No one gets out alive

The drugs swept them up while the parents denied the obvious. Fifteen years ago, about this time of year, the skirmishes began.  Small verbal volleys of passive aggressive comments.  Soon the confrontations would become real battles with me armed with suspicion and very little evidence. By December 2003 it would be all out war. Hurt feelings, hurt psyche, hurt bodies, hurt relationships.  The drug culture had come to our town, and quickly spread into our home. I fought the people, the culture, the drug, parents, police, coaches, users, my son, my friends, my family. Me against the world. I was not going to let my son be taken.

The drug culture is mostly an invisible enemy. It's everywhere, yet it's nowhere.  You can see it. Your friends can't. It's a rare parent who accepts what they see; the rationalizations are as common as the lies. Justifications will make your head spin and you might think you're crazy because no one admits what you know is true.

This happened then, it's happening now. Parents who know their kid lies when his lips move, will accept a quick denial. Of course they will.  When we hear the answer we want to hear who digs further to find what we don't want to admit.  "I talked to my son. He said they weren't talking about drugs, they were joking. My son doesn't have Oxy. He definitely doesn't do drugs."  "If you have  a problem with your son doing drugs, don't bring me into it. My son doesn't do drugs." "Don't you think you're overreacting? He's not doing anything you didn't do." "It's just weed. We're not going to do anything else. We're not stupid."  "We have a closed campus. We did a surprise locker search and found no drugs."  "They told us when the search would be. They're so stupid." "No, I haven't seen any problems. Maybe it's your kid hanging with the wrong crowd." "My son is an honor roll student, and athlete. Don't bring him into it."

The 15, 16, 17 year old boys are thirty-something men today. Not all of them. Six I believe, but I may be missing some, have died. My son is one. He didn't die from drugs, he lost his life to drugs, and then he died because of drugs. He was driving over to give a kid a ride to a job interview when he crashed his truck. The guy he was going to help was a convicted drug dealer.  I believe this guy was one of the initial culprits who brought drug into Aaron's group of friends. I hated this kid back then. I went looking for him in an emotional rage one day after the funeral.  He wasn't home. I went home. Crying cured what fighting couldn't. I slept.

There is no satisfaction in being right.  I didn't want to be right. I wanted to stop the insanity.  There is no denying the drug is in the home when your standing in a funeral home with your son in a casket. They're gone. The honor roll students, the athletes, the good kids, the jokers, the liars. Yes indeed my son was in with the wrong crowd. So was I.

1990 was a long time ago. Yet I remember well the fateful day plans changed and we moved to DeForest instead of McFarland. It's actually maddening to follow the sequence of events and choices which resulted in my son being in the midst of what would become a deadly epidemic.  Some moments the regret is so deep I can feel my heart ache.

I was at odds with that community, the users, the dealers, the parents. I don't know if the course of life and death could have been changed. Those parents who would not try to to alter the course are taking their place in the place no one would intentionally go. Another parent's son died. This time the tragedy ends with a person who was there in the beginning. And so it goes. And so this blog ends. Turn the page.