high school

52 with a few more to go

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IMG_5083The reality of my age has hit hard this year. I just had a birthday and all of a sudden I am feeling weathered, withered, creaky with a swooshy brain. Parts of me have been creaking for a while now, but it’s just this new number that even sounds old. Recently when I complained about some strange symptom I had, my boyfriend said, “It’s because we are old.” Notice he says “we” as if that is going to lighten the shock of the statement. It doesn’t. He can be old. I don’t want to be old! I am not ashamed of the years I have lived, 52, or the year I was born, 1965. I just don’t like that old part. I mean, I don’t want to be.

Riley just had a birthday this past week on May 3rd. He would have been 21 years old. That day is a double whammy of a day since it is also the day that he died. It has been three years now. Nothing is different. It still hurts. It hurts bad.

The day before Riley’s birthday when I felt like I was holding my breath waiting for the day to be here and wishing it wasn’t coming, Tom was making dinner and I was standing in the kitchen keeping him company. We began talking about that being old thing again. He said he would go back ten years if he could- that it sounded good.

I said, “I wouldn’t because that would mean I might have to live ten years longer.” There, I said it out loud and then my tears leaked out.

Dealing with this pain, this grief that I am sentenced to for the rest of my life is real. To carry it longer sounds awful and too taxing. It’s a lot of work. I don’t know that I can do it any longer than the time that I have ahead of me now. Death is a welcome thought.

There is an end to it. I know that my friends that are carrying the grief of losing a child understand.  There is a finish line I look forward to when the pain will stop and better yet, I will be with Riley again. It is a white line with flags and I do not fear crossing it.

To survive this grief of losing a child, I must put one foot in front of the other and keep moving. I must! Or I will surely wither away.

I get up, I get dressed and I keep moving because I have a life to live right now.  After 3 years, I can smile at a joke. I can appreciate the beauty of my blue sky and green grass and blooming flowers here in Kentucky. I can feel challenged with my job and the pleasure of seeing the results of my efforts at it. I am thrilled with how my children are doing and how fast my grand-daughter is growing.

I sleep, I eat, I dance in the kitchen, I love and I am loved. I cry and I wipe my tears and I keep going. I bury my head under the pillow and I rest.  My heart hurts so bad when I think about him that it feels that it is going to quit. I keep going anyways. I must!

I have made it 52 years, I can make it 48 more years if that is what God gives me, but don’t ask me to do one more day than I am destined to. Riley had only 18 years. I’d easily give him all of my years, but I can’t. This is my life sentence – this grief. And I will handle the withering, weathering, creaking with a swooshing brain avoiding the word, “old” the best I can and I will keep getting up and keep moving…Because I must!

I Love You, Riley.

A life that touches others goes on forever

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IMG_5340-2-3222307474-OA 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.

Saturday Mornings

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saturday-706914_1280aSaturday mornings…they are my favorite. The work week is over except not in my case because social media does not ever close for business so neither do I.  A load of clients, deadlines and another project handed to me when I think I am seeing the end of the tunnel fills my day. Then there is the fact that I should have said,”No” and am kicking myself right into my favorite day of the week. I am hopeful that Sunday is a day of rest. That’s what God said it should be.

But still Saturday’s are quieter. They have this standing of, I am here, you can do something different kind of spot on the calendar. I like that.

As I started my coffee this morning, my stomach grumbled and I walked over to the refrigerator and opened it. Grocery shopping has been on the to do list, but I haven’t left the house in days due to that work schedule thing.  The refrigerator is pretty much empty.

On a shelf, all by itself, sits my takeout leftovers from dinner last night. As I opened the container and took a bite, I had a flashback of Saturday mornings years ago. The years where I was mom with sleeping children in their beds and always some kind of leftover to partake in the refrigerator. All the years of pizza leftovers are on my mind. Pizza is a fine cuisine fresh out of the oven or bagged in the refrigerator a day later.  Pizza was Riley’s favorite meal and cold pizza with some ranch dressing on the side would be a usual breakfast during his teen years.

