He Was Just Another Addict, But Aren't They All?

Philip Seymour Hoffman was nobody special.

In fact, my reaction to his death last weekend was quite honestly, "Who?"

While a few of my Facebook friends noted his passing, and the talking heads began to proclaim the tragic loss of "one of the greatest actors of our time" all I could note was that his face was vaguely familiar.

But he was no one special, not to me, and not really to the thousands who will proclaim his loss and for a moment focus on the tragedy of another of our entertainment icons being consumed by his or her addiction, but who in a few months, weeks, or maybe even days will forget.

Hoffman was no one special to the people who will use him as another face in the war on drugs, another reason to beat their chests about how better laws, tougher sentences and more arrests will protect our society from drugs.

In reality, he was no one special to those who will try to turn the focus to the addiction, to people who are making their way through life seemingly complete but with holes that they try to fill with drugs. Even though they will be closer to the reality of what is needed to fix the problem, they'll be shut down by a society that still likes the idea of the gunslinger west where we could fight everything out. We can't fight mental illness and legislate it away, so we don't want to talk about it or recognize it as one of the biggest problems our society faces.

Besides, we want to think of mental illness as the homeless man in dirty clothes on the corner talking to himself, not the long string of a Hollywood millionaires and musical legends who despite fans, success and all the money they could ever need for treatment are found dead with needles in their arms or pills in their stomachs.

Often in their bathrooms.

Just like my son.

To be quite honest, my second reaction to Hoffman's death was anger. Anger that so many people cared about someone just because they were able to do the thing they loved and do it well. Anger that with all the success he had, despite the fact he'd been to rehab twice, he still didn't take advantages of the resources he had to get help. Anger that the media and our society turned him into someone special when in reality he was just another addict.

Just like Ethan.

Following on the hills of my anger was sadness. Not specifically for him, but for everyone who battles addiction. It isn't the availability of the drugs that is the problem, it's the craving. It's the lack of understanding in our society. It's the lack of care that will see them beyond the intense period of rehab and support them through the days following when life is still lacking something that they feel only their drug of choice can give them. It's a society that makes seeking a facelift or fake boobs far more acceptable than seeking care for a mental illness, because it's OK to want to look good but if you can't feel better with a prescription, well there's really something wrong with you.

Somehow we think you can't really be successful, or attractive, or popular or rich if you have a mental illness. So if you're any of those things, or ever want to be any of those things, then you cannot have a mental illness. So instead of accepting counseling or being truthful, the rich and powerful and the poor and downtrodden and those who just can't seem to find their way or feel like they don't quite fit in anywhere choose to self medicate. And it feels good, for a while, and then they are addicted and no matter how they try to convince themselves otherwise, they still don't feel good any more.

So they drink and drive, or take too much, or kill themselves slowly over time by using up their bodies faster than they can repair themselves.

Just like Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Just like Ethan Dale Funk.

Just like the many boys I've come to know through the memories of their mothers. Just like thousands of boys and girls and men and women do every day, killing themselves in numbers we cannot even begin to comprehend or maybe even care about until one of those lost lives is one that touches our own.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was nobody special. He wasn't the face of drug addiction and the war on drugs. He wasn't the face of mental illness. He wasn't even the face of a Hollywood icon. There is no one face. There are really thousands and thousands of faces with blue eyes and brown, bright smiles and never seen laughs, impeccable dressed and in need of a bath, those mourned by thousands and those buried in a pauper's grave with the name John Doe.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was nobody special, just like Ethan Douglas Funk and all those other faces were nobody special -- except to the people who loved them.

Hoffman was special to a woman and three children who aren't yet in their teens and who will never know their father in the way they needed to know him. At his age, he was probably still special to his parents and to a best friend or two who knew the demons he battled, but couldn't help him fight them. Those are the people who will wake up every day as I do with questions about why, and what could they have done, and whose lives are irrevocably changed by his death.

For them, for Hoffman's family, my own, and the thousands like us, I grieve, I say a prayer, and I continue to hope that somehow we can take off our gunslinger hats and talk about the real problem, even though it scares us.

What Everyone Needs to Know

Before I went to bed last night, I took a dose of dextromethorphan. I've been sick for a month and I needed a dose of cough medicine so I could sleep.

The irony is, that I wish dextromethorphan didn't exist. Whatever the medical examiner eventually decides, I know it was dextromethorphan that killed my son.

If you're lucky enough to be like I was a few short years ago, you're likely to wonder, "What's dextromethorphan?" You might even imagine it was illegal or hard to obtain. You may feel like you don't need to worry about it at this point in your life. But whether you have children or grandchildren, or simply have kids that you care about, this is my educational course.

