One Slip of Paper In a Box

September 5, 2017September 5, 2017 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

You know how I say memories of Riley sneak up on me and knock me to the floor? Opening a box of a Scrabble game that I had brought with me to Kentucky did that. In an unsuspecting moment on a Sunday afternoon, I pulled the box out of the drawer. I hurried to open it to see if all of the pieces were in there. Games that were once a part of a family and have gone through years of being played sometimes lose their parts.

As I opened the box and laid out the board, I noticed that there were pieces of paper with scoring on them. As I looked closer, they included Riley’s name. And right there, right then… I began to cry. Memories flooded my mind of us as a family sitting around a Scrabble board at the kitchen table challenging each other’s words, laughing and scrambling to win with the most unique, impressive words hitting just the right squares on the board in order to increase our points.

From the scores, it looks like Bria got called away and that Riley, Dad and I continued to play. It seems that I got left in the dust and that it was a close competition between Riley and Greg. First of all, I’m loving the memory of us together playing a game. Memories of family and being together is always warming to my heart. I love that Riley and Dad battled it out and that Riley won. Greg has this lucky streak at any competition. We all gave it our best shot at beating him at something. So there was surely a big smile and some words of pride and boasting out of Riley’s mouth as he won that game that day.

Why do I cry over this little slip of paper? Because Riley should be here. Memories sting like a poison that starts with a prick on the finger and enters my veins spreading throughout me. I wiped my tears that Sunday and had a good time playing Scrabble.

The sting of that one memory from a piece of paper tucked in a box has invaded me for weeks. I want the opportunity to play a game with Riley again. I want the opportunity to touch him and kiss him. I miss his presence in my life. I miss his sense of humor. I want to sit on the couch across from him talking about nothing important and then sometimes talking about something deep and challenging. I want so desperately to see his smile again.

The scramble of the brain, to manipulate memories and thoughts during any given day in order to be like a normal person is very real as a grieving mother. It is memories of Riley that shake up a moment of normalcy. To organize my random thoughts of Riley so that I can function is normal now. To learn to enjoy my time and space in the present instead of wallow in my pain is my challenge. The only winning that happens with grief is making it through a minute, hour, sometimes a day without the debilitating pain of the loss of my son. I win at that sometimes. I lose at it too.

Still to this day people say to me, “With time it will get better” and the old common saying, “Time heals all wounds”. I often don’t handle it very well when I reply to such ideas. Time will not change this gaping wound left in me of losing my son. Healing is not in the future. I will learn better to live with it as life continues to move along across the board. As all things in life, change occurs. This is a loss in life not a win. I attempt to accept the loss and put on a brave face. I lose at that sometimes too.

Though fighting memories to function is a daily challenge, having them brings comfort as well. I know that’s kinda crazy, but it’s true. Is a memory of Riley that comes to mind a win or a loss? Neither. A memory of Riley is both. The memories are precious that I am glad I have. I had him here for 18 years. I wouldn’t hurt so much if I didn’t love him that much. Though invading and painful, I hold dear the memories I am reminded of like this one from a slip of paper in a box.

I Love You, Riley.

A life that touches others goes on forever

April 10, 2017 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

IMG_5340-2-3222307474-O A life that touches others goes on forever. I want desperately for Riley’s story to be instrumental in changing lives. We that knew him and loved him are forever touched by who he was. I speak and tell his story so others know Riley and his story.

Simply said, a grieving parent doesn’t want their child forgotten. That is natural. We want to talk about them and we don’t want you to be afraid to mention them. I want you to remember my young boy that was going to rule the world some day dressed in a baseball cap, cowboy boots and red cape and the young man who liked to discuss how the world could be a better place to live. He shared his smile with strangers and friends alike. His story is important.

In December of last year, I gave a donation in Riley’s name to Isaiah House Treatment Center, a campus of two facilities totalling 88 beds – a men’s drug addiction treatment program located in a small rural town called Willisburg, Kentucky. I have had the privilege of working with Isaiah House for four months now. What I know about this place is that after my many years of researching drug addiction treatment centers all over the United States, I have never and I mean never, seen a rehabilitation center that covers addiction treatment like this place. They are a non profit organization that operates on a very tight budget to provide the largest amount of comprehensive services possible in order to ensure a lifetime of recovery for the men that come through their doors.

I asked to share Riley’s story with the men. I wanted them to know my son and his story.