It was a score for me to get a piece of leftover pizza before the masses of human beings that inhabited my home got out of bed. I was usually the first one up on a Saturday morning to inhale the quiet before the storm of live breathing humans that would soon rustle about in my home. A “Mom, I want…”, “Mom, can I?”, “Mom, will you?” was on the horizon. I could count on it.

Today, this Saturday morning, my cabin is silent with only a tick of a clock, the sound of an old ceiling fan making its rounds, round and round and the sound of me typing on my computer’s keyboard. It will stay just this quiet all day long with no looming rustle of awakened souls coming any minute. I miss the anticipation.

The warmth of family around you is something to embrace as some day the nest becomes empty. That scenario is one we parents know will be coming. What I didn’t know is one of those souls from my family would be gone from my life here on earth. That soul that was a light in every one of my days is no more. That soul that was a part of my world is gone.

As my computer powers up each day and Riley’s face stares back at me, I think, how could he be gone? How could this have happened? I tell him so as I see him looking back at me. Oh, how I miss him being a part of my Saturdays. I miss him being here to worry about, think about and care for. I miss fighting over the leftover pizza with him

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Riley must have thought it couldn’t happen. Riley must have thought this will be cool – that it was something to tell his friends he had done. He was celebrating his birthday. It didn’t end up to be a celebration, but a nightmare that he couldn’t get out of.

On this Saturday, the memory of Riley grabbing leftover pizza from the fridge while looking for the homemade ranch dressing with sleep tousled hair, barefoot in boxers and a t-shirt, causes my lips to curl in a smile as my heart aches with pain at the same time. That is what happens most times I think of Riley.

Don’t mess with drugs. It’s just not worth it.

I hate drugs!

 

I Love You, Riley.

 

Really good looking, Intelligent, Likes pizza, Exellent at Saxaphone, Yippee

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img_0295One of Riley’s self portraits that he made in grade school hangs in my office. It  hung up in the loft of our home for many years pinned by a magnet to a catch-all board there. I have always loved it because there it is….. THAT’S  Riley.

rR         “Really good looking” He was. I love his self confidence! He was cute as a button as a baby and as a teen he lit up a room. His smile, his pretty blue eyes, that luscious blonde hair- you couldn’t miss him.  One of his classmates told me a story after he died of how Riley told her daily that she was beautiful. She said she began to believe him after hearing it over and over. Those words changed how she saw herself. He charmed us all from birth on.

iI           “Intelligent” Yep, he was intelligent. School was not hard for him.  Getting him to do homework was another story. Tests came easy. He was accepted to college and was thinking about chemical engineering. He built computers. He loved intelligent conversation and savored in the shock factor of the arguments he entered into. He looked for the opportunity to discuss anything from music to politics and religion.

lL           “Likes Pizza” Yep! It was his favorite food. If you gave him a choice what do you want for dinner, it would be pizza 90% of the time. We made homemade pizzas for special occasions.  I have many memories around a meal of pizza with Riley. I have a great memory of having pizza with him at a nice restaurant the year he died – how he ordered, what he chose, how he handled himself and the ‘Thank you’ I received after.

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E           “Exellent at Saxaphone”.  Uh-huh! He liked  musical instruments and saxophone was his first instrument at school. The saxophone took him into high school marching and concert band. He picked up the tuba as well. He taught himself to play guitar. He owned an organ and played piano. His choir director his senior year of high school was his grade school band director. She often commented to me at how Riley had grown musically. He loved and had an appreciation for music.

yY             “Yippee!”  Of course Yippee! That was Riley- smiles, hugs of lifting you off of your feet, causing laughter where ever he was, his excitement for living and the enjoyment of being with him in any circumstance. His smiles, his attitude about life, his unconditional love was contagious.

The picture is a good reflection of Riley as well. There is his big smile that melted us all. His big blue eyes that were lit with life. He was always thinking behind those eyes. His short hair at the time grew long past his shoulders. He even put detail to his ears in this picture. His ears were open listening soaking it all in. He liked to draw.