I usually keep some over the counter cold medicine around, and I'm willing to bet most people do. Maybe just the few pills left from the last round with a cough, but a partial box at least. Check the ingredients. If your medicine is designed to deal with a cough in any way, its active ingredients probably include dextromethorphan -- probably aboout 30 mg in a recommended dosage, which may be a couple of pills or a measure of liquid.

Yes, most of us have it, take it, buy it over the counter and keep it around the house. If we went to take a dose and that partial box was gone, would we really be certain that we hadn't taken it? If we found a few empty pill packets in the trash or while cleaning our teen's room, would we react like we would if we found a roach, a bong, or a bag of suspicious powder? Probably not. I know I didn't.

Once our better cough medicines were laced with codeine to quiet the hacking, although the last time I got it I had to sign for it and I'm not even sure it's available any more. Once codeine's more dangerous properties came to light, it became virtually impossible to get. That mean pharmaceutical companies, seeking ways to help us with our ills, had to have a new cough suppressant. Along came our new friend, dextromethorphan.

However the same agencies that eventually recognized the dangers and addictive properties of codeine have failed to recognize that a product designed to take its place carries the many of the same risks. It sits untended on the shelves of pharmacies, grocery stores, department stores, and even dollar stores. That's despite the efforts of StopMedicineAbuse.org and groups like them. Although you may have to present identification proving you are over 18 to make a purchase, there's nothing to keep a 13-year-old from slipping a small box into a pocket other than good shoplifting surveillance -- a fact that made dollar stores Ethan's favorite target until he racked up enough arrests for shoplifting that he could not get a job and feared incarceration.

The author of one of many pages dedicated to recreational, or as he terms it ritual use of dextromethorphan (erowid.org) writes that he discovered the drug through an accidental overdose by taking twice the recommended liquid dosage for a cold. That was in 1995 and he began to explore the use of the drug and publish his findings on the internet. There is a Facebook page called dextromethorphan hbr on which DXM abusers share their tips for how much to take and sometimes their writings while on a trip.

No, despite the fact that you may not know, that I didn't know, and that the police officer who arrested Ethan for shoplifting once did not know, there is a lot of information to be had about how to abuse dextromethorphan. There are multiple pages and blogs describing the misuse of dextromethorphan (as well as virtually any other substance you might care to learn about). You don't need an accidental overdose to find out you can get high on cough medicine, just an internet connection or a curious friend who has already done the research.

What does it do? I've asked.

Scientifically, when taken in excess dextromethorphan produces a dissociative or psychedelic effect. The effect is similar to the illegal drugs PCP and ketamine. Someone who takes dextromethorphan may experience hallucinations and strong feelings of euphoria. The effect typically lasts about the same length of time as the normal cough-suppressant effect of the medication, so a 12-hour cough suppressant will produce dissociative effects that last 12 hours in high doses. An increased dose does not cause longer-lasting effects, but it will cause stronger effects.

Ask someone who has used the drug, and you may get a better idea. I've talked to some of Ethan's friends who once used with him and these are the answers I've gotten.

"We used to think it was almost like giving us the knowledge of good and evil...like we suddenly knew everything. Everything we saw was a sign to us. It didn't take much for me to get high. I would only take about 4 pills, (not sure about dosage), and I felt like I was gliding when I walked. My eyes felt like they were widened, literally and mentally. I was never hungry, so I didn't eat much. This made me lose weight. I felt like I could stay awake for days and when I was coming down, I wanted to sleep it out. I found myself stumbling from time to time and stuttering while taking this drug. It made me feel warm. I could feel my body and heart slow down. I was always ready to get out and do something, yet at the same time, I was content with just sitting around because I could be with my thoughts and questions."

"I don't understand a lot about how far Ethan went with it. The way the drug works is if you take a little bit you just get high. the more taken, the more reality you lose. It changed me. The drug took something from me I'll never get back, or so I think. I'm not perfect, by far, but it's the worst drug I've ever taken in terms of effects. Even now, I'm paranoid because of it. There's something about me that will never be the same. It's something I like to hide in my past and don't like to talk about, but I want to help you understand how powerful of a grip it can have and had on Ethan."

