The Connective Tissue of Loss and Life

March 9, 2015 / djuanadreed / 1 Comment

Riley’s 16th birthday, May 3, 2012, was a monumental day. He and I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get his driver’s license. Getting his driver’s license was a big deal. Big for Riley. Big for me too. This meant I could send him to get milk at the grocery store. It meant that I wasn’t the chauffeur anymore. It meant that now I would worry about him driving and being safe. Mostly, being my youngest, I knew he was the last of my children that I would bring to this very spot to pass one more milestone in his life. I remember sitting there waiting with him feeling very nostalgic and sad. This was one more last time which I knew more were coming quickly like each birthday party marking a year older closer to when he would be grown, gone and on his own. There would be high school graduation before I knew it and then college.

After many trips of being on the passenger side of the car to and from school, on errands, Riley was getting his driver’s license. When it was our turn, Riley was handed the paperwork to fill out. I watched him pen in his name, birth date, etc. He also filled out the authorization of the Donor Registration. He did not hesitate. He was willing to give the gift of life by donating parts of his body if his life ended. He marked ‘Yes’ to all twelve of the anatomical gifts listed. I remember the shiver up my spine imagining that his life could ever end. I wiped that thought from my mind quickly. I was proud of him it was just another sign of the giving person he was. Just like the pride I felt when he came back from his driving test with a smile on his face, he had passed.

On May 3, 2014, on Riley’s 18th birthday, only hours after we found out that he had died, we received a call from the Donor Network of Arizona to talk to us about his tissue donation. I was surprised at the call. There was a list of questions for us and a detailed explanation of what would happen next. We were all still in shock sitting in a room crying, pacing, staring in blank air, trying to put it all together. We were still trying to understand how this happened, why it happened. I was still pleading to God that it not be true. It was not a good time for a call like this. I understand why the call is made so quickly, but still who had the with all to focus on anything.

Yet, knowing he was giving the gift of life and healing to others from his lifeless body gave me a warm feeling even at that horrific time. He would live on in others physically. That sounded good and brutal in those moments of freshly losing my child. Riley donated every part of him that was viable. Tissue, eyes (cornea), veins, skin, bone and connective tissue. I’ve thought a lot about the fact that someone got his beautiful soft skin. I miss touching him. The good feeling is that he must have helped many people.

Recently we received our first letter from a recipient. I am sure there will be more to come. The letter came from a man who had torn his tricep from his elbow in a fall. By using Riley’s tissue, they were able to attach it back. He relayed his gratitude, thanking us and said when he was completely healed, it would be as good as new. There ya go, Riley, you’re still helping others. That’s my boy.

I am proud of Riley for this decision. I am thankful to be able to know that he lives on in others. I recently saw messages of his friends talking of missing him, wishing they would see him sitting at Coffee Rush, wishing they could talk to him. The loss of Riley is huge in our family, yet his death has effected so many outside of it. I have messages from his peers as well as adults that say who he was has changed their life forever. They will remember him and try to emulate the love he showed to others. I have messages from parents who tell Riley’s story in hopes that their children will not make such a fatal mistake of trying a drug. I have messages from teens who say they will not try drugs because of Riley’s story.

The connective tissue of a loss and still living is evident here in more ways than one. He is effecting lives to this day. That’s my boy!

I Love You, Riley.

Pizza For Superheroes

March 4, 2015 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

Pizza- Riley’s favorite food. I wonder what he was doing with that fork. Surely he wasn’t bothering with a fork to eat his pizza. We were at a big slice pizza place at the beach in San Diego on vacation. Riley was in heaven with that big ol piece of pizza as big as his plate. Pizza! Yum! When we saw this picture, we talked about going back to the pizza place to show them it. For sure they would want it hanging on their wall for an advertisement of their restaurant. Look at that face! What a cute kid he was! I mean who wouldn’t melt just looking at this picture? Wouldn’t they want a piece of pizza too?

