a stack of coffee cups from his computer desk. I want to hear another, “I love you, Mom”.

We can’t share it. He can’t say it. I can’t hear it.

Whatever you think that drug might do for you, it’s not worth it. Listen to Riley’s story.

I Love You, Riley.

My Riley Quilt

July 21, 2015 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

My Riley quilt has arrived. If you have followed me on Facebook over the past year, you know that Greg’s older sister, Sharon, offered to make he and I quilts out of Riley’s t-shirts. We divided the shirts picking which ones were important to us. Greg and Riley went to concerts together. They both loved music. I was a booster Mom for band and choir. I went along to some concerts and I also shared his love of music. We chose our memories with him in the shirts we picked.

I had a hard time parting with the shirts that weren’t washed. They still smelled like him. I held them close. I stared at them trying to make myself, will myself to wash and send them. It was too hard. I wasn’t ready. I decided to not make myself do it. I waited.

And when it felt right, when I decided I wanted the quilt enough to let them go, I washed them, folded them and sent the box of our chosen shirts to Sharon. Right now, to be honest, I am missing the shirts again. I can see the remnants of the paisley shirts that I bought him and the Hawaiian shirts I picked out for him that he was so well-known for wearing. The one he wore that last evening that he was alive I miss the most. He had dropped it in the same spot in his room that most of his dirty clothes gathered. He had a hamper. He rarely used it! I held that shirt the most.

When UPS rang my doorbell today, I stepped out and saw the box and knew what it was. Sharon let me know that it was coming. I hurried inside, put it down, ran to my junk drawer to find a pocket knife and started to cry before I even got back over to the box. More quiet tears fell as I opened it and more came as I spread it out and admired it. When I wrap myself in the quilt, I will cry again.

Sharon said that it took her so long to make the quilts because it took her awhile to be able to open the box of shirts when they came to her. It was an emotional task of love what she has done for us. I have imagined being wrapped up in this quilt for a year now. I am forever grateful to Aunt Sharon. Bria and Braden have their quilts from her when they graduated from high school. She has done a quilt for all of her nieces and nephews at age 18. Riley’s was planned, but he died before she had the shirts to make his.

On my quilt are t-shirts from The Beatles, Rush, Weezer, The Ramones, The Doors, Foo Fighters, Dinosaur Jr., Jimi Hendrix, Reel Big Fish and Two Verse. There are specific memories for each band t-shirt I picked. Music was Riley and there are experiences he had with each shirt on or experiences he shared with me while in them that are my memories. I also chose one of his CHS Marching Band t-shirts. I was remembering lining up feeding the band during long practices and before football games. I chose a CHS Choir t-shirt because I have beautiful memories of watching him on stage with his long blonde hair in his sparkly red bow tie singing his heart out. I have a tender memory of watching him play his guitar and sing with a classmate during choir class. His choir teacher told me that she watched me watching him from the back corner of the room. She said she will forever remember my face in that moment. I also picked his Senior t-shirt because of the box of graduation announcements I had sitting on my desk that never got mailed. For the cap and gown that I bugged him to make sure that he got ordered. He never picked those up to wear on graduation day.

In the center of my quilt is the last gift Riley gave me. On my birthday in April, he gave me a Northern Arizona University MOM t-shirt that I hadn’t worn yet. I would have worn it proudly. He never got to step on campus as a freshman.

The times I scooped these shirts up off that pile in his room and washed them are on my mind. The times he sat himself next to me in them and said, “Mom, will you scratch my back?” The times I ironed the paisley shirts before he left the house on a date or for senior pictures. Senior pictures that he never got to see. Sometimes I sleep in his white under shirts. I kept those.

My love, my son, at 18 died from trying a drug the very first time. A drug that was bought online. A tab that was loaded way past the amount he thought he bought. Chasing a cool experience, Riley had a horrifying one that he wasn’t able to climb out of. I lost my son that night.

I hold this quilt of memories of Riley trying to remember how he smelled. How he felt when he hugged me in them. What he looked like in the t-shirts smiling at me and hearing his voice saying, “I love you, Mom”. I want so bad to look at his face alive and healthy with that twinkle in his blue eyes. I want to be able to smile back at him and say, “I love you, Riley”. I will have to hold him in my Riley quilt instead.

I Love You, Riley.