A VIEW FROM THE EDGE – He Said-She Said – Part I (continued)-Suicide

HE SAID

 

Chapter One

My Life’s Story

By: Chad Kesler

Hi!  My name is Chad Kesler.  If we didn’t meet, I wish we could have.  I’m sort of writing this, but not really.  A lot of the words are mine, things I’ve said to my family and friends, things I want you to know, some of my goals, and papers I’ve written. I would have been 20 years old now.

Some people thought I was shy; and, I guess, I had kind of a “tough guy” act.  If you were my friend, you would know that I would stick by your side no matter what.  If anyone messed with my friends, my brother, who is deaf, or made fun of a kid having troubles in school, I’d have a “word” with them.  On vacations, I noticed that the homeless people just seemed to know intuitively, when they saw me coming, that I’d help them with money, food, or whatever I could.  In the end, the drug dealers took advantage of me that way; and that is something that changed many lives forever. I regret so much the day that I got involved with drugs and the people who sell them!

I wish I would never have gotten into drugs.  I swore all through high school that I never would.  My friends and I used to talk about it all the time.  We couldn’t believe anyone would want to “do that to their body.”  From the first day I stepped into Eagle Valley High, I could get any drug I wanted.  It was up valley too, and it was being peddled by the kids that you would least expect.  The jocks, that used to make fun of my friends and me for smoking cigarettes, were even doing them.

I remember one Prom night, a few of the kids that were using drugs, stopped by our hotel room.  We were trying to get some sleep, and they were up all night just staring at us.  We laughed at them and called them idiots and wondered what the point was.  They were killing themselves, man!  We had countless conversations about that.

I found out, the hard way, that it’s not always bad kids and losers that do drugs.  I wasn’t bad and I wasn’t a loser, but I made a choice one night that turned out really bad in the end.  Drugs are everywhere.  By the time I graduated, cocaine was at most parties.  Kids would disappear for awhile.  Like lock themselves in the bathroom, disappear for a while in the parking lot or a car, and you knew what they were doing.  Lots of times I wouldn’t even let my friends or girlfriend go to some of those parties.  It was really hard to find something to do around here anymore.  I was alwaze scared the police would show up, and we’d get busted along with the users. A lot of the upper classmen, especially the year I graduated, were doing cocaine or crack.  I mean, a lot, maybe as many as one-fourth of them!  For some reason drugs were just everywhere this year.

Chapter Ten

“My Last Day”

I was up all night.  Mom woke up, and she was upset again.  I just hate that she’s alwaze upset; and I don’t know what to say, so I just try not to make noise or be in the same room as her.  This morning I threw some clothes in a bag.  I’m supposed to move in with my Dad tonight.  I called Paul to see about getting a ride to work.  I need to save gas money.  I gave Mom a hug, and I told her that I was going to quit on my own in the next month or I’d check myself in.  I was going to go meet Paul but I just felt so depressed.  I was out of drugs, I was out of money, I owed the dealers so much money that I had to alwaze hide from them.  I spent my grandma’s college fund on a motorcycle, then sold it for half what I paid for it.  I feel like there’s just no way to win for me.  I’m so depressed; and I just want to stop doing this, but I know I can’t.  I know that my Dad will be so disappointed and upset, and I don’t want them to have to spend money on rehab.  Man, how did my life get so screwed up in four months?  I feel like such a failure.

Maybe it would just be better for everyone if I was dead.  I called my Mom and told her I loved her and that I was sooo sorry.  I was crying.  That was the last time I used my phone or called anyone.  I never said goodbye to anyone, because I never would have thought I’d get low enough to actually want my life to be over.  I really thought I could stop using this drug.  I tried so many times.  I drove away from my home, my dogs, my friends, and my family that I love.  I hid my truck, so hopefully no one will have to find me.  I didn’t know what else to do to stop what the drugs were doing to my family and my life.  I just couldn’t see waking up one more morning like this.

Chapter Eleven

“If I Had It to Do Over Again”

Looking back from where I am now, it doesn’t seem real.  I watched my Mom and Dad and saw how worried they alwaze were.  My mom was frantically trying everything to find me.  She talked to the police everyday. Put up missing posters and visited homeless shelters.  She hired a Private Investigator.  She followed users around, the kids that I did drugs with, asking questions.  She talked to psychics.  She prayed.  She cried, and she cries even more now; and I just wish I could hold her and make it alright again, but it’s too late.  I just wasn’t thinking about what would happen.  I just thought everyone would be better off but now I see that their lives will never be the same.  I see how much they miss me, and I miss them.  I see how much guilt they carry because they wish they could have helped me.  I never even said goodbye to my friends.  They felt bad that they couldn’t help me either.  I was right before when I said drugs were stupid and committing suicide was stupid. Dead Right!

