It’s Snowing!

November 19, 2014November 23, 2014 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

It is snowing. There was no grace period. One day it was sunny and working outside weather and the next it is cold and I am scrambling to layer up to stay warm. I am sitting by the window watching this light fluffy white stuff float down and stick to the ground. The green grass is slowly turning white. I will have to take Bert out in it today. Bert came out of Pennsylvania as a pure bred Bouvier puppy. He hasn’t seen snow since he was 8 weeks old. He is 6 now. He was definitely hot in Arizona always looking for cold spots on the tile to lay. With his furry coat, he is equipped to be in the snow. Already as the weather has changed to cold, he has been out in the yard laying in it when I am bundled up shivering. As I get acclimated to the cold and wonder if I am going to be able to handle being cold, he seems to be saying, “Finally I am comfortable, bring it on. ”

I have never started over in a new place before. I am not comfortable yet. I wonder how long it will take til I am for I know this is where I should be. I am very uncomfortable when I think of Riley. For me, time is not something that makes the pain less. I cry more. I ache for him more. I work harder at diverting my thoughts to get through those moments, minutes, hours, days of pain. I am not very good at diverting right now.

Too often these days I wake up and immediately start to cry. Riley is now in my dreams. He hadn’t reached them yet until now. I see him walking into a room with his soft blonde hair flowing as he moves. I see his face with that grin he had. I hear people patting him on the back and chatting with him. He looks at me with that twinkle in his eye. I can almost smell him. I hug him in my dreams and feel his soft skin. We have short conversations like we did, like he is still here. It feels so good to see, hear and touch him. It is like it should be. Just like it was. I wake and only reality is here with me. He is not here anymore. And it hurts. It hurts real bad. It is a stabbing ache of an empty space without him.

I love my boy with all of my heart, well what is left of my heart. There is a chunk of my heart gone now. I hold that stuffed dog which was not a favorite stuffed animal of his. It is just a soft dog that I bought him one year that sat on a shelf for years. I grabbed it and kept it with me because it was something to hold when I am sad and missing him. I have a broken leather belt loop that I hold too, a guitar pick, a rock he had saved sits by my sink with the other rocks the kids had gathered and given me over the years. Two of the rocks are naturally shaped like hearts. Handed to me by my children as a treasure found. I hold the rocks randomly. I pass Riley’s picture, touch it and tell him that I love him. Sometimes I wail and cry hard. Sometimes I cry softly letting the tears fall down my cheeks.

As I watch my news-feed on Facebook, I see more stories of young adults who have died from drugs. I feel for their parents. I know the pain and anger that they feel. My sweet baby boy is gone and each day it gets harder. My strength decreases with time. My stamina deteriorates and I wonder how I will survive the loss of my son. Even when I declare that I will survive, there are moments I don’t care if I do. Then I remember this happened for a reason and I will make the most of this tragedy to help others. I must.

As Bert digs his nose in the snow trying to figure out what this fluffy white stuff is, I dig my nose in to figure out life without my son. This experience is not fluffy or white, it is hard, dark and just plain unwanted. I had no grace period. One day Riley was here and the next he was not. I do not think, Bring it on! I think, Can’t we go back? One step at a time, I go on. One stinking step at a time.

I will continue to share Riley’s story in hope that his story will steer a person in a different direction then to try drugs. Riley was a good kid that made a bad decision. That’s usually how it begins.

I love you, Riley.

Fall Leaves Fall

October 26, 2014October 31, 2014 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

As I sit on my porch, I can hear the the leaves falling off of the trees in the front of my yard. The colors of gold and browns of various shades float to the ground and scatter in the green grass below. A squirrel busily moves around the yard. The sky is overcast. The sun will appear later today. There is chill in the air as I sit here bundled in my jacket. In the middle of my front yard, there is a dead tree. It needs to come down. It is brittle losing branches. It sits there with no life to it. I feel that sometimes- lacking of life. I won’t fall down. I will not.

As I emptied boxes yesterday, I came across the things I brought with me to hold onto memories of Riley. I hung my head and sobbed more than once during the hours I was amidst his things. As I settle into my new home, as this place becomes more comfortable and familiar, the pain of losing Riley gets strong again. I was so busy for the past few weeks. My mind was distracted. I now am settled in. The pain, the unending pain of losing my son to drugs grips me. I can’t get away from it. I can’t get out from under it. It sits on me like a heavy load. Why can’t he still be here? Why did God allow this to happen?