Those were the days that Riley wore his Superman cape, baseball hat and cowboy boots daily. He also had pajamas with capes attached to them. I can see him now dressed in his pajamas running through the house with wide long strides. His arms swinging with his small hands tight in a fist while his cape was flowing behind him. He would stand on the couch with his hands resting on his hips, chest pushed out, looking around the room for anyone in distress to save in his imaginary world. Then in a sudden move, he would leap off the couch and go running as fast as he could across the room looking back to make sure his cape was flowing. Riley moved from one Superhero to the next. He had a Batman year. He had a Superman time and he also had a Spiderman time in his life. Oh, I love him. I wish his Superhero powers could have saved him from his fate that day.

From the stories told to me, Riley, even as a teen, was often looking for those in distress to save. Many times he approached someone who was crying, even strangers. The stories are of situations in which he took the hurt and the pain away by Riley being Riley. He was unique, creative, sincere. He took the time to talk. He gave away smiles. He gave hugs. He caused laughter. He saved lives.

It has been 10 months today since Riley died. I’d like to say it gets easier, it doesn’t. I seem to get better at diverting my thoughts in order to survive/function each day. Yet sometimes remembering a Riley moment hits me and throws me to the ground. At those times, I have to lay there and take it, accept it, feel it and wash myself in tears for a while. It is survival of the fittest to handle the grief of losing a child. Some days I do it better than others.

Pizza is how we celebrated with Riley. Most of his birthday dinners, by his choice, involved pizza. We had pizza when he got his letter of acceptance to NAU. There were too many times to count that we bought pizza for his friends who gathered at our house to watch movies or swim in our backyard. In that same backyard, some of those friends gathered and smoked weed when we weren’t there. It’s just weed they say. Everyone does it. What’s laced in the weed? Where did it come from? Is it synthetic? Are you sure? It’s not just taking acid that is like playing Russian roulette. How many stay at just smoking weed? How many go and try something else? That’s what I want to know.

Riley wanted to try something else. His first try of acid killed him. Riley was an extraordinary human being that made a difference in many lives by being Riley while he was alive. I can only hope that he can help others through the story of his death so that they won’t die too. Drugs kill whether it is in addiction that many didn’t plan on and then can’t shed or by getting a bad batch of something or the wrong mix of drugs or the unknown drug that they didn’t know they were taking or a drug causing death by violence or an accident to themselves or someone else. The stories are vast and too many.

Riley, my pizza lovin’ son who was a blessing for many by still being a superhero til the day he died would say it’s not worth it.

I Love You, Riley.

Sometimes You Have To Build A Snowman

February 23, 2015 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

Sometimes you just need to hold on for one more day. Depression can hit at the most inopportune times. It can simmer awhile. You can keep it at bay and then all of a sudden it has overwhelmed you. That’s what happened to me. I hurt my back. Dangit, I don’t want to admit I am getting older, but I am. I see it. I feel it. I know it just by my sincere wisdom. Hey, don’t laugh! You can’t live this long and not know a thing or two about life. But in my mind, I am not old. Wasn’t I just twenty something? I swear I was just starting to have babies – wasn’t I? Now they are 25, 22 and forever 18.

Up to this point, I haven’t thought twice about what I am about to tackle, lift, carry, or reach for. I felt fine that night when I went to bed. I woke up and my back hurt! It hurt bad! This was new for me and I didn’t like it. Laying still with a heating pad for two days was terrible. I don’t do sitting still well. I napped while I laid there. I flipped through television everyone was shooting someone or dying. I had to turn it off. I don’t like television anyways. When I tried to read, the father was dying in the book. I had to close the book. I am so sensitive to death now. I talked to my dog, Bert. That didn’t go well for long. I bundled up, went outside and swang on my porch swing. The tears came out of nowhere. They wouldn’t stop.

Being still is not a good thing in the middle of grief. It’s awful- I think and I miss Riley. I miss all three of my kids. None of my kids are here with me. What I would do to touch, hug, kiss any one of them. Two of them I can touch again. One I know I will never again be able to feel in my arms, kiss and squeeze tight. The stark reality of that hurts worse than the back pain.