As I set up the slide show of Riley and sat down, some of the guys started filing in finding seats. Since we were sitting face to face, waiting for my daughter, Bria and the rest of the men to come into the room, we started talking. I don’t think they knew how much that helped me keep my nerves in check.

It had been awhile since I told Riley’s story. It’s never easy. It’s harder when I haven’t been doing it regularly. Visiting the memories of Riley dying is hard.

My imagination runs wild as I revisit the story. There is a visual picture in my head of the tab on his tongue in the snap chat he sent out. The smile on his face as he wrote what joy was like signing it, “acid”. The final hours of his life filled with terror, the cries for help that weren’t answered, the moments of him standing at the entry way of the front door with a gun under his chin. I don’t know how to tell the story without the details of how I lost my son. I HATE the details. I HATE drugs.

So what do you say to a group of adult men of all ages who know drugs very well, who could have died from drug use, but are still here sitting in front of you alive? I said the same thing I say to the kids in classrooms and school gyms. “You don’t know what you have in your hands. Please live. I want you to live.” I told the men I don’t want your Mom, Dad, grandparents, sisters, brothers, wives and children to feel the pain I feel every day. I relayed the message as not a warning of a first try of a drug, but of the possible consequences of one more use of a drug.

Those consequences happen in overdoses in mass numbers daily across the United States. The heroin epidemic is wiping out a generation. There are new synthetic drugs that are killing our sons and daughters as they hit the streets every time we turn around. There are too many parents that know the grief of losing a child to drug use. There are too many children in foster care because of losing their parents to drug use.

There were tears in the audience that mimicked mine as I spoke. At the end, the men had some kind and introspective comments about what they had heard Bria and I say. Each walked out with a “What Would Riley Do Bracelet” and I had accomplished telling Riley’s story one more time.

From there, they take Riley’s story with them and I will never know how it effected each one, but I know I shared it with the purpose that his story sticks with them.

The game room at Isaiah House is named Riley’s Game Room now. The Game Room has a television, an arcade game, ping-pong table, pool table, gaming system and guitars in it. Riley’s kind of room! It’s a great room to have Riley’s name on it.

Because A life that touches others goes on forever.

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.

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.

One Holiday Down, One More To Go

December 16, 2014December 23, 2014 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

As I sit at a dead stop watching a train go by at a railroad crossing on a back road in Kentucky, I think of the crossroad I am at of two very painful holidays this year. One holiday down, one more to go! I can’t help from be impatient in my seat anxious for the cross bars to come up so that I can move on. It is the same kind of wait for the holidays to pass.

Christmas has always been my most favorite holiday. I love everything about Christmas. The lights, the decorations, the baking of cookies and sweets, and the giving. I love to give! As I finish dropping off gifts for children in need in the area, as I finish gathering gifts for my friends and family, there is only a numb feeling on my insides. I move through the motions. I do the things I think I am supposed to, the things that brought me joy every year yet the joy is not within reach this year.

I have decorated the outside of my cabin with big obnoxious multicolored lights. I have baked my traditional cookies and sweets. I have put up a live tree that smells wonderful and has soft pine needles. Mostly Riley ornaments hang from the branches of my Christmas tree. That is about all I have here. I brought with me part of the ornaments I had bought him each year since he was born. A tradition I had for the kids was that I bought an ornament for each one of them that represented their age, their likes and interests. My thinking was that they would have ornaments to take with them when they moved out and had a Christmas tree of their own. Riley’s ornaments will stay with us. He won’t be taking them and putting them on his tree some day like I had planned.

My Christmas tree sits by my fireplace burning warmly. My cabin smells like a camp fire. All of the new here doesn’t keep me from remembering the old. Oh how I miss my kids this year. I will hold two of them again. I wish to God that my boy was still here, alive, breathing, smiling, laughing and entertaining us with his ever present personality. I cry and I cry. I ache and I ache for him. Christmas will never be the same. My life will never be or feel the same.

I think of Riley’s smile as he opened presents. He was just as vibrant at age 17 on Christmas morning as he was when he was 7. Always thankful for his gifts even as he opened the boxes of clothes though you know he was anxious to get to the good stuff.

When he was young, he was the first to wake up. We would give him the go ahead to sort the presents and make our piles of gifts around the tree so that we could have a little more sleep. Then when he let us know that he was done, we would get up, wake up the teenagers and take our spots around the tree. Our tradition was to open presents youngest to oldest. Riley was the first to open a gift each year. He opened his last Christmas gift ever last year. We didn’t know. He didn’t know.

