synthetic drugs

My Name: Riley Reed Peterson

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Scan0115I found this treasure in a box of pictures. It is a sort of handmade puzzle Riley made. I think he was a first grader. It is hand cut in different shapes with a question in each piece. Each question has Riley’s handwritten answer. It is a sort of who is Riley type of project.  His answers are candid and true to who Riley was at age 6. What a great age! I see the twinkle in his eyes when I think of Riley at age 6.

My Name:  Riley Reed Peterson. (I love that he wrote his whole name.) My Birthday: May 3rd. (Yep, the day he was born……. and died.) My favorite animal:  a prona and a shark (He loved the water.) My favorite food: An ice cream sunday  (Of course!) Where I was born: Scottsdale, AZ  (He was 7 lbs 7 oz, 21″ long and born during a Phoenix Suns playoff game.) My favorite book: Wackey Wednesday and Capt. Underpants (Copies of those books are still on his bookshelf in his room.) What I like most about our school:  the cafeteria and the playground. (For sure those are the best parts of school.) What I do well:  Beat my grama at checkers. (I can see the pride on his face now.) My wish: That I was rich and I had a dirt bike and a million dirt bike stadiums. (He had big plans starting at a young age!)

I think Riley Reed Peterson who was born on May 3rd, who loved the water and to swim had outgrown his interest in sharks and piranha’s. (Note how much of a little boy that is to like dangerous water animals!) He favored elephants as a teen. He wasn’t a big fan of ice cream anymore though he never wavered from his love of pizza.  In that hospital in Scottsdale, Riley took his time arriving into this world. Braden had come so quickly. When my water broke, Braden was delivered in minutes. I was prepared for Riley to be a replay of my quick delivery of his big brother. It was not at all. It took medication and waiting for Riley to arrive thus Greg had time to watch the Suns playoff game while we waited. He did eventually arrive in due time- Riley timing. Riley enjoyed reading Captain Underpants books at that age. Me too!  At 17, he enjoyed books that made him go “Hmm” and contemplate deep questions that have no answers. I think Riley still thought the world was his playground. He traded playing checkers with Grandma  for playing chess at Coffee Rush with whomever was up for the challenge. He often beat his opponents at chess too. Riley gave up his love for dirt bikes for an interest in cars, guitars, vinyl, and computers among many other things.  I imagine that he is pretty ticked that he didn’t get to the rich part. I fully expected Riley to reach his goals he had set for himself. He dreamed big. I loved that about him. I don’t think anyone should put limits on their dreams- they happen.

Forever May 3rd will be a painful day for us. What once was a day to celebrate his life now will remind us of the end of his life.  A curious 3 year old that drew on the back of my leather couch with an ink pen.  A curious 7 yr old who almost was successful in peeing off the balcony of a top floor hotel room. A curious 12 year old that spent hours learning the ins and outs of computers. A curious 14 year old started the process of teaching himself how to play guitar. A curious 17 year old tried a drug labeled as acid that had promises of a psychedelic spiritual experience. That last bout of curiosity killed him. Curious isn’t bad. We learn from our curiosity and mistakes made. This is a lesson of curiosity that was a mistake. A fatal one. That is a puzzle piece of Riley’s life that has been written that I will never be able to fully accept.

I Love You, Riley Reed Peterson.

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Dear Riley

/ djuanadreed / 1 Comment

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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

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I Love You, Riley.

Time

/ djuanadreed / Leave a comment

clock-331174_640Harvey 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.

“Don’t Worry, Mom”

/ djuanadreed / 2 Comments

scan0004Riley came into this world smiling. Well, he probably cried at first, but I’m pretty sure once he started smiling, we were all blessed.  His smile was contagious even as a little guy, he was called “Smiley Riley”. He was as easy as pie as a child. He was rarely in trouble and when he was, it was over stupid stuff like ditching class or grades. And the grades thing was stupid because he was super smart, but didn’t see the need to do the homework when he could ace the tests.

He stopped having his hair cut as a freshman and with my begging and pleading,  he did trim it for his senior pictures…trim ONLY was the agreement. I loved his long hair. Riley beat to his own drum, he knew no strangers, and he went out of his way to share that smile and easy goin’ demeanor with others. Riley played guitar, piano, saxophone and tuba. He was a band kid and he tried choir his senior year. It was fun to watch him sing. He loved music and was very talented. He liked to discuss philosophy, psychology, religion, music, computers and he played chess at his home away from home, his favorite hang out, a local coffee shop where he left an impression on adults as well as his peers.

Riley decided to celebrate his 18th birthday by taking acid. I’ve seen something he wrote while in the euphoria of the acid trip and we know too well the aftermath of what happened when that acid trip went bad. The decision to try a drug ended his life. Riley was accepted to NAU, had a girlfriend he was over the moon about, had a family birthday celebration coming up, a grad party planned, a high school graduation to experience…all stopped in its tracks. I thought we were open and frank in our conversations about sex, drugs, school, girls. We actually had a long conversation about drugs only two days before the incident. He told me he wouldn’t go there, he said he knew better…..“Don’t worry, Mom,” he said.

He did go there even though he knew better. Teens think they are invincible.  How do we change that? I do not know.

We do keep talking to our kids. We need to educate ourselves on this epidemic of drugs. Too many lives are lost daily to drugs and Yes they can get it- pot, heroine, acid, mushrooms, Xanax, Oxycontin, cocaine, Ecstasy, Adderall and so much more. There have been many stories in my inbox exactly like Riley’s almost to a “T”. There’s synthetic drugs outIMG_0295 there that sent a 14 year old wandering the streets naked, a grown man waking up in the ER with the last thing he remembers is smoking some pot the week before. He said it looked like pot, it smelled like pot yet blood work showed no THC – what the heck did he really smoke?

There’s plenty of adults and children dying from drug use. The pot your kids are smoking is laced with all kinds of crap. Did you know there are acid brownies?  Hash cookies? Kids are putting drugs in vapor cigarettes and e cigarettes and in hookahs.  How about Triple C’s?  Triple C’s are (Coricidin Cough and Cold pills) the writer told me that her son was taking 20 at a time to hallucinate. Cough medicine that is sold for a little over $5 a box to anyone! These are the  things kids are using to get high that is readily available to them. This mom got the pills pulled from her local Walmart store shelf by talking with the pharmacist and they are now only available from behind the counter.

The dealers are buying the drugs online. How scarey is this to you?

Talk to your kids about the dangers of drugs. Educate yourselves about what is out there. Teens are educating me on the drugs and what is out there so we need to get ahead. Maybe Riley’s story will sink in so that when that one moment of curiosity, peer pressure, opportunity comes for your child or relative or neighbor or friend’s kid (and it will)…. they will walk away, say No, choose to not go there knowing about a pretty cool kid that had a smile for just about everybody that died as a result of thinking he was going to have some fun.

I Love You, Riley.