A 39-year-old user on the Facebook page told me this: "So for me, at 24... I had 720 and went catatonic. Laid in bed. I felt paper thin and infinitely wide. Sensory matrix distortion. Tired. Like sleep. Now, I could have 1000mg in a 12 hour period and feel normal enough to walk, talk...not drive. I know NO study of longterm use. Honestly, in 2013 since March I have used an average of at least 240 / day... at night or in the morning. I will use it around people who are stressful or jerks because I can tune them out. Like family who will seem like total asses (partly because I am irritable etc) then on dm I see a lovable side and my pain doesn't get to take 1st place... I win. It's the drug I regret the least. Alcohol kills more, causes men to cheat, drivers to crash.(Although earlier in this tale he told about crashing his car) Adding caffeine to dm makes my heart race, so I dont. Benedryll helps a little at 25-75mg to sedate. Bededryll ALONE is like dm. I don't feel damaged after 290 straight days. So I wrote poetry n shit and read it to some girls in a bar crying. They were touched. Dm has helped my writing probably like drugs help rock stars..."

When Ethan was using, he lost weight and he was delusional. Sometimes what he said would pass for a really good imagination and sometimes it really didn't make sense. Often his behavior fit with the typical teen withdrawal -- he'd rather play video games alone than hang with the family sort of thing -- but sometimes his isolation went a step further. I didn't know what I was dealing with and what the symptoms could be.

From talking with his best friend I've found the extreme emotional spikes -- particularly rage -- are also common from teens/adults who are using regularly and at high amounts.

Anyone using dextromethorphan may also have trouble driving because the effects at low levels mimic alcohol, however if they are stopped by law enforcement, they can easily pass a roadside breath test. I know Ethan left my house high one day and was pulled over and passed a test. He also wrecked once while in the process of consuming the pills he preferred -- not just a double dose, but a pack or more at a time -- and frequently had minor accidents where he probably misjudged distances and struck trees, ditches, etc. When he died there was a pending lawsuit in the local courts from a collision where the other driver decided he needed money. He was without a license from blacking out while driving, striking a parked car and then going over an embankment. A toxicologist in the courtroom the day of his trial said he had a lethal dose of the medication in his system.

Aside from the psychological issues, and those associated with any addiction, there are physical risks as well. Some studies have shown there is a danger of developing brain lesions called Olney's lesions. These brain lesions affect memory, learning, and emotions. In some cases, the person will develop psychosis or epilepsy. Severe dextromethorphan abuse can lead to permanent lesions that cause permanent irreparable damage to the brain.

Ethan began having tremors and seizures more than three years ago. Sometimes the seizures were focal in that he could not completely focus or control his body and other times they were grand mal, in which he would fall in the posture we typically associate with a seizure. Although by that point I had learned that the drug would cause seizures, I also, naively, assumed once the seizures began that he would have enough sense to stop. He didn't. Had I known better the side effects, his gaunt face and continued rages would have told me that despite our regular doctor's visits to seek help for the seizures, he was still slowly killing himself. And it wasn't sense, it was addiction although many programs still don't recognize an addiction to dextromethorphan.

I didn't have a good grasp of the mechanics of addiction and still don't completely understand. However another article written by a former addict gave me some understanding. The drug of choice takes over the pleasure centers of the brain so that nothing else really gives an addict pleasure. The things you think of as good times are meaningless to them, even when they are physically with you. His writing is scientific, because he went on to become a neuroscientist, but does help explain what happens.

“... when drugs (or booze, sex, or gambling) are nowhere to be found, when the horizon is empty of their promise, the humming motor of the orbitofrontal cortex sputters to a halt. Orbitofrontal cells go dormant and dopamine just stops. Like a religious fundamentalist, the addict’s brain has only two stable states: rapture and disinterest. Addictive drugs convert the brain to recognize only one face of God, to thrill to only one suitor.” The addict’s world narrows. Dopamine becomes “specialized, stilted, inaccessible through the ordinary pleasures and pursuits of life, but gushing suddenly when anything associated with the drug comes into awareness…. I wish this were just an exercise in biological reductionism, or neuro-scientific chauvinism, but it’s not. It’s the way things really work.”

If I've scared you enough about the dangers of dextromethorphan, you may wonder what you can do. I don't have all the answers, but I do have recommendations:

Get as educated as possible. Do searches on the internet or even Facebook and don't settle for the science pages, but look at the addict's pages as well (although heaven knows they probably won't call themselves addicts). Learn the slang, the symptoms of abuse, the dangers of misuse. Be aware that most of the scientific sites seem to be out of date. There are not a lot of studies and it is wrongly assumed that young teen males are the most at-risk. That isn't necessarily true.

Talk to the young people in your life about the danger. Because it is not an illegal drug, most people wrongly assume it is safe even at dosages that exceed the recommendations.

Be careful with your attitude toward medication. Do your kids see you take double the recommended doses of anything? Like when your headache doesn't go away? If you take medication, follow the directions and make sure your children understand why. When you give medicine to your kids, do the same.