With the rest, my back started to feel better then we had snow. I got distracted. Being from the desert, I am in awe of all of this white stuff. I was smiling, breathing a sigh of relief for a bit then I thought again. I couldn’t leave the house with the weather as it was so I thought some more. I couldn’t find anything to move my mind to something else, but sad things, memories, the ache of wanting my boy back. The grief laid on me like a heavy blanket. It is knowing it is not going to get better tomorrow or the next day or next year. What is my purpose? Why am I here to face this every day? All of this was tormenting me.

I fell asleep. I slept deeply. I woke up better. I made it to another day. The snow was melting. I bundled up, found a patch of snow and made a snowman. I laid in the snow and stared at a blue sky with sun shining in my eyes. I enjoyed a moment. Oh the grief was still there, but I felt lighter.

Sometimes you just have to hold on for one more day. Sometimes you have to build a snow man. Collect your energy, build on it, baby it, feel the cold on your hands and the warmth later. Grief stinks. Those that haven’t gone through losing a child can’t get it completely. I hope that they never do. I don’t wish this on anyone and I’m sorry if you know my pain.

How do we survive this? Like collecting snow in your hands to build up a snow man, build up something to distract you. Concentrate on work, a project, family, something new, something old, something that feeds your soul. Baby yourself. Do not isolate yourself for too long. Find a grief support group of people who know and understand your pain. Like patting the snow, take care of you, do what you need to do. There is no shame in your tears, anger, sadness. Face the cold of the grief, it is here to stay. Embrace the warmth of putting your hands in your pockets and thawing out a little bit when you get a break. Know that a lighter moment like that can come and there will be more. You made it through another day.

You can do this. Step back and look at your snowman- what you have created, what you still have in the midst of your loss. First and foremost, you have you and you are worth the fight to survive this. Hold on! You, like me, can do one more day.

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.

Meeting Eternity

January 19, 2015January 19, 2015 / djuanadreed / 1 Comment

I’ve joined a closed group on Facebook called GRASP- Grief Recovery After a Substance Passing. The group exists for those that have lost a loved one as the result of substance abuse or addiction. The group is very large. Way too large. People post about their grief, their confusion, questions, anger, sadness. Often they post the date of when their loved one passed. This makes you realize how many have died because of drugs. How many died last week, last month, last year, two years ago, ten years ago. Even the date that Riley died has shown up.

People show support for each other in their grief, in their anger at the drug…heroine is one of the biggest culprits or a mix of opiates, but the common factor is death by a drug. I have realized that I really hate death. Before this, I had a belief that death was part of the circle of life. We come, we go. We live, we die. We are born into this world and we are to leave this world. Right now, death means an end to a life that I hold precious. That life of my child I want selfishly with me- here to touch, kiss, hug, talk to .

When children and young adults die, it is tragic. It is a life not finished. Riley made a huge impact on the lives around him. I would not have ever known the extent of how he touched lives if he was still alive. The stories told at the memorial that his classmates put together, the adults pulling me aside to tell me how he touched them and the private messages I have received give me a glimpse of Riley at a peer level -what he was like when he was not home and in my view. He was jovial and gave away hugs. He caused others- many strangers- to smile as he passed them in the hall of school just by his warm, goofy, what’s up smile. He stood up for the girl being bullied. He entertained a classroom. He brought on challenging conversations with teachers. He changed lives. He talked more than one from committing suicide. He helped a girl get through a teen pregnancy by being supportive and assuring her she could do this. He dried tears by diverting sad thoughts to better thoughts. To the boy who was an outsider, he showed him he should accept himself and how precious he is just as he is. Riley changed lives. Death took him from us at age 18. Too soon! Just imagine what else he would have done with his life…I can’t imagine now. There is no imagination to it. His life was stopped. My imagination of his future has stopped.

I read a post by a woman recently, a grandmother who is dying from cancer. She is facing her own death after losing her adult son to drugs. She expressed such dignity and grace about what she is facing right now. I am impressed. She is close to being reunited with her son yet she is holding on to the time she has here, now. She used the word eternity and it has made me think about the afterlife, the hereafter, everlasting life, where we go, what happens there. The bible says. The pastor says. We hope. We have faith that we will see our child again in a better place. A Heaven that holds no sorrow or pain. Timelessness.