Yep, one bad choice, in a few minutes, had ruined my life and the lives of everyone that loved me.  I wish I had it all to do over again.  It’s too late for me, but it’s not too late for you!  I hope you are  listening!  I hope you or someone you love won’t make the mistake I made.  Believe in yourself; and if you’re in trouble, there are so many people out there that want to help.  I hope you’ll be able to reach out to someone, anyone.  I wish I had!

FROM MY POINT OF VIEW

SHE SAID-

To Be continued soon-Suicide from my perspective after entertaining those thoughts too, a Legacy of Suicide, in the darkest days of my life after Chad died.   

POSSIBLE TOPICS TO FOLLOW:

• The Beginning: Imprinted emotional Neuropathways during the first seven years of life;
• ADD/HD: Behaviors and being sensitive to being victimized; 
• ADD/HD and Learning Challenges: Education the critical part that learning and self esteem issues play with regard to successful integration of “Sensitives” into Society
• ADD/HD Brain chemistry/imbalances–pros and cons of Pharmaceuticals, holistic treatments, and self-medication
• Addiction:   AA and Rehabilitation Methodology and Success rates
• Grief:  The process of Grieving and Surviving the Legacy of Suicide and losing a child
• Spiritual Growth-There is Life after Death
• The Other Side:  Stories of connecting with Chad on the Other side

 

  

A VIEW FROM THE EDGE- HE SAID – SHE SAID PART I: PREFACE

“That day was like the Perfect Storm, and like a Perfect Storm, it took just the right elements all descending down upon him at once. Tragedy isn’t always some random event that as (bad) luck would have it, just happens one day…”

PREFACE

I have a lot of thoughts to share that I believe could make a difference in the lives of others; things I wish someone could have shared with me as I went through the frustrations of trying to figure everything out for myself. Sometimes you don’t have the luxury of time to “reinvent the wheel.”  I know I didn’t! 

I’m grateful to have this opportunity and encouragement to update the statistics concerning the topics initially published in Chad’s Website. With the research I am now gathering, you will see that more, not less, people are struggling every day.   While there is significantly more awareness around the individuals who have been labeled Bipolar, ADD/ADHD, Autistic, and Depressed (hereinafter referred to by me as “Sensitives”), the statistics don’t support a proportionate amount of healing.   I’ll publish them later this week.  I think they will surprise you.  They did me.

I freely admit after my personal experiences with the Medical, Educational, Governmental Control Agencies and Rehabilitation Industries, I have some rather strong biases with regard to their Disease and Disorder Models and Treatments. I believe that individuals who are  “Sensitives” and, the people who love them, have many times been exploited. I can see the ways that these industries are or can be self serving, i.e. the “patient’s failure”, lines their coffers.  While I believe their initial intensions are good;  all they really have to do in order to be successful is to have better success rates then the next place.  As we all know, statistics and success rates are easily skewed. 

In Iowa, where I was raised, we used to have a saying, “you can’t make a pig dance.”  At the same time, these industries can’t do what they don’t know how to do.  Although there is no easy answers, the best solutions that we currently have to offer are clearly missing the mark.  Even though it’s challenging to see it with the “old ways and powers holding on tight”, we are evolving very quickly now.   I believe we are right on the cusp of a Paradigm Shift and the “Sensitives” are the way showers.

Since Chad’s story ended with Suicide, I may as well start there. I will work my way backwards to the beginning, where all stories begin (see potential forthcoming topics at the bottom of the page).  I would like to urge you to take what resonates with you and research it for yourself to see what you discover.  As always, I’m open to comments, questions and discussions.

SNEAK PREVIEW- COMING SOON

 HE SAID-SHE SAID

Chad will be speaking for himself from the “He Said” part of each story. I will copy excerpts from his Life Story, not necessarily in the order it was written, but as it may shed light upon a given topic.  From the “She Said” part of the story, I will be writing from my point of view. 

Chad’s story will give you a better idea of what it was like to walk in his shoes or perhaps what your child or teenager may be going through. There are so many things I found out after the fact, things written by Chad, and yes, things that were channeled.  Chad’s Story was only eight pages long, and was channeled just months after we found his body. His lifelong best friends said it was eerie because it sounded exactly like him and it shared things no one else could know.

POSSIBLE TOPICS TO FOLLOW:

• The Beginning: Imprinted emotional Neuropathways during the first seven years of life;
• ADD/HD: Behaviors and being sensitive to being victimized; 
• ADD/HD and Learning Challenges: Education the critical part that learning and self esteem issues play with regard to successful integration of “Sensitives” into Society
• ADD/HD Brain chemistry/imbalances–pros and cons of Pharmaceuticals, holistic treatments, and self-medication
• Addiction:   AA and Rehabilitation Methodology and Success rates
• Grief:  The process of Grieving and Surviving the Legacy of Suicide and losing a child
• Spiritual Growth-There is Life after Death
• The Other Side:  Stories of connecting with Chad on the Other side

 

 

 

A VIEW FROM THE EDGE-Epilogue

The Rest of the Story

Chad’s body was discovered by a couple of hikers from California who were lost.  I will always be grateful to them and appreciate so much the price they paid so that I might one day seek peace in my life once more.  It was clear that Chad didn’t wish for anyone to find him as he had hidden his truck and managed to find a place so remote it would take the police two days to be able to recover his body.