Consider keeping all medication under lock and key and explain that it is for the safety of everyone. You don't have to make your children feel you don't trust them. Maybe you have company with younger children sometimes, maybe you can blame it on protecting expensive prescriptions from thieves. You can come up with a way to manage the medicine in your house.

Watch not only your child's behavior, but that of his/her friends who may easily pave the way for your child if they get into trouble. If you're concerned tell your child that random drug tests are going to be part of your life. They could be the price for something they want to have or do, the risk of choosing friends you don't like, or you can point to someone else's loss and tell them you just want to feel better. Heck, blame me. Whatever it takes. Also be aware that dextromethorphan won't show up on standard tests but will show up on tests for PCPs and opiods. Yes, it's likely to create some tension, but it gives your kid a good excuse to say "no" when offered a little something and that tension is nothing compared to living with a kid on drugs. There will also be some expense, but compare that to seeking treatment for addiction, or perhaps the cost of burying a child.

Get involved in trying to get more people informed and laws changed. Visit StopMedicineAbuse.org or the organization's Facebook page and become a part of the movement to make a difference for our children and those not yet at risk. That means petitions, contacting congress and working to get laws changed so that this drug, at least, loses its illusion of safety and easy access.

Talk to Your Children About Every Little Thing, Especially Your Unconditional Love

I'm not sure at what age Ethan and his best friends discovered getting high off cough medicine, or who presented them with the idea. I don't know if it came from the internet or another friend, and it doesn't really matter.

If Ethan had died from long term abuse of alcohol, heroin use, cocaine, crack or meth, I think people would understand better that some system had failed. Kids are taught well in school DARE classes about the dangers of these drugs. Parents through the media and society in general have absorbed the knowledge that these substances are dangerous. Laws exist to make it harder and deter some kids who still feel the need to meet society's standards. There are numerous facilities to treat the addiction. I would feel like there wasn't a lot I could add to that conversation.

But that wasn't the case, so for parents and teens, even middle schoolers, here are some things you should know.

A drug that is legal can still be lethal. Cost, accessibility, and even the lack of a prescription doesn't make it safe. Although we're getting a little more educated about prescription drug abuse and its effects, even that isn't enough. Over the counter cough medicine can be just as dangerous although there are fewer studies, practically no laws, and in general neither children nor parents are aware of the risks. Children, teens and even adults feel like if they can buy it in a store, it's safer than using an illegal narcotic. They are horribly wrong.

According to a 2008 study (yes, the only thing I could find was that out of date), one in 10 teens has used OTC cough medicine to get high. And while we might assume, as the police officer who caught Ethan shoplifting at 16 did, that they are after the alcohol content in liquid medications, we would be wrong. We would also be wrong to believe, as that article did, that it is something they'll move past to illegal drugs as they get older and decide it is beneath them. If they become addicted, they don't move on. There is no need. It is still cheap, legal and deceptively safe.

The active ingredient in hundreds of cough suppressants, including the ones in my cabinet and probably yours, is dextromethorphan. It's a central nervous system depressant that, taken according to directions, is safe. Taken at levels from double to dozens of times the recommended dosage it can mimic everything from being drunk to PCPs. If your child is found in possession of it, no one is likely to think a lot of it. If you go to take cough medicine and discover it's all gone, you probably think you forgot and used it. If they wander through a pharmacy, or even the health care department of a grocery store, discount store, or dollar store, they can easily fill their pockets with boxes of the stuff, since it's not even behind the counter.

Even if you talk to your child regularly about the dangers of drugs, odds are good you won't think about cough medicine. After all, you give it to them sometimes. How do you make them understand that the hazards from abuse are just as real as with any street drug? Somehow you have to include medications from prescription pills to cough medicine in the conversation, because if you don't, someone else will.

That's the cautionary tale to parents.

But yesterday I just kept thinking about the kids. What do you say? How do you talk about a drug you hope they know nothing about in an effort to warn them without giving them ideas.

Be honest. Studies have shown that sex education classes that teach only abstinence don't work because they don't teach about what is really going on. I think that drug abuse classes sometimes have the same problem. Just say no is a wonderful idea, but it doesn't look at anything beyond the small gesture of denial.

It doesn't look at the peer pressure, or the desire to fit in. It doesn't look at the fact that sex feels good and it's easy to go further than you meant to if you don't know anything about the steps leading up to the big "it" you're not supposed to do. It doesn't look at the reality that sometimes you don't want to feel like a kid who doesn't fit in and a cough medicine that you and your buddies can grab off a shelf makes you suddenly cool and relaxed and all the crap you deal with every day doesn't matter quite so much.

