Onward And Upward I Go

October 8, 2014 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

I am almost to Kentucky. Just 258 miles left. I have not ever left Arizona without a plan of being back in a couple of weeks. This move is a huge change for me. For years, I have had a dream of having a cabin in the woods. The fact that I have bought a cabin on my own is big. The fact that I have bought a real log cabin in Kentucky is even bigger. I have learned that to take a step in faith reaps reward. The rewards have shown themselves in personal growth, challenges and often, a load of blessings that come in all kinds of forms. I am following my dream and I am going with the flow. Onward and Upward I go.

It is more painful than I had imagined to leave family, friends, familiar streets, buildings, corners, parks….ha-ha…….its going from what I know to what I do not know. It is really really hard to leave Riley things behind. It was a struggle up to the last minute that I walked out the door before I hit the road wondering if I have everything of him with me that might be important to have. I took odds and ends of strange things. Guitar picks, a rock that he had saved, a pencil, two of his WWF wrestlers, his Vans that were at the bottom of the stairs so often, a scrap of paper with a doodle on it, books he had read, music he loved, his tuba mouth piece among other small simple things that he had touched. I am also bringing some of Riley’s ashes to spread in Kentucky. Riley goes with me in my heart. The pain of losing him doesn’t waiver. It is nice to have something to touch but what is most important can’t be left behind.

As I drove out of Arizona, I was looking backwards for the first two days of driving. As I get closer to Kentucky, I am looking forward to what is ahead. It’s taken alot of miles to turn my head around and I’m not totally sure that I have but it’s better. I will arrive in the driveway of my very own log cabin today and the adventure begins. With all of this driving, I have some thoughts on road trips- here are some of my notes to self.

Pay attention to road signs! Oh, too often, I notice too late that I am passing an Exit that I needed, thinking, “Oh no I just missed another one and I have to go!” This leads to the reality that I’ll be miserable for no idea how much longer til I find another Exit which sometimes I pass yet again while in deep thought. Hence, my moaning becomes even louder! This also happens with the need to get gas so I have learned to fill up the gas tank whenever I stop for the aforementioned need. Pay attention.
Other vehicles on such a long drive become like friends to me. They come into your lane, they drive near you. This is sometimes for quite a long time. There is passing of each other, moving to the right, moving to the left, following, and leading. Thinking you’ve left them behind and there they are again. And just as friends do, they go and exit along the way. But no fear, a new vehicle comes along to occupy your space sometimes for a short time, sometimes for miles and miles. Friends come and go.
I feel a sense of safety with the semi’s around me. I have grown to be amazed by these big guys as they take up the highway. This may have to do with a tall gentle giant who is a trucker and a friend. Just like I appreciate his presence in my life, I appreciate those semi’s close by on the open road. I also have noticed my impatience in sharing the road with the semi’s when two trucks take up two lanes and hold me up. So as I like safety, I also want to keep moving. Stay safe. Have some patience.
Music is important on a road trip. I burned CD’s of Riley’s favorite music for this trip. It makes me cry imagining him listening to the music. I wish I could discuss the music with him like we used to. I have found new bands that I really like that he liked. I have also found I do not like some of his taste in music at all. Riley’s tastes in music covered about every genre of music. The more I grit my teeth and listen, the more some of it grows on me. Keep listening.

Onward to Kentucky I go. I have challenges ahead. How to deal with snow, mowing an acre of land, meeting new people and becoming familiar with my new streets, buildings, corners, parks, and critters such as raccoon, opossums, coyote and deer. With all the new while carrying the old and familiar, I am most certain that Upward I go! ……….Watch me fly!

I Love You, Riley!

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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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Belonging To “The Riley Group!”

August 31, 2014 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

I just woke up to a dark room. I took an accidental nap on the couch. There are on purpose naps and there are I closed my eyes for a second naps that I would say are accidental. I woke up with an urge to start searching through some of Riley’s email and Facebook. I go in spurts where it seems doable to dive into Riley stuff and other times I cannot, so I don’t. I am trying to know what by looking? I am not sure. I am seeing things that were personal to Riley. Things I wouldn’t have seen ever if he wasn’t gone. There are moments while I look that I don’t think that I want to know. There are more moments I think I do want to know. I have had the privilege of knowing Riley better by the stories that have been told to me by random people about him. I am thankful to see him through their eyes.