Months later I would find a typed message on my home computer that simply said, “Death before Dishonor to my Family,” six words that spoke volumes. Always the spontaneous one, Chad was not much of a consequential thinker.  Knowing my son, it may not have occurred to him that spending the rest of our lives looking for him would have been a living hell; he just didn’t want anyone to have to find his body. At the same time, learning your son had killed himself gave hell a whole new meaning. Even now, I still have dreams of him driving up with that big ole grin on his face. I go wild with every emotion imaginable. Waking up is the hard part; and you realize your life is the nightmare.

Chad became a man the day he took care of things his way. He didn’t show us any signs of his intention. In retrospect, I still cannot fathom how he could have felt that things were that bad, unfixable, unbearable and hopeless; that he didn’t have anyone he felt he could reach out to. I did understand it a year and a half later, however, when I took a walk in his shoes. This experience would become one of my greatest gifts, an insight that would set me free.

My physical, spiritual and emotional recovery has provided me with so many insights.  I realize that everyone must find their own truth in their own way. Maybe, just maybe, we don’t all have to learn every insight the hard way like I did.  Because writing has become the salve that heals my wounds; I write and I share. For some reason, I feel passionate about sharing our story so that perhaps others may not have to feel so alone and isolated in their own story. 

From my Point of View

A View from the Edge is the story of the worst day of my life. For years I peered anxiously from that edge where my son had lived precariously most of his life. While I admired that he never drank from the cup of mediocrity, I now see that view a bit differently than before. I will continue to write, and share (in parts) concerning a few circumstances that I believe significantly contributed to that day, the day that Chad hung himself.

That day was like the Perfect Storm, and like a Perfect Storm, it took just the right elements all descending down upon him at once. Tragedy isn’t always some random event that as (bad) luck would have it, just happens one day. It’s as if the Cosmic Tumblers clicked into place and nothing could stop the momentum already in place, that would become Chad’s Destiny, and ours. Like waves that ripple across a still lake, devastation would reach out to touch all of us who loved him so much.

Today, these same waves continue to ripple through the lives of people all over the world who, for whatever reason, happen across my website. Maybe they are people who are “Sensitives” (ADD, ADHD, Bipolar, Dyslexic, Autistic etc.), unable to express themselves or to feel heard. They may have feelings of being all alone in their world and/or hopeless or apathetic about their lives. Perhaps they too became addicted or heard the voice of Demons. Or maybe they are a parent worried sick about their child. Maybe they can’t understand why their loved one hates the flat line feeling of the pharmaceutical prescribed drugs and they have no idea what their options may be. In some small or huge way, my hindsight awareness just may be able to change their view or the outcome of their own story.

There is still so much pain in the world and with these kids who are being born as “Sensitives” in increasing numbers. We are missing the mark in so many ways with archaic systems and beliefs. My hope is for a major Paradigm shift that I believe can happen, if only because of our great love for our children.

As John Lennon sang, “Imagine!”

 

 

A VIEW FROM THE EDGE – V

 

 Finally I heard his truck at four A.M. and with tears in my eyes, I raced down the stairs and hugged him, and begged him profusely to forgive me.  He pushed past me and that’s when he said he nearly froze to death.  So no, I was sure he wouldn’t kill himself.  He didn’t even like being cold…

CONTINUED…..PART V OF VI

Over the next seven months that Chad was missing, the Sheriff on our case would become one of my closest friends. Jeff and I worked together daily, brainstorming and always trying to figure out new places, leads, and ways.  He was by my side and gratefully I leaned on him for hope and strength.  I knew that he had seen some horrible things during his previous job, under cover in a rock band.  After awhile, I respectfully asked him not to share those experiences with me anymore.

Finding Chad was challenging since he was nineteen and the privacy act would not allow hospitals, rehabs, or even homeless shelters to tell us if he was or wasn’t there.  The ironic thing was, while his brother had no problem travelling all over the world alone, Chad was not the kind of kid to take off on his own.  He must have been petrified; who wouldn’t be if someone threatened to kill you.  I had no idea where he would go; and I knew he didn’t have any money.

In my lone hours I wrote.  It was the salve for my soul, my sanity.  I kept a log entitled “Finding Chad.”  I knew someday I would, but I never dreamt it would turn out the way it did.  I also started writing a fiction story called, “Turning Left at Exit 140.”  I could only hope that even the smallest part would become reality.  I knew it was a fantasy, at best.  Ironically, we would find out later that Chad didn’t turn right.. or left… at exit 140, the exit for our home town.  He headed straight into the back country; a place so untraveled that he was sure no one would ever find him.  Or, as oftentimes speculated, maybe someone else took him there.

