A very good friend of mine from high school recently posted to Facebook a comment about the death of her son. No reason was given for his death but many of us were shocked as we had seen a post only a year earlier about the death of her oldest son. What a tragedy we all thought. And now we know why. Please take a few minutes to read a A Mother Talks About a Secret Epidemic. As the sister of a recovered heroin addict this story broke my heart. Sorry that this diary is short, but the column says it all.
Both of our sons died from heroin overdoses in our home. I don’t know how many times that brothers have died from heroin, but I do know that if one sibling is a heroin addict, that it would not be uncommon to find another sibling addicted also.
On Saturday, March 20, 2010, I found my oldest son, Grant, 27, dead from an accidental overdose. When I called him for dinner three times, knocking on his door, he did not answer. I finally unlocked his door with a penny and found him slumped over on his keypad, where he had been working on his computer. He was so cold and stiff; I knew he had been gone from his body for hours. I have felt the guilt for not checking on him during the day, but I am thankful that he was at home when he died, where he knew he was loved.
On March 18, 2011, almost a year to the date of Grant’s death, my husband found our second son, Brent, 21, at about 9:30 in the morning. He had locked himself in the downstairs bathroom. Gary had to kick the door open. He found him with his head on a TV tray, with four syringes. He did not get to the last syringe of heroin.