What Would Riley Do Bracelets

November 20, 2015November 20, 2015 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

As the requests increase for me to speak and tell Riley’s story to groups, the requests for WWRD (What Would Riley Do) bracelets increase as well. I have been giving the bracelets out to whoever wants one when I speak. My thinking is it is a reminder of Riley’s story and perhaps seeing the bracelet will make a person think twice about using a drug. It also may spurn a person to tell Riley’s story to someone.

This is creating a financial strain on me since I can be speaking to 250 students at a time. I have created a Go Fund Me account so that I can take donations. I will only be using the money to cover the cost of the bracelets.

What Would Riley Do if given the chance again to try a drug? He’d choose to not do it. He’d say, “It’s not worth it.”

If you feel led to help me spread Riley’s story with these bracelets, donations can be made at www.gofundme.com/WWRDbracelets

Speaking to Save a Life

November 8, 2015 / djuanadreed / 5 Comments

As 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.

I Can’t

September 25, 2015September 25, 2015 / djuanadreed / 2 Comments

What if I don’t want to go there? I know it has been a long time since I have posted a blog. I have many blogs started. I can’t finish them. I close my computer and walk away.

I want him here. I want him to say something to make me smile. I want him to say something to make me mad. I want him to say something that makes me frustrated. I want him to say something that makes me think. I want him to say something.

He can’t.

I want him to ask, “What’s for dinner?” I want him to ask, “Can I have some money for coffee at Coffee Rush?” I want him to walk into the hall carrying a pair of pants asking me to wash them. I want him to say he’s going to bed and ask if I will rub his back. I want him to open the front door and say a friend is here and 5 others walk in behind him. I want to sit on the couch with him and talk about something, anything, please anything.

We can’t.

I want to see him walk in with new vinyl that he scored at Zia Records. I want to hear some new music playing upstairs and ask who is that. I want to hear him playing his guitar. I want to hear his laugh again. I want to smell his smell as he picks me up off my feet. I want to touch his soft skin.

I can’t.

Riley was awesome. He really was. He was the light in a room. He went through life smiling and causing others to smile. He gave away hugs and they hugged back. He is gone never to speak, smile, hug again. That happened in an instant.

A fatal decision made to try a drug for the first time took him from me. It only took one try to die. Stopped. Ended. Riley. I won’t ever hear his voice again. Touch him. Kiss him. Make dinner for him. Wash his clothes for him. Hand a $20 dollar bill to him for coffee again. See his shoes at the bottom of the stairs. Pick up a stack of coffee cups from his computer desk. I want to hear another, “I love you, Mom”.

We can’t share it. He can’t say it. I can’t hear it.

Whatever you think that drug might do for you, it’s not worth it. Listen to Riley’s story.

I Love You, Riley.

Bug

August 17, 2015 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

In all of the beauty in the blue sky, white clouds, perfect black fence lines, barns sitting on hills with horses grazing in green pastures and cattle of different colors strewn across fields here in Kentucky, there are also bugs, lots and lots of bugs.

I was driving down the road with my elbow out an open window with cool breeze blowing in my hair. It was a beautiful day and I was smack dab in the middle of it. I was taking it all in and then suddenly there was a burning sensation on my left side- a sudden pain. I yelped, “OW!” I reached down with one hand still on the wheel feeling for what it was. I didn’t feel anything. “Ow, ow, ow… Keep your eyes on the road, Djuana,” I told myself. There was nowhere to pull off so I kept driving thinking, “What was that?”

When I got to the cabin and was able to look, I found a red spot that still felt like it was burning. I grabbed a cube of ice and put it on my side. It must have been a bug that flew into the window and stung me. I never found the remnants of whatever it was.

After sitting outside on my back porch last night, I came inside and laid across my bed to reply to a text on my phone. Something very large and black dropped down from my hair in the right side of my line of vision. I threw my phone, jumped up on my knees on the bed and started shaking my hair and running my fingers through it looking for it to drop down on the bed. Where did it go? I don’t know, but after inspection in the mirror, I didn’t see it on my shirt or still hanging in my hair anymore.

Bugs, bug bites, spider webs are everywhere in the summer in Kentucky.

I have chigger bites. I remember them well from growing up spending time at the cabin in Pine, Arizona. The five of us kids played in the dirt under the cabin making taco stands and finding sand rocks to crush – our imaginary life thrived in the woods in Arizona. If you play in the dirt, you get chigger bites.