At Thanksgiving after a big ordeal, I finally convinced the telephone company to give me access to Chad’s voice mail.  Once I did that, he would not be able to receive any more messages.   I hated to cut off that lifeline but I had to see who was calling him and what they were saying.   The kid who turned Chad onto Crack had left several messages.  They were of the variety of, “Dude, where are you?  Can you pick me up?  Can I borrow your truck?  Call me.”  He never gave up on his self serving needs until voice mail was completely full.  Chad’s real friends left several messages, of course; and I even had to endure listening to the desperation and pleas of my own tearful voice.  But it was his step sister’s message that really c0ncerned me.  She seemed to know something I didn’t and she seemed terrified or was it just overly dramatic?  She pleaded with him, “Chad, if you will just call me and tell me you’re okay, I promise I won’t tell anyone where you are.  Call me! Please!”  There were no more messages and clearly no one had heard from him since he left.  My heart sank.

I stuck my head further in the sand.  I figured Chad needed to run and he was either high on drugs somewhere else or homeless.  I harassed  homeless shelters in Denver and sometimes I could even convince a compassionate soul to give me information even though legally he shouldn’t have.  In my fantasy, Chad had found a job and was lying low to escape the drug dealers.  In retrospect it seems so odd that there were always leads, some kid from out of town who said he saw the kid in the poster.  People who saw his truck somewhere.   A psychic who saw him living in his truck.  Most of the time, except in the dark of night, I had hope.  I couldn’t bear not to.

A friend lined up a private detective for us and I was waiting to meet with him.  In the meantime I had checked in with a few rehabs to get a better picture of what they could offer so that we could be ready when Chad came home.  With the exception of a couple, I was not impressed with their statistics.  Every business knows how to manipulate statistics.  Rehabs always have a fall back excuse that goes like this, “he just wasn’t ready or he didn’t hit his bottom yet.”  The institution never fails, the patient does.

While this may be true, it seems unrealistic to expect addiction to go away in a month by sitting around in a support group talking about it.  I was searching for more than a ‘cold turkey/white knuckle’ approach. And what about long term behavior issues developed by years of dysfunction.  How would that be addressed?  What could be done to help mend the pre-existing as well as post drug chemistry imbalances?  Niacin/Niacinmide and a few vitamins?  Not even close!  And, then there is the real test.  What happens when a ‘recovered’ user returns home to memories and places once frequented?  He drives by a place where he had partied causing hardwired neuro-pathways to light up like a Christmas tree… calling out his name.  What happens when things are all going wrong and he just wants to say  “Fuck it” to the world?  Just this one more time!

My amazing psychologist told me about a kidnapper option.  These kidnappers had some good successes if they could just find the person, extract him from his environment; and then somehow manage the justice system so that a user was unable to get out of jail for several months, their price, $50,000.  Time was on your side if it was long enough for the recovering addict to be able to reason with a jonsing body that previously thought it would die without it’s drug.   I remembered the words of a neighbor who had travelled a similar path.  He said, “You have to get him away from the drug for at least three months.  Rent a cabin way out in the mountains somewhere.”  I was desperate and would have done anything just to know he was safe.  Anything!

Over the months, slowly it began to leak out from more than one source there was a primary drug ring from Romania that had been operating in this valley for years, at least ten at that time, maybe more.  Even the Sheriff’s office knew about it.  I was appalled.  These were the dirty little secrets of a resort town that didn’t want this, or information about drug usage, in our valley to leak out.  These drug traffickers had a couple of store front restaurants to cover their operation.  I wondered how this could be possible.  I never received a good explanation from the Sheriff’s office other than they tried to deport them from time to time but they never seemed to get the ring leaders.

Ironically one of Brandon and Chad’s friends who had troubles with alcohol ended up being jailed long term after several DUI’s. Our friend was our inside connection and with seniority was able to give us some feedback from users that frequented the facility.  He would remain in our local jail as drug dealers came and went like it was a revolving door.  It was a rough crowd and all but one white guy seemed to be from Mexico and/or Romania.  One night a guy came in with a slit throat.  That’s when I began to believe that these dealers were not just bluffing.  They were serious.  Chad’s friend was released from his long jail sentence the day Chad’s body was discovered.   It’s impossible to believe that the timing was some random coincidence.

Another extreme synchronicity occurred when I was asked to handle the real estate purchase of the community drug lord.   By now I knew him by name even though the Real Estate Broker involved had no idea who he “really” was.  He was paying all cash, naturally, for a piece of land and had not retained legal representation.  He was about to miss a deadline in his contract and his large earnest money deposit would have been at risk.  Every cell in my body screamed, “let him lose it.  He deserves it!”  But at the last minute, a small inner voice convinced me that I couldn’t do that professionally.  I later wonder if this was the voice of intuition.  Because I had saved him around $50,000, and he knew it, I got the idea later that I needed to go and confront him about the whereabouts of my son.

