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.

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.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Love, Mom

February 14, 2015February 14, 2015 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

Valentine’s Day, a day we express our love for someone special in our lives. Though I have shared a million and one “I love you’s”, kisses and hugs with my children, Valentine’s Day is a day that I set out to make sure it is a memorable one for them. In my eyes, traditions, making my children feel extra special each holiday and birthday has always been important. It is my job in the big and little scheme of raising my children. It is not a task on a list. I don’t have to. I want to. As they have grown, I have not yet given up attempting to make Valentine’s Day special for them. I haven’t decided when to let it go, but not yet.

As soon as the kids were old enough to know what day it was, I began traditions for Valentine’s Day. The day began as they woke up with a brown paper lunch sack sitting by their bed to be found before their feet hit the floor. Each year the night before, I gathered construction paper, crayons, markers, glue and ribbon. I sat on the floor and cut out hearts of construction paper. I used Red- a color meaning passion, love, Pink meaning soft, playful, Purple- dignity, independence and White- perfection, safety. All colors I want to give to them. I glued the hearts to the bag. I made my own artwork with their name, Happy Valentine’s Day! Love, Mom & Dad and closed each bag with a ribbon laced through the top. Inside the bag was something small for them like a toy, a shirt, something new along with some candy.

The tradition didn’t stop there. When they were little, I cut their sandwiches into the shape of a heart. I packed their lunch boxes with a red juice, an apple or strawberries anything I could conjure up that was red or pink that they would eat. For dinner, the tradition was that the kids and I made heart-shaped homemade pizza. Each child decorated their pizza with toppings of their choice. As they got older and were at a sports practice, job or too lazy to help (darn teenagers), I continued to make the heart-shaped pizzas. It was tradition. That was our Valentine’s Day.

Not having the ability to leave the Valentine’s bag by their bed last year, I delivered their paper bags to them. In Riley’s Valentine bag decorated with his name, construction paper hearts and “Love, Mom” was a SNARK for tuning his guitar. I remember walking up the stairs to find him in the loft, in his chair with his girlfriend next to him. When I held out the decorated bag to him, he gave me his crooked, knowing grin. He said,” Thank you” as he pulled out his gift. I saw the SNARK clamped on his guitars often after that. I also saw his SNARK, touched it and left it in its place the very last time I was in his room as I left to get in my car to drive to Kentucky.

This year I mailed a gift to Bria and Braden. When I told Bria something was on its way for Valentine’s Day, she said, “Did you make a paper bag like always?” “Yes, I did!” was my reply. Bria is 25 now. Where ever she has been over the years, I have done my best to continue our Valentine’s tradition. Though Braden is in another state working today, my Valentine gift is there waiting for him. This year, if Riley were alive, he would have been in a dorm room in Flagstaff, Arizona at Northern Arizona University opening a box with his paper sack of candy and a treat from me in it. Perhaps his gift would have been something small that he needed while at college. I can imagine an array of things I might have sent to him.

Last night, I opened my box of keepsakes carefully. I looked at homemade Valentine’s cards from my children over the years. I held Riley’s tenderly knowing his little hands drew the pictures and wrote the words. His little hands that grew to be a man’s hands and then stopped growing. These keepsakes continue to be my gifts today. I smile and I’m pretty sure my eyes twinkle when I think of the age they were when they created them. Hold fast young Mom’s who are at their wit’s end chasing toddlers, in a blink of an eye, they are all grown up…. or gone forever.

Valentine’s Day, a day of love, represents to me my love for my children. Let there be no doubt, I am a proud Mama. These are three beautiful, wondrous creatures that are mine. Two on earth, one in heaven. This will have to be my paper bag decorated for you, Riley.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Love, Mom.

I Love You, Riley.

Dear Riley

August 25, 2014 / djuanadreed / 1 Comment

Dear Riley,

I miss you so much. I thought about you a lot today. I took Hailey to lunch. She moved into her dorm and will start classes on Monday . She got a tattoo to remember you by. Can you believe Aunt Chelle & Uncle Mark gave her no argument about that? You should have been checked into your dorm at NAU and starting classes. It’s hard not to think about that.

You are always on my mind. Can you hear me tell you ‘I love you’? Every time I see a picture of you or something that reminds me of you, I tell you. I know you know. I just need to say it out loud to you like we said it to each other every day.

I have a baby picture of you on my laptop as my wallpaper. It is you with your peach fuzz blonde hair and rolls of fat that look like muscles as you are propping yourself up. When I look at it, I want to put my nose in the crook of your neck and smell that sweet scent of you as a baby again. I want to blow bubbles on your tummy and hear you giggle out loud while you grab my hair. I want to take a breath, laugh with you and do it again! My sweet baby boy.

When I open my Facebook page, I see a senior picture of you as a 17-year-old peaking around a column with that smile of yours. I love your senior pictures. I am sorry that you never even saw them. There are some great ones that really reflect your personality, your love of music and who you were. I hate the word “were”. You still “are” in so many ways. Thank you, Bug. They are precious to have.

I’ve been going through pictures as I pack up stuff from the house. I’m moving. I bought that cabin in the woods that I’ve been dreaming of. It’s across from a lake. You might have even wanted to learn to fish with me. I know you would have liked playing your guitar on the front porch. I’m pretty sure I will be imagining you there a lot as I experience living there. It is really hard to see the pictures of you growing up and to remember your birthdays, school parties, family vacations and holidays. You were on your way. You were growing, maturing, changing year to year. You had reached adulthood. You only saw 18 for a few hours.

That wasn’t the way to celebrate your 18th birthday. Why didn’t you have friends with you when you took that pill? Did you have friends with you? I saw what you wrote that you felt a euphoria. I saw that you went to bed. The clothes you had on that night were thrown in the same place you always threw your clothes. The trip must not have been over. You called for help and they didn’t answer. What would have been different if they had answered? I can’t ask those kind of questions. We can’t change anything now. It is done. You are gone. We can’t bring you back no matter how many times a day that I wish that we could.

Riley, I want kids to know your story. I want them to know how your life ended so that they think twice about even trying a drug. I am sure that you didn’t expect this ending. I don’t like to think of those last few moments and the terror you must have been in. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to take care of you, to stop it, to help you. I am sorry that your life has been cut short. You aren’t the only one that has died as a result of synthetic drugs. There are too many kids dieing from using drugs. Their lives, dreams, futures are gone like yours. There are too many Moms, Dads, brothers and sisters feeling the same kind of grief as ours. I want you here with me. I want more pictures. The ones we have are the only ones we will ever have. It is not right.

I love you, Bug. You were my joy. You Are my joy! To have given birth to a little boy with a shining personality, that gave the gift of a smile to whomever crossed his path, is an honor. The lives you touched while you were alive are many. I pray that you can continue to touch lives and make a difference through all of this. I miss you so very much.

Love,

Mom