Here in Kentucky, I tend to go out to mow and water plants without putting bug repellant on. It’s there on the counter beside the back door to make sure that I remember it. I still don’t remember until the first bite and then I go running into the house looking for the Caladryl to make the itching stop. I’m tired of bugs right now.

I do have one bug that I love. One of Riley’s nicknames was “Bug”. Greg started that when he was born and it just stuck. I think of our bug every day. Sometimes it is just a good memory. I try to keep it at that but an ache, a wish, and reality always comes with a memory of Riley.

I miss my bug. I wish so bad that I had him here with me. His memory bites, burns and leaves a bump. He crawls up my back and gets under my skin at times. Sometimes my bug tickles and doesn’t bite. Every day is different. Each day I try very hard to find the good because the bad will put me to my knees in an instant.

Kentucky bugs will go away as the weather changes. My bug is here to stay in my heart and on my mind. The burn and itch of bug bites disappear after a short time. The burn of missing my bug, Riley does not disappear. It is a constant itch that will not heal. I can stay in the pain or I can keep moving. I choose to keep moving best I can.

As I get ready to tell Riley’s story at a local community forum, Smart Start in 9 days, I am hoping my bug’s story will stick in the children’s minds. That they will remember the story about a boy about their age died because he messed with drugs. That it only took one try of a drug to die. That there is poison in drugs and they don’t know for sure what they are about to smoke, snort, inhale or swallow. Riley’s death is a message that shows proof that it is not worth the try. It is not worth the chance. “Find a high another way”, I say. Don’t die like my bug, Ri.

I Love You, Riley.

My Riley Quilt

July 21, 2015 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

My Riley quilt has arrived. If you have followed me on Facebook over the past year, you know that Greg’s older sister, Sharon, offered to make he and I quilts out of Riley’s t-shirts. We divided the shirts picking which ones were important to us. Greg and Riley went to concerts together. They both loved music. I was a booster Mom for band and choir. I went along to some concerts and I also shared his love of music. We chose our memories with him in the shirts we picked.

I had a hard time parting with the shirts that weren’t washed. They still smelled like him. I held them close. I stared at them trying to make myself, will myself to wash and send them. It was too hard. I wasn’t ready. I decided to not make myself do it. I waited.

And when it felt right, when I decided I wanted the quilt enough to let them go, I washed them, folded them and sent the box of our chosen shirts to Sharon. Right now, to be honest, I am missing the shirts again. I can see the remnants of the paisley shirts that I bought him and the Hawaiian shirts I picked out for him that he was so well-known for wearing. The one he wore that last evening that he was alive I miss the most. He had dropped it in the same spot in his room that most of his dirty clothes gathered. He had a hamper. He rarely used it! I held that shirt the most.

When UPS rang my doorbell today, I stepped out and saw the box and knew what it was. Sharon let me know that it was coming. I hurried inside, put it down, ran to my junk drawer to find a pocket knife and started to cry before I even got back over to the box. More quiet tears fell as I opened it and more came as I spread it out and admired it. When I wrap myself in the quilt, I will cry again.

Sharon said that it took her so long to make the quilts because it took her awhile to be able to open the box of shirts when they came to her. It was an emotional task of love what she has done for us. I have imagined being wrapped up in this quilt for a year now. I am forever grateful to Aunt Sharon. Bria and Braden have their quilts from her when they graduated from high school. She has done a quilt for all of her nieces and nephews at age 18. Riley’s was planned, but he died before she had the shirts to make his.

On my quilt are t-shirts from The Beatles, Rush, Weezer, The Ramones, The Doors, Foo Fighters, Dinosaur Jr., Jimi Hendrix, Reel Big Fish and Two Verse. There are specific memories for each band t-shirt I picked. Music was Riley and there are experiences he had with each shirt on or experiences he shared with me while in them that are my memories. I also chose one of his CHS Marching Band t-shirts. I was remembering lining up feeding the band during long practices and before football games. I chose a CHS Choir t-shirt because I have beautiful memories of watching him on stage with his long blonde hair in his sparkly red bow tie singing his heart out. I have a tender memory of watching him play his guitar and sing with a classmate during choir class. His choir teacher told me that she watched me watching him from the back corner of the room. She said she will forever remember my face in that moment. I also picked his Senior t-shirt because of the box of graduation announcements I had sitting on my desk that never got mailed. For the cap and gown that I bugged him to make sure that he got ordered. He never picked those up to wear on graduation day.

In the center of my quilt is the last gift Riley gave me. On my birthday in April, he gave me a Northern Arizona University MOM t-shirt that I hadn’t worn yet. I would have worn it proudly. He never got to step on campus as a freshman.