I went way back in messages to 2009 and saw Riley as an 8th grader. I could hear his immature voice and the pre-teen thinking in what he wrote as a 13-year-old. He made a group called “The Riley Group!” He did that because I had found a Djuana page on Facebook and had found out there were other Djuana’s in the world. I know, hard to believe others are named Djuana but last I looked there were 33 of us. Riley messaged a bunch of people of all ages with the name Riley asking them if they wanted to join his group. No one joined. Dangit, I want to go back and make that endeavor successful for him. Why wasn’t I paying attention then and helping him make that group? Should I have been? I remember when he did it, he announced his plan to me. He even wrote on the page “‘my mom joined a group called the djana group so i decided to make a riley group, all Riley’s join the group!” He misspelled my name. (I’m smiling.)

While looking at his Facebook, I also came across his musician/band page made in 2013 called “I Got Lost” where he posted a recording of him playing “Black Bird” on his guitar. I cried listening to it. I could imagine his fingers on the strings with his head down while he played. We know he recorded other songs that he had written. We haven’t found where he downloaded them yet. I hope we can find them. It feels very important.

I happened to be in the choir room this last year when some of the students were performing for the class. Riley and another choir member sang a song. Riley played his guitar. I heard him, came out of the back room and stood in the back while I watched my boy sing and play for his peers. The choir teacher later told me she saw the pride and joy on my face as I listened. I am sure she did see that.

Riley was on the cusp of feeling more successes in life, in college and beyond. I wish he had lived to have seen those successes. I wish he hadn’t taken that pill. I hope he has heard the stories people have told of how knowing him changed their lives. How he made a difference for the girl who was contemplating suicide. I hope he knows how grateful that boy is that Riley took the time to befriend him. I hope that he is aware of how many lives he impacted. There’s a story by a girl who was in the hall crying. Though Riley didn’t know her, he went out of his way to distract her from whatever was making her cry. He said something random which is what he often did to get people’s attention. That created a conversation, her smiling and ultimately feeling better. My son, with a smile and a personality to match, had made people’s days where ever he went. He had 800 people who filled the church pouring into make shift seating at his funeral that would have belonged to “The Riley Group!”

I sat with a counselor this week and she told me grieving is a hard process. She said to give myself a break. That losing a child tops the list of losses. I get that. I know that. It must be the umbilical cord between us that is never really gone. The distance between us pulls me, yanks me, and holds me to him. I won’t ever let go.

I continue to wish that this is a bad nightmare and that I will wake up. Something tells me that 20 years from now I’m still going to be hoping, wishing, pleading to wake up. Oh, my sweet baby boy.

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

I Love You, Riley.

Rockabye Baby

July 28, 2014 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

When Riley was a toddler he fell asleep in the oddest places. Being the third child he had to, I suppose. I was busy running around with two other children who had to be at grade school and preschool and be picked up at different times. Of course those pick up times were in the middle of Riley’s nap time. I drug him out for play dates, girl scouts and T-ball practices for the older two kids. I have a picture of him asleep on the stairs. He is sitting on one step with his head on the other sound asleep in his favorite Spiderman pajamas which he wore as much as possible day and night. I have another picture of him asleep in a plastic tub most likely he was playing in it, curled up and decided to snooze a bit. I even have a picture of him asleep on the toilet. It’s the cutest picture. He is in a baseball hat turned backwards, sleeveless t-shirt with his head cocked sideways fast asleep with his shorts down around his ankles. I’m not going to show you that one, but it’s a cute one!

Riley was my last baby. I went to Greg and said, “I want one more. I want a chubby blonde boy.” It’s exactly what I got too. I didn’t know you could order up exactly what you want when you have children, but we did. Bria looked like a baby doll with rose bud lips and big eyes. She was determined to not sleep when we wanted her to. Oh the things we did to try to get that child to sleep. Braden was sweet with a full head of hair. He had a ball in his hand as soon as he could hold one. He put himself to sleep when I put him down with no fuss. Braden survived big sister’s abuse. Bria was 2 1/2 and I found her picking him up as a newborn more than once trying to carry him off like a doll. I think maybe Braden in turn payed forward when Riley arrived. Riley was born with dark hair that turned blonde. Riley was cute as a button. He was just plain kissable. He came out smiling and he didn’t stop. I rocked him to sleep to an older age than the rest. I would whisper songs to him and rock. When the hustle and bustle of the day was over, I took the time to hold him as I watched him fall asleep. I savored that time we had together. I can still feel that time in the rocking chair holding him close as we rocked back and forth together.