As a parent, it's damn near impossible to convince a child that the pain of the ninth grade or the attention of a certain boy, is just such a little part of life that it really won't mean anything in a few years. It's hard for them to believe that the circles of life beyond high school will take them so far beyond both the friendships and rebuttals of their peers. It's hard for them to conceive of a time when it won't matter that they weren't popular, or that someone did or did not like them... a time when the people who are their world won't even be a small part of it.

I know because I tried so hard with Ethan. I didn't know the dangers of dextromethorphan. I didn't know the extent of his pain. But I did know the danger of peer pressure and how keenly he wanted to fit in, when what he really needed to do was carve his own path. I don't know how to tell anyone to fix that, but I know I have to tell you to try.

My son used with his two best friends, and to the best of my knowledge, all their girlfriends as well. One boy came across as trouble from the get-go, while the other was from an apparently stable, two-parent family, (just to show you that trying to pick their friends may not help). I don't know who the ring leader was and it could have been Ethan for all I know. In any case, they used together and supported one another in the path they chose. I don't know about the "trouble" child, but I know from talking with the other young man that he was addicted just like Ethan. I know he's clean now, but that getting clean cost him a lifelong friendship and left him with a load of guilt; that he's still troubled by a drug he left behind and that he'll never be the same person that he was before he used it.

I know that despite my efforts to talk to my son, I let things slide because I accepted that he'd become more secretive, less willing to share, moodier, as he became a teen and matured, and because other than the drug use, he shared so much of his life that I think now he was probably often covering what he wasn't telling me by oversharing in other areas. That quite possibly from the first use some part of his brain knew that was something to hide. I knew about alcohol, pot and sex, and sometimes about shoplifting, and we dealt with those things. But I didn't know about cough medicine -- something seemingly so innocent -- partly because I wasn't educated to the problem. I know I didn't force him to be part of family meals and outings sometimes because his moodiness and sulking would ruin a whole day, and I wish now that I'd drug him along because maybe that was what he really wanted and at least now that wouldn't be something for me to feel guilty about.

So I'm urging you to educate yourself about things you don't really want to know about, not just the easy stuff. Talk to your children, whatever their age, in an age appropriate way, about all the hazards and the joys life holds for them. Help them understand that sometimes there are trade offs, that not doing the thing that seems good at the time will make something better a part of their future. Make it easy for them to talk to you without judging the little things, so maybe they'll be honest about the big things. Know about things that can hurt them so you can warn them and watch for danger. If something seems wrong, take them to a doctor or a counselor and the sooner the better. Track down the problem if you can, even if it makes them mad and you feel like you're beating your head against a wall. Make them be a part of your life so you can be part of theirs.

Know that all of that may not be enough, but that as important as it is to save your child, if you cannot do it, it may be just as important to know that you did everything you could.

And whatever happens, love them. Make them know you love them even when you say no, even when you have to let them suffer the consequences of their choices, even if they hang up on you half the time or wind up being lost in some place that you can't reach or save them.

Tell them you love them without reservation, even when they are an ass and when no one else does. Make them hear you above the noise of life and peers and pressures. Because right now, that's all I have to cling to.

A memory of a hug and knowing that whatever demons rode him, Ethan knew he was loved.

Angry at Life, Angry at Death, Angry at Myself, Too

Forty odd years ago, a look at the grieving process identified five stages of grief, beginning with denial and isolation, followed by anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance -- a generally accepted pathway for grief that of course, isn't a rulebook.

Yet I find that when I looked up the steps, they have indeed been the ones I've begun to stumble through, although I think bargaining will be more of a series of "what ifs," or perhaps a battle with the guilt I feel looming, as there is no negotiation with death.

A week ago, when I got the call, I sat alone and cried. I had stayed home sick from church after inheriting some upper sinus crap from the children, and when my husband called after service, I told him the news and sent him on to the the grocery store. I didn't want anyone to cry on. I didn't want to be comforted. I didn't want it to be made more real by existing in some space other than my telephone and the virtual world of my computer. I sat and spilled out my pain in the blog I sent out the next morning -- the blog I've shared repeatedly and begged people to share because it hurt, and I wanted it to mean something by helping someone.

For the last week I've done a fairly good job of hanging on to anger, but I know that will wear thin after a while.

It's easier to be angry at the young man who destroyed his life over and over again than it is to deal with all the other losses contained inside his death. Just like blowing up because his lousy father didn't even come to his funeral, I know I probably have to let this anger out to move on and really grieve.

So yes, I'm pissed at Ethan. I'm pissed at him for using drugs, for not calling except when he wanted something or was so messed up that he didn't make sense, for never seeming to care about anyone but himself.