The times I scooped these shirts up off that pile in his room and washed them are on my mind. The times he sat himself next to me in them and said, “Mom, will you scratch my back?” The times I ironed the paisley shirts before he left the house on a date or for senior pictures. Senior pictures that he never got to see. Sometimes I sleep in his white under shirts. I kept those.

My love, my son, at 18 died from trying a drug the very first time. A drug that was bought online. A tab that was loaded way past the amount he thought he bought. Chasing a cool experience, Riley had a horrifying one that he wasn’t able to climb out of. I lost my son that night.

I hold this quilt of memories of Riley trying to remember how he smelled. How he felt when he hugged me in them. What he looked like in the t-shirts smiling at me and hearing his voice saying, “I love you, Mom”. I want so bad to look at his face alive and healthy with that twinkle in his blue eyes. I want to be able to smile back at him and say, “I love you, Riley”. I will have to hold him in my Riley quilt instead.

I Love You, Riley.

Meet Bert

July 14, 2015 / djuanadreed / 2 Comments

Meet Bert. Bert is my side kick, my constant companion, my rock, and my security. Bert is a 6 1/2 year old pure bred Bouvier des Flanders. At 8 weeks old, Bert flew to us on a plane from Pennsylvania. He was a black and brown bundle of fur that blended into our dark floor. Today he stands tall and 120 lbs (or more). Buying him was a covert operation. He was a surprise Christmas gift from the kids and I to their Dad. He was a wonderful addition to our family. He fit right in. He is big and bulky like a bull in a china closet, soft to the touch as a furry blanket with a constant slobbery wet muzzle from lapping up water when he drinks.

When I bought the log cabin in Kentucky, Greg offered for Bert to move with me as he knew Bert would enjoy the larger space to roam with cooler weather. It is fun to watch Bert in Kentucky. He drug his nose, romped and laid in the snow during our first winter as if he didn’t even know it was cold. He moves around the yard smelling new smells. He posts himself at the bottom of trees looking straight up waiting for the squirrels to come back down. He chases fireflies in the grass in the evenings like he chased the laser light the boys would shine for him to chase.

Social is not a word I would use about Bert. Since he was young when he and I were on walks around the local park, he would stop and allow people to touch him out of a sort of obligation while looking at me like now can we keep moving? His job is to protect and care for others. His breed is a herding breed. When he was a pup, he would try to block me from climbing the stairs. He was always under my feet like a toddler. He still is.

Bert is my side kick and constant companion. Though he is not allowed to lay on my couch, he often slips in the maneuver of backing up to it, leaving his front feet on the floor and plopping his behind down beside me. He rides along in the car with me when I go into town. When he sits straight up and looks out the window, his head is close to the roof of the car. Passers by take a second look to see what that large hairy thing is in the car window. He naturally draws a lot of attention and often is gifted treats from people at our local stops.

Bert does not leave my side. I have to sit outside with him. If I go inside, he will stop whatever he is doing and hurry to the back door. I wish he would stay outside and play. He will not. He is like a ping pong ball in a maze. As I fold clothes and put them away room to room, he follows at my heels crowding me in the hall. I try to tell him to relax that I will be right back, but he doesn’t seem to get it. If I stand still, he lays down and then as soon as I make a sudden move, he pops back up to follow. I can’t even go to the bathroom alone when he is awake- see? just like a toddler.

Bert lets people know that he is here if they come close to the cabin. He has a very loud bark that stops the largest of men in their tracks while they prepare to run. He sent the little old lady with her small dog in her arms running after hearing Bert’s bark of hello from the front porch. I tried to calm her. I yelled, “He’s really not mean. He’s just loud.” She kept going. I am safe with Bert around.

Bert is my rock. When the pain of missing Riley comes to a head, when the tears sneak out, Bert stares at me for a minute then moves out of sight to another room as if to say, I’ll let you feel this for a bit. When I am worn out, when the crying has stopped, he comes back and lays at my feet to let me know he is here.

I know he misses all of what he knew and was familiar with in Arizona from the other pets to family. They miss him too. I am thankful that Bert is here. I am never alone. He is in tuned to me. He senses me. I know he misses Riley too. There are many pictures of Bert and Riley together over the years.

I have the memory – one I had seen many times- of Bert and Riley wrestling when Riley got home from school. That was on the last day that I saw Riley alive. Bert is changed forever since the night Riley died. Me too. I know he would run up to Riley and give him his back to scratch with a big lick across his cheek afterwards if he could. Me too.

I Love You, Riley.