I gathered my courage as I walked up the steps to his establishment with Chad’s Missing Poster in hand.  I had been just a voice on the end of a phone line; so I introduced myself.  I held the poster in front of his face and said, “I helped you now I need your help.  Help me find my son.”  He quickly read the words and saw my son’s face.  “Please talk to your guys and tell me what they know.”  He didn’t even try to act like he had no idea what I was talking about.  We had transcended that conversation with a glance.

I couldn’t believe my ears when he said this,  “Crack is a bad drug.”  He put his hand on the back of his son’s head who was about three years old and hanging onto his daddy’s leg.  “I stopped doing that drug when he was born.”  I wanted to slap him….scream at him…”and, what about our kids?”  By an act of God, I was able to control my impulse.  “This is not the time, Jan”, I told myself.  I needed his help to find Chad.  He said he would ask around.  Counting the hours, a couple of days later I stopped by again.  He said, “they said he just went crazy.  They don’t know where he went.”  ….Could I believe him?

I thought he’d come home for Thanksgiving but when he didn’t,  I knew without a doubt nothing would keep him from coming home for Christmas.   My hopes soared with each  passing day.  Brandon and I had been Christmas shopping and had some great gifts under the tree that I knew Chad would love.  As the afternoon turned to dusk, I remember being on pins and needles with every little sound, expecting to hear his truck drive up.  It was loud, just the way he liked it.  I played the entire fantasy out in my mind of seeing him walk to the door and peer in through the glass.  I could see that crooked grin of his.  The door opening.  And everything would be right with the world again.  No problem would be too big for us to figure out if we just had one more chance, more time.

I will never forget standing and watching from the big picture glass window by the front door. The rising moon hung over the mountains like a great beacon, a ray of hope.  Its existence contrasted the darkness of night that lay cold against the glass. Points of light in an expansive black sky twinkled through the atmosphere from stars that probably no longer existed.  I shivered. “Are you out there, Chad?  I can’t feel you.”   I began to lose faith.  The night was so cold and crisp.  I couldn’t bear to think of him freezing in his truck somewhere.  Tears slipped down my cheeks and I had never felt so alone or helpless.  In those moments, the cold hard reality hit me once more, just as it had when I listened to Chad’s message the morning after he disappeared, “Mom, ….I love you…..I’m soooo sorry.”   He’s not coming home.  My heart shattered.  I was terrified and I thought I was going to be sick to my stomach.

Christmas 2003, Chad’s last Christmas

To Be Continued tomorrow….

A VIEW FROM THE EDGE – IV

 

Odd, I never noticed the magazine quote Chad had cut out and pasted to the lamp in his bedroom until after he was gone.  It said, “Marijuana, at least it’s not Crack!”  Drugs were just not an option or something I worried about in my household.  Call it naïve I guess.  It wasn’t a problem until it was but not until he had graduated from High School and was flying high on his new plans for life…

Best Day of Chad’s Life

CONTINUED ….. PART IV OF VI

It wasn’t until after he was gone that I even discovered that he was on crack and that crack was not the same as Cocaine…. not by a long shot. I had talked to the police and other so called “experts” in the valley when my son had become a missing person.   Even then, I didn’t know shit about crack or just how addictive it was.  A complete stranger called me after reading an article I published in the Newspaper called ‘A Monster Lives in our Valley’.  He said, “The only thing stronger than Crack Cocaine is God”.  He had been a ‘poster boy’ in a rich Dallas neighborhood.  He too was ADD and had become addicted at the age of fourteen.  Later we met.  He told me all about the monster that had stolen my son.  All the real information I received came from people who had been addicted to crack, Meth and even Heroin.  I didn’t know at the time that all of this came too late for us.  They all knew firsthand what it was like to make one bad choice, usually while on a gateway drug.  Most of us have made bad decisions while drinking; but these hard drugs, given the right blood chemistry, might result in a problem so big that it would never be solved.  Would a friend really sell you out to the Devil?  Apparently, so.

The week before Chad was to move in with his Dad was when I first realized things were completely out of hand. I sent him for a haircut with my debit card.  He stole $600 from my account over the next two days before he returned my card.  When I discovered this, I came unhinged.  I was furious with him because I did not understand that this was not something you could easily fix or un-will from your life even if you wanted to.  I am not proud how I handled this.  Adrenaline raced through my veins and I struck back at fear with force and said horrible things I now wish I could take back.  His was an act of desperation but I didn’t get it at the time.

In tears of shame, Chad started for the door and I grabbed at his coat sleeve. “Mom!  You have got to let me go!  The drug dealers are threatening to kill me and they said they are going to mess with you.”  I thought he was overreacting, just paranoid.  “Don’t worry about me, Chad.  No one will mess with me!  I want you to move in with your dad.  He can protect you.  Besides, Valerie is always home. Please!”  He walked out the door and I couldn’t stop him.