I'm pissed at him for not going to the doctor because maybe, just maybe, there was something else going on that could have been treated.

I'm pissed at him for dying. At Christmas.

That's a lot of anger and it's not all purely true, but this last week it's been easier to hang onto those bits of anger because anger makes you stronger sometimes. When you're angry, you do things you wouldn't normally do. Like laugh at a funeral. Like let myself live because the depths of that the grief that consumes me might just drown me if I didn't have anger to hang onto right now.

But the facts about what I'm angry about will help me breathe a little easier, too.

I'm angry that Ethan decided, when just a little kid in middle school or maybe just as he was starting high school, that getting high might be cool. But I know that there was a time that he was very unhappy with the heavy boy who wore glasses and braces and that he couldn't see past that temporary reality to the man he would become. I know that his friends were doing it, and that he craved their approval more than I ever understood. I know that the DARE program that had warned Ethan about the dangers of alcohol and illegal drugs, hadn't caught up with the abuse of prescriptions and darn sure never touched on the dangers of dextromethorphan, which was so easy to get and deceptively safe.

I know that despite being so much alike in appearance and personality, Ethan wasn't a carbon copy of me. That loner streak that saw me through my middle and high school days didn't run through him. Unlike my first dog, the dog he loved wasn't the constant companion that got him out of the house and helped him find happiness in a world that didn't rely on friends (no fault of the dog's, mind you). He didn't develop the desire he had to create and do and accomplish things. I didn't have the addictive genetic makeup he apparently inherited.

I know it was an innocent choice at first, and that he was lonely and angry and confused and terribly young, and by the time he started sorting himself out of those feelings, he was addicted and it was really hard to fight. Addiction doesn't go away just because you aren't taking your drug of choice, it hangs around and whispers about the good times you had. It changes the way your mind works. It comes up in conversation with your friends to remind you how you miss it. When something goes wrong, it's there waiting to welcome you back. It takes over your brain so that other things that people think will bring you pleasure just aren't that great. It deceives you, like the Devil, promising only wonderful things while it wrecks your life and you cannot even see it happening.

Despite our efforts to help him negotiate being clean and learn to function without his old friend, Ethan just couldn't. I know he did his best, and while I'm angry, it's beginning to be the at the drug and its availability, not at the boy/man who couldn't escape it.

And no, he really didn't just call when he needed something. Sometimes I know he called just to hear my voice and that he missed me as badly as I missed him. But our connection was damaged and neither of us could fix it or say the right words. The love that pulled us so close meant we hurt each other, that I was the one he lashed out at in his pain. It was probably easier to ask for money than to ask for some less tangible thing he couldn't identify. It was probably easier to lean on the friend he could find at the Dollar store than confront the tangled emotions we had toward each other. And of course, we both thought we had time, a lot of it.

I know that he cared. Sometimes he would tell me I worked too hard. Sometimes he would admit he was glad I had a husband that took care of me. Sometimes his conversation was mostly about how things were here because he didn't have a life he could share, and sometimes a rambling, adolescent tale about what he wanted to do with his life. He still dreamed of doing things, but like a kid, not a young man, because the drug had stunted his emotional and mental growth. And how many kids actually remember a parent's birthday? But just this year, when he'd been clean for ages, he skipped a Mother's Day get together when I was so looking forward to seeing him. The little cards and gifts that other moms can count on never came from him. He was a tornado, taking everything in his path and needing more and that hurt and still hurts. Those moments of compassion were so consumed by his needs, by the fact that the drugs made him focus on himself because nothing else could bring him pleasure.

I wonder why we could not persuade him to see a doctor when he was in so much pain the last couple of weeks -- not just the emotional and mental pain that I think he dealt with almost constantly (and which he also refused to accept help for), but the physical pain. He'd never resisted seeing a doctor before when he felt bad. Had he done something he didn't want to deal with in a doctor's office? Was he afraid he knew what was wrong?

I'm angry that he died, not at him. I'm angry that whatever demons drove him were too much. That God decided he'd had his share of pain (how selfish is that?) and let him finally escape. I'm angry at God, and He knows it.

I'm angry at the people who went with him down the path of addiction, not so much the kids that he stumbled into it with, but the men who were still involved in it with him and eager to help him return whenever he got clean. I'm angry at everyone that failed him in any way, because it's almost impossible to accept that something could not have changed him.

To be honest, I'm angry at me. I'm angry that I couldn't force him to be different, better, happy, clean. That I couldn't find the words that would make him change. I'm angry because there is a part of me that no matter how many times I tell myself I did the absolute best that I knew how, that I prayed and wept and talked and gave and gave and tried to practice tough love too, feels like I failed.