He was a vibrant young man who had a future set before him. Many years ahead to conquer the world or at least make a dent in it. His intelligence was unyielding. He spent his time making friends of strangers and effecting lives by his sheer presence. Chasing an idea. chasing an experience that he somehow thought would be worthy of his 18th birthday celebration, he took acid. He sent a snap chat with the blotter on his tongue. He wrote of the joy he felt at the beginning of the trip, he begged for help at the end of the trip and in the end, he took a gun and shot himself. I shutter at the terror he must have felt in the end. I cringe at the thought of the gun to his chin and the sound it made as it went off. His smile forever gone in that moment. My smile forever changed in that moment.

My tears fall like the leaves. I am dead and brittle with the pain that overwhelms me. I will not fall down. I will not allow this pain to drop me to the ground. There is beauty in all emotions. If there was no pain in life, we would not be motivated to move, jump, leap, change something. We endure the discomfort after a work out knowing there will be a gain, strength in the future. An addict must feel discomfort, pain in order to want the change in their life. If we hate our job enough, we might just get up and find a new one. Happy. Sad. Angry. Mad. I have discomfort. I am aware. I cannot shed it. I will not sit still and be overwhelmed with my pain. I will do something with it.

Riley’s story needs to be told. It is of a kid who had been accepted to college who played tuba in the school band, won debates, sang in the choir, hugged freely, made people smile by his smile, changed the unsuspecting lives of those that crossed his path, grew up in church, gave to others, took or asked for little, smart as a whip and funny too. He helped people accept themselves as they are. He showed love no matter what the circumstances. He played guitar, piano, tuba, and saxophone. He was one to hear a song, sit and pound it out on the piano or self teach it to himself on the guitar. He knew computers well. He was/is my son. One I am still very proud of. He died because he tried LSD. Teens should know this story and realize it can happen. I am here to tell the story, to plow through the pain so that perhaps one teen will remember Riley’s story in that moment of making a decision whether to try a drug- any drug. Drugs kill. It’s not worth it. We are not invincible. It can happen. It happened to Riley.

Riley’s memory stays. Our love for him doesn’t falter. That love and memory will sustain me. I will not fall down.

I love you, Riley.

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Here I Am

October 20, 2014 / djuanadreed / 2 Comments

The beauty of Fall leaves is every where I look. The smell, sound and feel of rain, the surprise of bugs, spiders, and big fat worms crawling across my path causes me to take a larger step or make a stomp. The chill in the air, dew on my lawn with the morning sound of birds chirping. The evening sounds of buzzing bugs, cow moo’s, and coyote howls. The shining stars and a moon looking over me in the pitch dark of the night. The sound of a train horn as it rolls down the track in the distance. The thrill of driving on rolling hills and back roads, the warmth, color and light of a bon fire. Braden’s visit, the content feeling of having my son close to me in my new space. The anticipation of having Bria here to hold her hand and cuddle with me as we girl talk for hours. Bert, our family dog who is warm and soft like a rug and constantly under my feet. He is company. Cuts and scrapes on my hands sting from an instant decision to tackle trimming a fence line which lacked the smart decision of using gloves. I have made it to my log cabin in Kentucky.

Here I am. I have relocated, but often it feels surreal as if I’m going through motions. It is amazing to me how differently we live in different parts of the country. Attitudes, demeanor, language are different here compared to the city. With that said, it does feel like this is where I am supposed to be stretching and growing. I take note of the sights, smells, sounds and touch of new things here. The loss of Riley continues to penetrate me like an invasion I do not want. I do want him to sit on my porch and play his guitar. I want him to come around a corner and give me a big Riley hug lifting me off of my feet and holding me for awhile. What I want and what is, is not the same.

I woke up last week with an idea of making an appointment to meet with the principal of a local school to talk about telling Riley’s story here. My job is not done to look for avenues to spread the reality of the dangers of drugs to teens. I don’t believe Riley consciously intended to hurt himself. Yet it happened. He is gone because of a choice to try LSD. Knowing my son, I believe he thought he was in for an experience on his 18th birthday that he would not forget. That experience ended his life. His choice is now my experience as a parent.