I wish Riley was opening a present from me this Christmas morning. I am glad that I cannot see his empty spot next to the tree. If only he could give us the gift of being here this year.

Just let it be over. Let the stabbing memories of this time of year pass. As the train passes, as I think the crossing bars will raise, another train comes going the other direction! That is where we are this year. Waiting for another Riley memory to pass with yet another one on its way. Though Riley memories give us smiles, the pain that there won’t be another moment in time created with him in it is the uncomfortable stabbing reality of now on. Riley’s choice to try acid on his 18th birthday ended his life and changed our lives, our holidays forever.

Riley, a graduating senior in high school, accepted to NAU, band kid, choir kid, computer whiz, entertainer for anyone in his presence by guitar, jokes, smiles and hugs, a brother, a son won’t sit underneath another Christmas tree and open a present. If only kids would realize that messing with drugs of any kind is dangerous.

Do you really know what is in that joint, pill, tab? Do you know what it will do to you? That possible high, that idea of an experience cannot be worth the outcome of what might happen. It happened to Riley. It is not worth it.

I Love You, Riley.

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What Makes A Hug?

June 8, 2014 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

The definition of a hug is to “squeeze (someone) tightly in one’s arms, typically to express affection.” I’ve thought a lot about hugs lately. I’ve been getting a whole lot of them from family, friends as well as people that I have never met before. People that I hadn’t seen in 30 years. People I had seen last week. People I have known all my life. People that knew Riley and not me have all delivered squeezes to me tightly in their arms to express affection. I am not sure if the hugs are for these people because of their pain or for me. I think the hug is being delivered for both of us. If you know me, you know I find odd strange questions to hang on to and analyze. This one is my latest. What Makes a Hug? I have noticed that sometimes a hug is given or shared with me that I can melt into. I can feel it all the way through me. I can relax and release in that moment. The thing is, it’s random of who is delivering it to create that feeling in me. It doesn’t really have any consistent factor. So is it me needing that hug at that moment or is it who is delivering the hug that can make the hug feel that way?

One of those really good hugs came from a woman. She’s a little squishy. She’s not real short. Not real tall. I don’t even think she likes me much but she delivered a hug by putting her arms around me and I melted. I instantly released tears and felt comfort in her arms. It was a good hug. Another hug that has stuck out came from a man. I was busy being greeted by strangers and I got this hug. It was delivered amongst the chaos. It felt genuine and for the time his arms were around me, I could breath a little better like a sigh of relief. I felt that hug all the way through me. I thought to myself after I let go of him, now that was a good one! And then there was Riley’s elementary school teacher. It was a surprise to see her and what a warm feeling when she hugged me. It was a hug that helped me breath better for a few minutes. I released some tears with her. I was able to relax for a minute in her hug. I am thankful to have those hugs. That’s a reprieve I don’t get very often these days. My pain stays hour to hour, day to day. It is a constant that is not going to change. I have to learn to live with it. I know that.

A Riley Hug

I can order up a good hug from my kids. I love hugging Braden. Braden is 6’4″ and me, Mom, fits right around my baby’s waist. It’s a good spot. Braden has a heart of gold and his hugs feel like gold. Bria and I meet at a mutual spot when we hug- two girls who are alike more than either one of us wants to admit. We are best friends holding each other. I love hugging Bria. Now Riley’s hugs were unique and I asked for them in a reverence of what I was about to receive. No lie! The picture above is one of mine and Bria’s favorites. You can see because that is what happened when you were lucky to receive a hug from Riley. Bria was moving to Colorado and we were all up early to send her and Braden off on a road trip. I think Riley is 14 in that picture. Bria was 20. I know all that have received a hug from Riley will agree, Riley’s hugs were special! He wrapped his arms around you and picked you up. He held you tight. Sometimes I asked for him to not let go yet. I soaked in my baby boy’s hugs. I knew they were special at the time but Oh what I would do for one more….. No, a lifetime more of Riley hugs to go with Bria and Braden hugs. I should still be gathering all three of my kids’ hugs. I need all three of their kind of hugs. (I just did a heavy sigh). I have to be glad that I had my sweet baby boy in my life for the time that I did. That he has left a lasting impression on the world by his presence here for 18 years. It should of been longer. I planned for it to be a lot longer. It wasn’t.

Hug your kids. Hold them tight. Feel it all the way through you to your core and savor it. Whether the hug is for you, for them or both of you……. HUG.

I Love You, Riley.