I'm angry at me because no matter how much I love him, I couldn't save him.

'Don't Cry For Me Down Here'

Yeah, when I get where I'm going
There'll be only happy tears
I will shed the sins and struggles
I have carried all these years

And I'll leave my heart wide open
I will love and have no fear
Yeah, when I get where I'm going
Don't cry for me down here

Melvern Rivers Ii Rutherford

Getting ready to go bury my child yesterday, this song as sang by Brad Paisley began playing in my head. Not word for word, but the chorus. Funny how my country roots have been showing this week.

I fumbled for the right things to wear -- somehow I'd never purchased a wardrobe for burying my son -- finally settling on black pants and a dark shirt, the black leather coat I bought the winter I was expecting Ethan and couldn't button when I was pregnant.

We were running late driving the 30-minute route from our house to Galax. Of course, I was riding shotgun, and the roads were more familiar to me so I might have made better time, but I was reasonably sure they wouldn't start the procession without me. His sister and her family were caught in traffic on the interstate, so I was glad we went the old roads. An accident clogged northbound traffic all day, but she was at the cemetery about the same time we were.

Traveling through Galax, I put my head down to pray for the strength to make it through yet another tough day. I had no more uttered the prayer than my mind was filled with a vision. It was Ethan, stretched out in the floor, but there was a figure of light above him and it reached down toward him and pulled him free of his earthly shackles. He rose up with a light of his own, and his face was split by the biggest smile I've seen in many years. I knew that he'd shaken off the addiction, the pain, the suffering that only he could understand and that he was free. God had sent me what I needed to know and the strength to get through the day. I could miss him, but I couldn't want him back in those bonds.

His best friend and that young man's mom, who had like Ethan and I battled the same addiction, were the first people I went to at the funeral home. They were Ethan's second family, just as in many ways my house was his second home, for years. He has a family, escaped the addiction, had to make the difficult decision to not spend time with my son, and I just wanted him to know that he did what he had to do to survive. I wanted him to know that some of the love I can no longer give Ethan will be his as he goes forward.

I cried with his mother, who had known both the little boy and the angry young man and, like me, loved them both. I am sure there was a part of her that shuddered at how close she came to being where I was at, a part that mourned and was also thankful that she wasn't bearing the full brunt of it. Had the roles been reversed, I would have felt that way as well.

The drive to the cemetery was peaceful and the weather was warmer than expected. The leather coat went in the back seat by the time we reached the rural cemetery where Ethan was going to join generations of his ancestors, my grandparents, and a whole sea of people I didn't ever know. My parents plan to be buried there. The view is rolling hills, trees and fields of cattle. The sun was shining bright as we gathered around the grave.

I expected a small, sad gathering of family members who could get away from work, maybe a few folks from the Hope House where he lived a while (they agreed to be pall bearers) and some people from his church. I was totally overwhelmed by the number of people who were there. It was rush of activity to get us seated and everything ready for the service.

My chair almost toppled down hill when I sat. My first thought was how funny it would be to just fall over and topple the whole family like dominoes down the hill -- how Ethan would love it.

The pastor from the church where Ethan had found the only job he liked, but where he still couldn't manage to stay on track, knew the young man that he spoke about. He said that he knew we were all asking if we could have done things differently, and the answer was yes, because we are all fallible. That nothing could separate Ethan from his God, including the demons who drove him. We shared a few stories and a prayer and the Vince Gill song "Go Rest High On That Mountain" was played. We gathered in a gusting wind and released 23 bright colored balloons into the heavens.

After that, I had a chance to see who had come. I was even more blown away than I had been at the sheer number. There were people from Virginia who knew and cared about him, many of whom I never got to meet. People from North Carolina who knew and cared about us. People who came just for me and brought love and support and an outpouring of grace that I never expected from the time we've spent together. Family that I hadn't seen in years and years. The love poured out on me at the side of my son's grave wrapped round me like a warm blanket and helped carry me through the afternoon.

While the gravediggers finished their work, several of us gathered in the old wooden church and sipped coffee. E1 and E2, who had hardly got the chance to know their uncle, ran the aisles and played, freed from the need to keep their good clothes nice for the ceremony they did not understand. E3 cruised the pews and complained about the disruption in her eating schedule.

Before we left, my husband and I walked back to the grave topped with holiday flowers. We knelt and prayed individually, then stood and prayed together. I thanked God for giving me Ethan and for the blessing that was his life and the lessons I learned from him. I wished I could have kept him longer. I questioned why his life had to follow the course it did. I asked if there was any way to let him know how much he was loved and missed.