On May 3, 2014 Riley’s smile faded.  The insurmountable amount of acid in his body that night from one tab bought online by a high school student must have caused demons that he could not push away as he reached out with a text of “HALP”. What did he see that night that he couldn’t run from? What voices were in his ears that caused him to use that gun on himself? That loud gunshot was the last sound he heard.  His tongue to never taste pizza again. His big blue eyes went blank- closed for the last time.

The light of Riley turned dark at that point. My sweet baby boy, an adult for only a few hours- born and died on the same date- he was 18. Gone by trying a drug for the first time.  The boy who drew this picture, that boldly stated who he was, was no more. He lives in the hearts that knew him and now from his story being shared, he lives in the hearts of those that did not know him. Intelligent but made a poor choice- he made a decision he cannot take back. No more eating pizza, playing the saxophone and no more YIPPEE’s.

We will love him forever. I believe you will remember him forever now. RILEY- really good looking, Intelligent, Likes pizza, Excellent at the saxophone and lived a life with a Yippee went dark that morning.

I can’t touch him again, hear his voice, laugh with him until we cry because he tried a drug and he didn’t know what he really had in his hand.

Don’t mess with drugs. It’s not worth it.

I Love You, Riley.

Grief sucks.

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IMG_2382Grief sucks. A parent’s loss of a child doesn’t compare to any other loss. I’m telling you it’s true. Right now my pain is worse than ever. May has been hard. This is the second May since Riley died. It feels rougher than the last. Maybe I got better at not concentrating on my grief and it has hit harder. Maybe I got better at keeping myself distracted. Maybe my life has been fuller this past year with my own business, finishing a basement, a birth of a grand-daughter and more. Maybe I am more awake and less numb at the two-year mark of his birthday and his death.

I can’t get away from the grief in my life. It is in my face every time I sit still. If I only could not be still, but I have to be still sometimes. It’s the worst when I try to go to sleep. I lay there and my grief, my loss eats at me and gnaws on my heart. It hurts. It is miserable. I hate it.

In the mornings it can be just as bad when I open my eyes. Some days I have a project or a place to be that I can concentrate on and then, at some point…I have to be still again. And there it is, the black clouds creeping over me and parking themselves on top of me, covering me from the sunshine. Tears like rain fall.

I just want my boy back with his smile, his humor, to hear his voice say, “I love you, Mom”.

In the club of parents who have lost a child we did not ask to be a part of, but were thrown into without permission, we have lost parents who have given in to the pain. They have quit the club to join their children. It is sad. It makes me angry that they quit. Yet, I get it. The pain must stop then. This emotional pain is awful. I have never lived with physical pain that I couldn’t eventually relieve. The emotional pain of grief can be shoved to the side in the midst of a day, but it’s always there waiting for you and it’s not going anywhere.

My son should still be alive. I don’t know why it had to happen to him. Why did Riley have to try LSD that night? Why couldn’t circumstances have been different to keep him from trying it? I don’t know. It happened. There is no rewind.

I spoke a lot this month to adults and teens. Each time I tell his story, I relive how special he was, how much I miss and love him and also the details of how he died. It’s not easy. Knowing a person might be impacted by his story and make a different decision than Riley did keeps me sure that this is what I am supposed to be doing despite the pain.

Grief sucks. Life doesn’t have to suck. I feel that I have to live to tell his story. I have to carry this pain. I have to grieve because there is no way around it. Living means more than grieving. My job is to savor the moments like finding lady bugs on my apple tree leaves and enjoying the site despite also discovering the cedar rust at the same time. That’s life.

I am thankful for that hug that reaches into my soul and lets it rest for a minute. For the hour on a hammock in the dark, under the moon, staring at the stars and feeling a peace that Riley is safely tucked in the heavens. For the sweet grand baby in my arms. For that phone call from my son. For that message from my daughter. Living for dancing in the kitchen, tasting a new food, experiencing something randomly new. For learning something I didn’t know. For the smiles and belly laughs that come to me.

Riley savored new sights and experiences.