I had no idea what to do. Who to call or where to go.  I felt all alone.  I lay wide awake, tossing and turning as I so often did before he became sober the year before.  I was worried sick.  Finally I heard his truck at four A.M. With tears in my eyes, I raced down the stairs and hugged him, and begged him profusely to forgive me.  He pushed past me and that’s when he said he nearly froze to death…so no, I was sure he wouldn’t kill himself.  He didn’t even like being cold.

To Be Continued tomorrow….

A VIEW FROM THE EDGE – III

Just for one second, I thought, “Jesus, did he kill himself?” But my rational mind answered quickly.  No, he wouldn’t do that.  Why would he have said he’d check himself in?  Last week when he nearly froze to death sleeping in his truck in the mountains, he came home and going up the stairs to his room said, “I almost fuckin froze out there.”  No, he wouldn’t do that.

CONTINUED…. PART III OF VI

Chad had only been on drugs for four months. For the first two, it was mostly pain killers from back to back surgeries after falling off a roof.  Somewhere during the third month, a friend stopped by the house while I was at work and then called me.  He said, “Jan, something’s not right.  I don’t know what’s going on but it’s not good.  I saw kids I’ve never seen before.  I went back with the dog and a baseball bat and sent them home.  When I cornered Chad, he said it was coke.”

I was shocked. Chad had always been against hard drugs, both of my boys were.  I told his dad and his step mother agreed to make plane reservations, I made room reservations and with a family intervention, we were set to send him to a rehab in Minnesota, one of the best.  That never happened.  His dad disappeared, the plane reservations were never made and the whole plan fell apart.

The worst part was this; with Attention Deficit Disorder any amphetamine (Ritlin is an amphetamine) actually acted the opposite with Chad’s chemistry then it would in mine or most peoples’. He was calm, more focused, and more sociable.  He laughed more and wasn’t as moody or depressed.  I think the Devil stole our urgency.  And besides, from my limited experience, Coke seemed to be fairly benign in that it wasn’t instantly addictive as far as I knew.  It wasn’t Heroin or Opium.  I thought we had time.  We didn’t!

Crack never cross my mind. At the time it was such a ghetto drug and I had no idea just how prevalent it was in our valley or that the impact of inhaling Cocaine was a million times worst then snorting it.  Oddly, I never noticed the printed piece he had cut out and pasted to the lamp in his bedroom until after he was gone.  It said, “Marijuana, at least it’s not Crack!”  Drugs were just not an option or something I worried about in my household.  Call it naïve I guess.  It wasn’t a problem until it was.  How ironic that he was on top of the world when it happened.  He had graduated from High School and was flying high on his new plans for life.

The Rat Pack Snowboarders

To be continued tomorrow….

A VIEW FROM THE EDGE-II

 

Why would he have said that if he had no plans of trying?  Why would he have called his boss for a ride to work?  Why would he have stopped to buy cottage cheese for his lunch that day?  So many questions would never be answered….

CONTINUED….PART II OF VI

After the party, I woke up late the next morning to the sudden ring of the phone. Woozy and half asleep I heard my ex-husband’s voice on the other end, “Where is he?  Is he there?”  I heard something like accusation, frustration and anger in his voice.  Maybe all three.  I sat up in bed. “What!?  He never showed up?  What the hell?  Didn’t Valerie call you when he didn’t come over last night?”  He hung up on me, his usual way of handling things.

I was stunned as my brain scrambled to my rescue. What should I do first?  Should I call his best friends, Tyler and Travis?  These three boys had been joined at the hip from the time they were six and seven years old.   I clicked the button on the house phone and called voice mail.  Why hadn’t I thought of that last night?   There was a message, and with a sigh of relief, I realized it was Chad’s voice.  It’s funny how all of these moments, every word spoken, are frozen in my mind.

“Mom,? ….(his voice started to crack)…. “I Love you.”  Then I could hear him crying as his voice became more distorted.  “I’m soooo sorry.”  A click ended the call and my heart screamed.  What did he mean?  My mind rushed in to make sense of the message but my heart knew then what my mind could never accept.  It broke in half and I felt the pain, the darkness and an incredible fear.

Just for one second, I thought, “Jesus, did he kill himself?” But my rational mind answered quickly.  No, he wouldn’t do that.  Why would he have said he’d check himself in?  Last week when he nearly froze to death sleeping in his truck in the mountains, he came home and going up the stairs to his room said, “I almost fuckin froze out there.”  No, he wouldn’t do that.

Italy -2002

To be continued tomorrow….

A VIEW FROM THE EDGE

~Self medicating on adrenaline most of his life, my son, Chad, lived on the edge.   I would find myself on that edge more than once trying to save him~

PREFACE

I have survived abuse.  I have seen the destruction of alcohol and addiction in many lives intimately connected with mine.  I was blessed with two very beautiful and sensitive sons with difficult learning challenges.  I fought like a mama bear as an advocate for their educational needs.  I learned about love, relationships and divorce the hard way.  I have had a broken heart more times then I can count; and yet I have learned how to walk through the ashes of grief, joining other intrepid survivors.  I’ve learned to trust Spirit when I didn’t believe in God for most of my life. Even though there were so many blessings, and great moments during my lifetime, it would be the challenges that would stoke the fires of alchemy that would change my life. While I may touch on many of my stories, the story that changed my life forever is the one I’m about to tell you now.