Yesterday I was sitting on my porch, I absent mindedly reached down, touched my necklace and proceeded to cry while I held it. On my necklace hangs Riley’s thumbprint. On the back it says, My Son, My Love, Riley. I cried quite hard for awhile. I had not cried a whole lot about Riley since I left Arizona. All of the new things and duties of moving has kept me busy. I’m still not done unpacking. Interestingly I was grumpy and felt tired yesterday. The cry helped. It was a release I didn’t even know I needed til it happened. I continue to wish that this isn’t real, that it didn’t really happen. It is a bad nightmare that I cannot wake up from. There is no hope that I will wake up from this. It is something I have to live with the rest of my life. I hate it. I hate it so very much.

I have felt a twinge of guilt for not crying as much since I arrived here. The ache, the pain still is there. I go to open a box and when it is of Riley keepsakes, my heart skips a beat. I have closed some boxes til another day. Am I supposed to live out the rest of my days in sadness? I know I will. I asked the grief counselor before I left Arizona if I would feel joy again despite the grief. I like joy. I miss the pump of my heart when I am happy. I miss belly laughs. She said, “Yes, it will come in spurts”. I feel content, but that hop, skip and jump of a heart beat as a result of happy hasn’t appeared again since the day that he died.

My heart is definitely still beating. I am still alive. What am I going to do now that I am missing a part of me? What am I going to do with this life that God has given me? I am going to breath deep filling up my lungs. I am going to take in whiffs of the new smells here. I am going to taste new foods. I am going to keep my eyes open being aware of what is around me, listen intently, touch what is before me and continue to take One Step at a Time. I’m going to keep fighting for other teens to not make the fatal mistake Riley did. Here I am.

I Love You, Riley.

Clean Sheets

September 27, 2014 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

One week from today I am hitting the road and moving to Kentucky. I have purchased my very own log cabin in the woods to write in. As I get ready to leave, I am savoring the heat of Arizona summer and the convenience of McDonald’s french fries being a hop, skip and a step away. There’s a list of things, relationships, feelings, smells, sights I have soaked in as I know it all changes soon. I am a third generation native of Arizona and this is all I know. I picked a place that holds new and different experiences ahead. I am up for the challenge! Yet while I am here, I have had some hard tasks.

One of those is going through Riley’s pictures, school projects and papers that I had saved over the years. There have been many smiles as I pull things from boxes and files. Like this one which I absolutely love!

I also feel the sadness of seeing pictures of Riley as a baby and realizing at the moment the picture was taken, there was a promise of a life that would last to an old age. I counted on that. I assumed it. I dreamed of what his life would be like. I smile when I see the ‘I love you’s’ written to me from him over the years. From preschool age to 17, there are notes and messages telling me what I say to him daily.

If that hasn’t been hard enough, cleaning his room for the last time took a big toll on me. I finished it yesterday. Alot of tears have been shed in the last 48 hours being in that room. Alot of talking to Riley has happened. Mostly I tell him to please come back and that he should be here. In the last almost 5 months since he died, I have taken naps on his bed and laid there hugging his pillows. I have stood in the middle of the room and looked around for long periods of time absorbing the feel of his space and how he made it that. You can see what he loved in the space of his bedroom.

Now it was time to clean it up. The first task was to strip the bed and wash the sheets and comforter. His smell is gone now. I had buried my head in his pillows and cried over the past months. Now the sheets and comforter have a clean smell to them. That’s a familiar smell too but still, the last time he laid in that bed is gone. There were still dirty towels and the shorts he wore that night on the floor. I washed those too. It felt like a goodbye as I put them in the washer.

On his dresser there were tuxedo shirt buttons that I missed when I returned his choir outfits in May. Many times I had gathered those and made sure he had them for a choir concert. There were pens, pencils, concert stubs, receipts and a lot of dust. There was a receipt for dinner where he had taken his girlfriend on prom night only a week before he died and a short Golfland pencil that he had used to keep score when they went goofy golfing after prom. There were guitar picks sat on shelves, his desk and by his bed. Loose change, empty glasses, school passes and broken sunglasses. I picked these things up and organized them in a cup of change, a cup of pencils and pens. I threw away things like the broken sunglasses though even that was hard since they had touched his face at one time. He started wearing this exact style of sunglasses at a very young age! Look what I found!