I don’t have trouble sleeping like many people seem to experience as they are going through grief. Though the first night that he died, I did not sleep. It was the most awful, painful, draining day of my entire life. I wouldn’t relive that day again for a million bucks. I do know to be thankful for my hours of rest and sleep. It gives me a break from the ache that I feel. The problem is, I wake up and he’s still not here anymore. Waking up is not what it used to be before Riley died.

Riley and I had a ritual where I popped, rubbed and scratched his back before bed. When at 17, he was still asking as he was going to bed, “Mom will you rub my back?” I was surprised he was still asking. I can’t tell you how many times, I was in bed, had a headache or was in the middle of something when he asked. Yet if he found me awake and asked, I got up and did that for him. It was a long process and I couldn’t skip to just scratching his back or do it out of order. It was a time that we talked about nonsensical things to serious things. Teenagers, they are hard to pin down to talk to so ya gotta get those talks in when you can even when it is about an event of their day, what’s going on with a friend or something as deep as whether the Bible is literal. We hit on all kinds of subjects during that time.

I guess I did savor bedtime with Riley from infancy to very close to adulthood. I didn’t rub his back at 18. I missed it by a day. The last time I was sitting on his back rubbing it, I asked if he was going to miss this when he went away to college. He said “Yep, lower, no to the right- ya there.” Oh, how I miss my sweet baby boy.

I love you, Riley.

Time

July 22, 2014 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

Harvey MacKay said, “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can send it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.”

Time stood still when Riley died. I didn’t know what day it was for the first month. I was in such a task mode at first. I dragged myself out of bed, showered and moved forward. The funeral plans kept me moving. Then the funeral was over and I feared what was next. What was next was pain that had gotten larger. The ache inside me got to a new level. I wondered how I would be able to function but I did function. I cried. I wiped my tears and moved slowly across my day. Each step is heavy. This grief thing is like carrying a heavy load. There is no getting it off your back. It’s always there.

Two and a half months later, I think time is my enemy. The pain is becoming stronger with time. How much worse can it get I wonder. It hits me out of the blue. A Riley memory happens, the pain floods through me and then poors out. One evening I was looking for a picture that my daughter asked me to send her. I came across a file on my computer of pictures from a Thanksgiving a few years ago that I hadn’t seen in a long time. There was Riley…. younger, his hair not even touching his shoulders with his arm around me smiling at the camera. I broke out in tears. I couldn’t stop crying. You know the swollen eyes, snot stuffed up in your nose you can’t breath kinda hard cry? It was one of those cries. It’s the realization that hits. He is not here. He will not be here. He is gone forever.

When I open my Facebook page and see my cover photo of him in one of his senior pictures that was taken only two weeks before he died, I ache to touch his face. It makes me so pickin’ mad that he won’t be looking at me again with a Riley grin. It is so real now that I won’t ever touch him again. I don’t want it to be real. I was hoping it wasn’t. I kept hoping I would wake up and he was back. If its only been this amount of time and it hurts this bad, how much worse can it get?

The pain of losing your child has to be the worst pain anyone ever has to go through. I am sure of it I’m angry that this happened, just really really angry. My sweet baby boy had a life ahead. Taken from him by a drug. A pill. The culture we live in promises drugs are cool. Smoking pot is the norm among teens today. Teens of all peer groups smoke pot-legal or not, they smoke it. Why not go for a different high and see what that is like? How about mix a few drugs and see what happens? It’s cool right? No, its not. No, its not when the drug causes harm to yourself or someone else. It can end a life. Riley’s story is not rare. It happens. Too often it has happened. It can and does happen by that one try. I HATE DRUGS.

How can I get this message out? How can we make sure that the risk is known that every time a drug is smoked, snorted, inhaled, or swallowed death can occur? Time is defined as “the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.” There is no continued progress of existence or events for Riley. Time for me as a parent exists, but it is skewed to a point that I don’t know how to exist and progress without my son. Riley lost time forever by one decision to try a drug. Tell Riley’s story to the young and the old in your life. Tell it to the neighbors, the relatives, coworkers and the teens you know. Educate yourselves on the synthetic drugs that are out there being sold by online labs to dealers who don’t give a crap what’s in it or the outcome of its use. Talk to your kids.

I Love You, Riley.