- Drugs
I am the mother of two wonderful boys who left this world too young. Richie is my biological son and will forever be 13 years old. John is my stepson and will forever be 15. I love John as my own. I raised him from 15 months and I am the only mother he has ever known. You don’t have to give birth to be a mother. We had a happy family it was made up of yours mine and ours. Of course, there was stress and other normal problems, but we were a family. The boys were raised as brothers and were inseparable. Three years ago, their father and I decided to split up. At first, it was friendly, and we stayed a family even though we lived apart. But then the father got a girlfriend who didn’t want my son Richie around. I guess he interfered with what she thought was now hers. So after 12 years of being a mother and Richie and John being brothers, I was told that Richie could no longer come over and John was no longer allowed to see me.
Richie was devastated that he lost a brother and a father all because of jealousy. At the age of 10, he wanted to kill himself. Richie went into a deep depression and stayed that way for three years. We tried to help him, but nothing seemed to help. I didn’t know at the time but John was going through the same thing. When I got the rare opportunity to speak with John or his older sister (who I also raised), I was told everything was perfect and that they were happy, so that’s what I thought for three years.
Their father and I also have a little girl together. During the pick-up for his visitation, he brought John, who asked if Richie could come for his birthday. I was so excited because it was the first time I had seen him in three years. I went home and told Richie, and he was happier then I had seen him in a long time. The boys were back together, and Richie stayed for a week, through Christmas vacation. All John wanted for his 15th birthday was his little brother. My boys were happy, and that’s all I wanted. School began again and it was a month before they got to be together again. On January 25th, I brought Richie to visit and that would end up being the last time I would see either of them alive.
The father, Rich, had been in a bad accident years before and was on methadone for pain management. He was given 340 pills a month. When we were together, the medication was always locked in a safe, but he had stopped doing that. On the night of January 25th, the boys got into Rich’s pills, snuck out of the house and somehow got alcohol. The combination proved to be fatal. On January 26th, Rich checked on the boys at about 12:30 in the afternoon, thinking they were just sleeping late from playing video games the night before. He found them both unresponsive. He performed CPR on both boys until the ambulance came.
Then came the dreaded phone call. Rich was so hysterical that I could barely tell what he was saying to me. All I remember is him yelling, “Are they still alive?” Then came the frantic drive to the hospital. I was taken into the back to see my sons who were already on life support. As I was standing next to Rich, he had his third heart attack, and they rushed me out. I found out he had one at home and another in the ambulance. Finally, a police man came out to tell me Rich was alive. They told us that John’s brain had swelled so badly that it herniated his brain stem and there was no chance of recovery. They airlifted both boys to a trauma center, where John was declared legally brain dead. Richie had gone without oxygen for so long that his organs where shutting down, and his heart could not withstand another resuscitation. They both passed away on January 28th, 2013.
We donated the organs that we could in hope that other parents would be spared the pain of saying goodbye to their children. We had a double wake with open caskets because we wanted kids to see that death is real and can happen to anyone. Hundreds of people came. We also had a double funeral, and they are buried side by side. I have since found out from their older sister that Rich’s girlfriend, who was so great in the beginning, turned out to be very abusive to the children, which may have started John’s drug use. I have found out that she would spit in his shoes and stand in front of him at the door so he would miss his bus, just to get him in trouble. She would also give him pot and then tell his father that he stole it from her. I had no idea.
I never had the chance to save my son. His depression led to his drug use and that of his little brother along with him. I have found out that he was doing it for some time before this. This was preventable. My sons should never have died. If the pills were locked up or if Rich had checked on them sooner or if I had only known about the drug use, this might have been stopped.
The pain of burying your children is unbearable. If this story can get through to just one person, then my sons didn’t die in vain. Never trust children around medication. Always lock it up. Get them the help they need before it’s too late. Please know that when parents are fighting and being selfish, it’s the children who suffer. And if you’re the one who is using, please seek help before it’s too late. The people who you leave behind may never be able to find peace again.