Part I of VI

It wasn’t until recently when at the Vail Symposium one night I learned of a similar circumstance. I never understood why I could see myself from a distance, like a spectator, one of many, the day I found out on June 8, 2005 that my son had ended his life.

Nearly eight months before that, Chad, at my insistence left to move in with his father. Six Foot three, he leaned over to hug me like any other day.  “I love you,” he said.  I was late for work and have always wished I could have truly engrossed myself in that moment, the moment that I would feel his body against mine one final time. But how can we ever know.

In hindsight, I noticed and just as quickly dismissed little clues that happened that day. Chad had gotten up early, which was unheard of for him unless it was a night of drugs.  I saw him in the yard, and opening the door I found it curious on that cold November morning that he would be picking up cigarette butts that were lying around the yard.  I was touched.  Rarely would he think of something like that, not that he wasn’t giving and sweet.  He just didn’t think in a consequential manner.

I glanced at the pile of clean work clothes I had laid on the bench by the front door. Shaking my head, I thought, “just like Chad.”  I grabbed the clothes and walked down the two steps as I saw Chad loading a tool chest in the back of his pickup truck.  “Chad, you forgot your clothes!”  I said and then added, “why are you taking the tool box and what is with your truck?  Why is it running so rough?”  I don’t know he said, “I’ll run it into the shop today.”  Chad worked as a mechanic and loved his job.  He had called his boss for a lift into town that morning, as he often did.  “You better get going; Paul will be waiting on you.”

I handed Chad the pile of clothes and he put them in the seat beside him and climbing in, rolled down the window. He rested his elbow on the window sill and the thought crossed my mind that he looked just like he did in his Graduation picture, only the truck was white instead of red.

He bought this truck, a white Dodge Sports with red lettering because he knew I liked it. Everyone would like that truck.  After he left, I must have cranked my neck one hundred and eighty degrees several times a day as there were hundreds of white Dodges on the road….but none with red lettering on them.

With tears in my eyes I said, “Chad, why don’t you come home for dinner tomorrow night. Your dad and I have to go to the Slifer Awards Party tonight.  Maybe you could pick up a few more things.”

Chad nodded and I turned to lock the front door. “Mom,” he said.  “If I can’t work this out on my own, I’ll check myself in (rehab).”  I shook my head gratefully, teary eyed.

Why would he have said that if he had no plans of trying? Why would he have called his boss for a ride to work?  Why would he have stopped to buy cottage cheese for his lunch that day?  So many questions would never be answered.

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW…..

 

SILHOUETTE ON THE EDGE

  

With a sharp inhale

Spirit breathed in your first breath

I hugged you tight as you cried out in my arms

All shiny new, pink and wrinkled

Your Quantum flesh suit was far too large

Yet infinitely too small to contain you

For you were always bigger than life

In this foreign land of ours

 

One of a myriad of Indigos

You were an intrepid way-shower of light

You would sing the songs of many voices

And hear silence in Van Gogh’s Starry Night

Standing so close you could touch it

You saw through the ethereal veil

You painted its picture for us to see

God’s love, a love that would prevail

 

Fearlessly, you lived on the Edge

A destiny you would not survive

It exhilarated and beckoned to you

It was the place where you felt most alive

And as you inhaled the view of your life

Precariously you walked its fine line

 

Younger, you once saw yourself in a dream

A silhouette teetering alone on the edge

The voice of Demons snarled your name

Caught between illusions of life and death

Life as you knew it crumbled, then shattered

As your silhouette took one last step

The step you couldn’t take back

As your shadow slipped from the ledge

 

On spinning wheels of sacred truth

You wove threads of Loneliness and Connection

Hand in hand you walked with bliss and agony

An Empath, you felt everyone’s emotions

So young, so many Lovers, so many Strangers

Who you will never meet

Yet your story survives, and you live on

 In a Legacy you can’t supersede

 

The Devil thrusts forth his greedy claw

Vulnerability and suffering has its price

Shame overwhelms the Hero

And you make the ultimate sacrifice

Sometimes strength is too much to bear

You wrote “Death before Dishonor”

As you reached deep to pay your due share

 

Spirit would once more come

 To intercept your final breath

You were so young, alone and scared

As you stepped trembling from that ledge

 Flying felt a little like falling at first

But on Elliptical wings you would soar

Diving and gliding on the thermals

Winds of Change carried you home once more

 

And for me, I’m left sifting through the ashes

Tracing through lifetimes for human truth

Revelers in the face of duality,

Always thirsty for something new

Lusting for delicious ambiguity

We hear Maya’s melodic call anew

 

This life will end for all us one day,

Hopefully, we gave it our best

It gave us everything we believed we deserved

When we go, what will we leave it?