I am thankful to be able to hear Riley’s voice in that video, his thrill in the sight of a rainbow on the beach in Hawaii that felt so close that we could touch it. I am reminded to be thankful that there is something else around the corner that will challenge me to be better, do better, grow and thrive in some way. Those are the good things and the reason I am here.

Grief sucks. Life doesn’t have to suck. (Somebody remind me of this later.)

I Love You, Riley.

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Speaking to Save a Life

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IMG_7170As the weather changes, as the brisk air chills me, as the beautiful colors of fall are around me, I feel like a zombie that stuck around from Halloween.  I am staring ahead and putting one foot in front of the other with my arms stretched straight out guiding me to the next destination. All this while there is an ache that is heavy weighing down my heart. The ache does not let up. It hurts.

Perhaps it is the change of weather triggering the sense of the seasons of holidays ahead. Holidays are hard for those who are grieving the loss of a loved one. Perhaps it is one of the waves of intense grief that come and go. That happens. Perhaps it is those things and all of the speaking I have been doing telling Riley’s story. 

To speak and tell Riley’s story takes strength in a new form for me. If you have ever heard me speak, I have a small “baby” voice. Yes, it is true. It has been my whole adult life that the phone rings, I answer and the sales person on the other end says, “Is your Mom home?” and my regular reply is, “I am the Mom.”  I have to work to speak loud enough for the room to hear me.

I do not speak in front of people well. My mind gets jumbled. I cannot remember everything I would have written skillfully with purpose and order. I have no skill in speaking. I have quit worrying about skill- instead of trying to do it perfectly, I sit down and tell Riley’s story to the students. I talk to the teens as if they were in my home sitting on the couch with me. Mother mode is easy for me.

Mother mode also opens me up to feel for who I am talking to. I want to protect those precious lives in front of me.

To tell Riley’s story over and over is to relive my nightmare.  To speak to the students as a mother who has lost her child to drugs, to beg for them to hear his story and make a different choice than Riley made is draining. It is an opportunity I am thankful for.

I want Riley’s death to not be in vain. My hope is that Riley’s story saves a life.

The impact of my telling his story has already shown as teens (both boys and girls) line up to hug me when I am done. Many step up to me with tears in their eyes. Some uncontrollably crying, telling me their experiences with drugs. This is the case often for the teens that are living with drugs and addiction in their family- these experiences have affected them deeply. Kids are coming into the counselors’ offices individually- needing to talk, to share, to ask for help.

If you have been following me over the last year, you may know about the purple WWRD (What Would Riley Do) bracelets that were made by Riley’s friends to wear and remember the unconditional love he gave to others.  I have been handing them out to the students when I speak.

I share the original purpose of the bracelets because that is who Riley was. I also tell the students,  I am hoping that when they look at the bracelet, they think to themselves, What Would Riley Do? Riley would say it’s not worth it. He was looking forward to college. He didn’t even get to walk across the stage and get that high school diploma. His life stopped at 18 because of trying a drug.

The bracelets have become something the students are embracing.  If they didn’t get one, they are stopping in the counselor office and asking for one.  Perhaps the bracelet gets thrown into a drawer, ends up under their bed or thrown into a jewelry box. Perhaps in the moment they need to remember Riley’s story, that person opens the drawer, finds it under the bed or inside the jewelry box and remembers a boy like them died by his choice to try a drug.

It is like playing russian roulette using drugs. You do not know what you have. Riley didn’t. There are too many stories to count of teens who have died using drugs for the first time. It only takes one try. If there isn’t death, there are teens in wheel chairs, half blind, in a hospital bed on a ventilator and many others are chained to drugs by addiction. Addiction ruins lives, is difficult to beat and all too often ends in death.

I HATE DRUGS.  I hate that Riley is not here on this earth anymore because of them.

I wish I was making a phone call to Riley in his dorm at NAU to hear about his week. Instead I am looking out a window wrapped in a sweater with an aching heart. I am watching beautiful leaves of red, orange, yellow and brown fall to the ground in the breeze wondering how to have more opportunities to tell Riley’s story in hope to save a precious life.FullSizeRender

I LOVE YOU, Riley.