I also found a treasure in a shoe box in Riley’s closet. His WWF wrestlers had been safely tucked away. Oh how Riley and his best friend, Ryan loved everything to do with WWF. He had a plastic wrestling ring and a pretend champion belt. I heard, “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble!” in my head as I held the plastic figures in my hand. I can picture Riley’s joy and I’m up to something grin as he and Ryan were running up and down the stairs playing and doing little boy things. We did have to keep an eye on those two!

The things that I have collected from his room to take with me remind me of parts of him. His gray and purple Vans that used to sit at the bottom of the stairs, an ASU sweatshirt I bought him to remind him of my alma mater knowing he was going to go to NAU. I have a guitar pick, books, his tuba mouthpiece, a rock he had saved along with all kinds of random tiny small things that were held by him at one point in time that will surely bring a smile and a tear to my eye in the days, months, years to come. I can pull them out when I need them. I have this sense of did I get everything I want to take with me? How do I pick the physical things that represent Riley as I leave? Did I get what I need? I’m not sure. The most precious and important things are in my head. That goes with me wherever I go.

As I finished dusting and vacuuming Riley’s room for the very last time with the sad realization that he is not going to come home and mess it all up, I stood back, looked at the clean space in front of me, cried a little more then took a deep breath. One step in front of the other! Just one step at a time is all that is needed. That I can do.

I Love You, Riley.

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A Trip to the M.E.

September 19, 2014September 19, 2014 / djuanadreed / 1 Comment

As I stood in front of the window of the Medical Examiner’s office waiting for the woman to come back with Riley’s toxicology report, I cried. It has been four months now since he died and in some ways it has been a long wait to find out exactly what was in his system. I was nervous driving through traffic to the building. Every time I do something related to his death, I open up a whole new can of worms but I have to know. Why? Because I want a clear picture of how this happened. I won’t know every detail. Only Riley knows those. My heart beat out of my chest as I was beeped in through the doors. I stumbled over my words as I told them what I wanted. I had called earlier and the ladies had set aside the case information in case I really did show up. They were nice, cordial, business like and were more than willing to help me with directions to the building on the phone. In person they were the same way. It took too long for them to hand me that paper.

I had to pay $5 because my address wasn’t the deceased’s address. Only next of kin get the report free. Geez! I am his Mom. I am next of kin. I wanted to say, “Can I show you all of the pictures I have of us together from birth to 17?” “Can I show you my stretch marks from carrying him in my belly for 9 months?” I was still at that address at least half of the month for the last year and a half. I was still cleaning it, grocery shopping, picking up dry cleaning and managing it for all three men that lived there. I didn’t stop being Riley’s Mom because I didn’t have the same mailing address anymore. I took him to get his wisdom teeth pulled and slept there with him in case he needed me overnight. I still was getting phone calls from him when he didn’t feel good. I was still following him around that house asking him questions and was enduring the rolling of his eyes when I said something mother like.

I didn’t argue. I didn’t grumble. I paid the $5 and sucked it up. I paced while I waited for the lady to come back with the report. I looked at the ceiling. I walked over to the glass case of items that was all about death, deceased, skulls including pictures of drawings of people that had died with no name. I quit looking in that direction and went back to standing at the window. Then the tears started quietly rolling down my cheeks again. I kept thinking when will it stop being so hard. I was standing at the medical examiner’s office window waiting for a paper that would detail what caused my son’s death. It is kind of a reason to cry. So I cried and I wiped the tears away as they handed me what I was waiting for. I said, “Thank you” and walked out the door.

I was afraid to look. I was sick to my stomach. I got in my car and I did a quick glance. I couldn’t wait. It was Lisergic Acid Diethylamide, LSD. It was the real stuff. It wasn’t synthetic like I thought. They found LSD in my son’s blood. It is easier to buy the synthetic forms nowadays. For those of you that don’t know, you cannot overdose on LSD. The deaths that occur from using pure LSD are from the psychological effects which cause behaviors that result in death. LSD is a psychedelic – it messes with your brain. The synthetic form of LSD that is more readily available on the street and online is killing kids by its physical effects and its cause of behaviors as well. I’ve asked many questions of a few men my age who have done acid. They have stories of seeing bad trips or having them themselves. People huddled in corners thinking something is coming for them, seeing things that weren’t there, not knowing any kind of reality.