What is the measure of the gift of life

In-between the two breaths of Spirit

 

 

 

 

 

In the Darkness

I would have traded places with anyone raised on love,

but how would anyone raised on love bear this death?

Sharon Olds, from “Wonder”

 

I’ve been working on a piece that I call “Writing about Writing”, an excavation process that I am using to uncover my truths and dreams of being or becoming a writer.  From this discovery process, while reading what other authors shared, I realized in the middle of the night last night that I was oftentimes writing for others instead of myself.  With the grieving process, I found myself crafting all of the pretty words to try to convince others, and perhaps myself, that it was all going to be okay some day.  Many times, I admit I was saying what I thought others needed to hear in order to instill “hope” instead of just writing my authentic truth.

The truth is that grieving isn’t a lateral process, at least not for me.  It isn’t a neat little contained package tied with a bow.  It’s messy and unpredictable.  I feel ashamed when I regress.   Others don’t understand. I don’t understand.  I’ve been to the classes, I’ve felt the pain, I’ve felt the love and I’ve felt spirit.  Why do I have to return to pain again?  Will it ever be over?  The following is about my dream last night.   I’ve decided to share because there just may be one person out there that needs to hear my authentic truth.  It might just be me.

Far away in your consciousness, you hear a soft plop and then another plop on your pillow. “What is that?” It sounds like rain and you are confused.   “Where am I?” You slowly realize it isn’t rain because you feel it, warm and salty against your skin.   Another tear squeezes its way from the corner of your tightly closed eyelid, and traces a trail down the side of your face.  As your mind shakes itself awake, you realize you must have been dreaming. What were you dreaming? Another instant passes and the realization comes flooding back in pieces and sizzles like a hot branding iron to your chest. You are thankful it was just a bad dream until you realize that your reality is the real nightmare. You shriek, “My God, the dream isn’t true. Chad really didn’t come back. He is dead. He’s really dead!”

The dreams are reoccurring but less frequent now.   You know it’s just your subconscious trying to work out a solution to a reality that your consciousness can’t accept. Maybe it never will. Sometimes the dreams are of a younger Chad and you somehow know, and even seem to accept in that dream state, the fact that he won’t survive his childhood. The happy dream version is when he finds you after you thought he was dead. He drives up or walks in the door and you are so ecstatic that he is alive after all; that is until you wake up. That is the cruelest dream of all because awaking plunges you back into the full primal emotion of a hell that at least, overtime, had become blurry around the edges.

You lay in the darkness in shock, feeling helpless. There is no way to run from it, nowhere to hide in the darkness. You feel the pain swelling in your heart and your heart naturally begins to contract in order to save you; just like it always has before. You tell it not to this time; to stay open.   By now, drowning in your tears with snot dripping from your nose, you get out of bed to get a Kleenex. You coach yourself to just let it go. “No one is in the house”, you tell yourself. “No one will hear. So many times you’re not in a place to let it all out. This is your chance.   Open your heart, and let it weep.” You let out a wail that would wake the neighbors if you had close neighbors. You bawl like any mother or animal that has just lost her baby. You wonder how many more times you will have to suffer the loss.

Tears run down your cheeks and you can’t breathe as your mind paints you a picture of hell, dragging your heart with it as hostage, kicking and screaming. Your heart recoils from an altered universe that only the Ego knows. You see imagery of your son fighting for his life at the end of a rope; all alone, no one there to help him or to hear the echoes of his cries. It’s all wrong! It pries your heart wide open and you cry so hard the muscles in your face begin to cramp; and then you cry some more. You tell your mind to stop. No more pictures, they’re just lies it made up. You weren’t there. You don’t know. But, you do know.

Alone in the dark, you hear the whisper of Spirit. You reach for a pen and paper; it’s your connection, your lifeline. Writing is how you extract the poisonous arrows from your heart. Your mind isn’t evil; it just needs to be heard, to warn you and keep you safe. You learned this while you were very young, when it was never safe to live in your heart space.   You learned how to quickly close your heart; how to rationalize your feelings so you didn’t bleed to death. Once the words are on paper, your mind relaxes; its job done.

You think of your son the day he was born and how happy, proud and relieved you were when he belted out his first cry, filling his lungs with a gulp of air. You were with him when he took his first breath and you should have been there when he drew his last. It all felt so wrong. How could a mother even bear to witness her child dying; yet so many do.  You wonder if somehow you knew. Did you pause in that exact instant when his spirit flew from his body? Did a shiver run down your spine?

Human life can be unfathomably cruel. You no longer cry for Chad but grieve a beautiful life lost. You grieve the life that you lost. You cry for the little girl who finally felt love as a young woman only to have it stolen from her. You’re grateful for the opportunity to have known and loved your son and you pray that it’s all true; that you’ll be together again one day. You whisper into the darkness, “so long, Chad, I’ll be seeing you.”