I am in timelessness now. I forget appointments. I sit for hours without realizing it has been hours. There are moments I wish for death myself. Now. The pain, the loss I feel, how part of my heart is gone and it won’t come back or be replaced. Grief is an unyielding pain. There are days, sometimes even more than one in a row, that I am able to do okay and focus on work or something I am writing or yard work or how someone has really pissed me off, but then I sit still and remember… my sweet baby boy is gone. He has met his eternity.

So as I ponder the grace and dignity this woman shows while she faces meeting her eternity with the faith that she will see her son again, I would like to be able to face my life as it is now, without my son here to touch again, with grace and dignity until I meet my eternity. Knowing there are no guarantees of how long we have on this earth. Knowing that if I can make a difference while I am able to write and share Riley’s story. If I can muster my passion of working with abused and neglected children in the court system again. If I can create a children’s book with a purple elephant named Riley that leaves his paw print wherever he goes. If I can simply share a smile with a stranger like my boy did, then I’m doing pretty good. One single step at a time.

I Love You, Riley.

Mom’s Sugar Cookies

January 13, 2015January 13, 2015 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

I was blessed with a wonderful mother. She was simple, selfless, sensitive and she loved with her whole heart. I am the oldest of five. We grew up with homemade dinner on the table every night. My Dad sat and she served him. No matter if she was sick or had a long day, she stood in the kitchen and made her family something to eat. I have very few memories of take out meals or visits to a restaurant. Mom put all five of us in the station wagon and went grocery shopping. I can’t imagine five kids in tow while trying to grocery shop. She sewed. She made me new clothes for dates, prom and even created my wedding dress, bridesmaid dresses, flower girl and train bearers’ dresses. She mowed the yards. Clean laundry hung from a clothesline out back. She taught Sunday School to three year olds. She was a good wife and mother.

We have our favorite foods she made. Even my kids talk about Grandma’s cooking to this day. For the life of me, I’m not so sure what it was about her food. She didn’t make fancy dishes…….I wonder if it was the love that was served in her meals that everyone ate up and remembers.

One of the traditions we had growing up was making sugar cookies with Mom. They were not too sweet, fluffy not hard, just right. We rolled the dough out with flour and a rolling pin. We used cookie cutters, pressed them into the dough and placed them on a cookie sheet. We ate the remnants of the dough. She told us not to, we still did it. We decorated the cookies with her homemade icing and then we ate them. She continued the sugar cookie tradition with her grandchildren. I can picture my children, nieces and nephews up on bar stools covered in flour making sugar cookies with Grandma like it was just yesterday.

My mom died six years ago today. The call from my Dad, the feeling of Mom suddenly gone still runs through me. It was unexpected. Mom was young. She went to sleep and did not wake up. The sting of the loss of my mother remains. I still think to tell her things today as if she is a phone call away. I was the first to give her grand kids and what an amazing grandmother she was. She did not spoil them with gifts, but she gave them knowledge like how to sew, and cook. Just as Dad taught my boys to build things and fix things. Mom taught by being an example of her faith and her trust in God in all situations. She was always there when I needed her. I can’t think of a time that she wasn’t while she was alive.

Mom had planned to make sugar cookies with her youngest granddaughter at the time the morning that she died. The dough was made and waiting in the refrigerator. With the loss of Riley so fresh, I had a serious desire to make her sugar cookies this year at Christmas. I found two teenagers to make them with me here in Kentucky. To have that feeling, that mess, that pride in the finished product of an iced sugar cookie just like Mom gave her kids and her grand kids made me feel closer to her and Riley. I also made sugar cookies and sent them to Bria and Braden so that they had Grandma memories close to them this year. It was a hard holiday for all of us-our first without Riley.

The pain I feel from the loss of my mother is as instinctive as you can imagine. It does not even compare to the pain I feel from the loss of Riley, my sweet baby boy, my son, my love. I am glad that Mom wasn’t around to experience losing Riley. It would have devastated her. Parents are supposed to die before us. Our children are not. Riley had many years of making sugar cookies with Grandma and I. A comforting thought for me is that he is with Grandma now.

I wish that I could tell Mom, “Thank you for all that you did for me and for my children.”