Now what? Now I have more questions. And I will keep asking til there aren’t any more to ask. This drive to know has caused me to look at ME. I have been asked, “What does it matter?” “Why do you need to know?” I reply “I just do.” I want to know everything I can know about that night and early morning. I want to know as much as I can until I can’t know. It won’t bring him back for me to know. Riley is gone. I want to understand as much as I can and maybe that reflects on me in some ways. I want to know.

If you are considering trying LSD, take a look at this video. If you have questions about LSD, this video might help answer them. Feel free to email me or comment on my blogs.

I Love You, Riley.

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It Can’t Be True. Please God Don’t Let It Be True.

June 3, 2014January 30, 2015 / djuanadreed / 10 Comments

That morning, the day of Riley’s 18th birthday, a day full of Riley birthday plans and birthday wishes, I got a phone call that I couldn’t have imagined that I would ever receive. I hung up the phone and ran to my car. My body was shaking. I backed out, hands gripping the steering wheel tight. I started moving the car forward saying out loud, ” It can’t be true. He has it wrong. It can’t be true. Please God don’t let it be true“. I cried out loud and then I’d say it again, “It can’t be true. He has it wrong. It can’t be true. Oh God please don’t let it be true.” When I pulled up, there were firetrucks and ambulances and police cars lining the street. I got out of the car and felt like I was going to pass out. Police detectives walked up to me, Greg came up to me, we held each other as I sobbed, whaled, cried. It was true. He wasn’t wrong. God couldn’t tell me different. I sat on the curb and rocked back and forth while the officers were trying to talk to me, telling me what was going to happen next, giving me their condolences, their words of comfort. There was no comfort to be had. My baby boy was dead.

Our family paced, stared, cried, talked for the next few hours trying to make sense of it all until we found out about the drugs. Details of the evening started coming in. He had taken acid (LSD) – it was planned to celebrate his birthday. With a timeline among other consistent details from different sources, it was clear… it was drugs. The friends said it was his first time. They said he was happy at a certain point. They told him to call if he got into trouble, he did call…..they missed the call…..he was found shortly after. Riley had shot himself.

It doesn’t seem real sometimes still. I think of Riley often in normal activity moments (Mom moments) like what would he want from the grocery store or maybe I should get him those …….oh no he doesn’t need new shorts anymore or if I park in his spot, where will he……he won’t be parking his car in the driveway anymore. At the funeral, Bria and I came in, Braden and Greg were there in the family waiting area and I immediately did a head count and thought to myself, someone is missing. Of course someone was missing. I loved it when we were all together. As they get older, you almost have to schedule being all together. My most favorite times were always when all three kids were together in the same room bantering and telling stories. I didn’t dream this could happen. It never crossed my mind. Not this.

” In 2012, an estimated 23.9 million Americans aged 12 or older were current (past month) illicit drug users, meaning they had used an illicit drug during the month prior to the survey interview. This estimate represents 9.2 percent of the population aged 12 or older. Illicit drugs include marijuana/hashish, cocaine (including crack), heroin, hallucinogens, inhalants, or prescription-type psychotherapeutics (pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants, and sedatives) used nonmedically.” – See more at: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Drug_Usage#Overview

And we are at 2014 now, bet ya the numbers are higher not lower. Drugs kill. It is true. So so many lives have been lost because of drugs. I’m not wrong. It only takes one time, one try, one decision to have such horrific, wrong, permanent consequences. Please God help me share Riley’s story so that this isn’t true for another family.

**This post was written in June 2014. We are at 2015 now, 9 months since Riley died. I’ve learned that every 17 seconds a teenager tries a drug for the first time. I have seen so many stories of kids just like Riley who, on their first try of a drug, died. The LSD he had was bought online by the high school age dealer at his school. The amount of LSD in that one tab according to the toxicology report was way way way more than he was told. My kid was like your kid -a smart kid, band kid, choir kid, good with computers, lovable kid, loved music, played guitar, liked coffee, made strangers smile, accepted to college, happy go lucky, Riley tried a drug and died. Tell your kids it can happen. It only takes one time.

I love you, Riley.