Of course, there was food and conversation at my mom's house following the ceremony, more noise from boisterous little girls, a drive home in the cooling afternoon to resume the routines of life, late night texts from a sister who is now an only child and beginning to feel that loss more keenly.

This was the day I buried my son, still with no answers as to how he died, but I think, thanks to a gift from God, some understanding of why. The time was not right for me, or for his sister, or for the many people who cared about him, prayed for him, and held onto a hope that one day he'd be all they knew he could be. The time was right for Ethan, walking with God, to be free of the pain of this life and get on with what comes next.

From a day that I expected only sadness, I found the closure I did not think I'd find. I found a peace that may make it easier to deal with the sadness. I found the strength everyone had said I had, but I found it did not come from within, but from without from those same friends who gathered around me and from the God who made the decision I still wish He had not made.

No More Goodbyes

I know your life on earth was troubled
And only you could know the pain.
You weren't afraid to face the devil.
You were no stranger to the rain.
Go rest high on that mountain.
Son, your work on earth is done.
Go to heaven a shoutin',
Love for the Father and the Son.
Vince Gill

This week I wrote my son's obituary.

It wasn't a task I ever contemplated doing, but when it came down to needing to be done, I didn't want to hand off the memories and words to someone else.

I spent 25 years in journalism and during that time I penned a lot of obituaries. I learned how to word everything from the sudden death of an infant survived by generations of family to the passing of a well known local citizen, remembered as much for the things he had done as for those he left behind. I used the form sent in by the funeral home, or I helped the family figure out what they wanted to say. During the latter part of my career I worked with a wonderful gentleman who specialized in obituaries and had written his own and put it on file at the funeral home. When he died suddenly of a heart attack, all that remained to be done was to fill in a few blanks.

But there are no words to sum up the life of a young man who had so much potential and love and who brought so much joy when he could allow himself to live life. There were no words to explain how it went wrong and ended too soon, how I feel as though I've lost a part of my body, maybe a leg, because I feel as though I'm pulling myself through the days, not walking and running, but dragging along. I couldn't let it go at born on, died on though. The best I could come up with was "He loved video games, skateboarding, his family and friends, and computers." None of that was enough to bring him happiness in this life.

Faced with the questions of what to do in planning my son's funeral, that song by Vince Gill came into my mind. When I looked up the lyrics and remembered why he wrote it, I knew why. I was a country music fan in those days and a huge fan of Keith Whitley, the first person I remember dying from an addiction he could not control. The song was begun after his death from alcohol poisoning as a tribute to him.

Now, a few decades later, it will also be played as a tribute to Ethan whose pain no one else ever knew, whose trouble we could never understand.

The funeral will be today, but I won't be able to touch Ethan's hand one more time and tell him goodbye. It's as unreal as if he had gone to war and they had shipped his body home, assuring me that the man inside the casket was indeed my son who had been absent from my life for months, but who I just spoke to a week ago -- probably only hours before he died.

The fact that he had isolated himself so much in his addiction meant none of his neighbors noticed they had not seen him. It meant family wasn't really surprised when he wouldn't answer the phone or didn't call. Often lost in his alternate reality, he didn't feel the need to respond to a ringing phone or a knock at the door. He never bothered to set up his voice mail account.

It was a note left on his apartment door, still there five days later, that led his grandmother to call police and gain entry to his apartment. He had probably been dead that entire time.

While he always insisted that it was his choice and didn't hurt anyone else, this is the reality of his addiction. I'm facing a closed casket and while an image of my dead son wasn't one I was eager to see, being deprived that last chance at goodbye breaks my heart over and over. No, he isn't there anyway, but the earthly vessel that I bore, the body that carried his troubled soul for 23 years remains and I long to see him one more time and to whisper my love, even to he empty shell where he was.

This is a harsh reality of addiction that no one knows or speaks of. Addicts often die while not under a doctor's care and without an illness that a medical examiner can quickly sign off on. That means an autopsy, which I know he would never have wanted and which, thanks to CSI and too many realistic crime shows, breaks my heart at a whole different level. Isolated in addiction, they may also die alone and despite caring family and friends, that self imposed isolation means that no one knows immediately that something is wrong. They may be dead for days before they are found and compounded with an autopsy, there is not enough of the person they were for family and friends to say goodbye.

That is just part of the price of his addiction that we will continue to pay. I know the picture that I have of him in my mind, the beautiful blue eyes and smile, the big hands and warm hug when he enveloped me in his arms, are a much more precious memory than I would gain from touching his dead body. But there is a part of me that so badly needed to do that, to touch him, to kiss him one last time, to know that this is real and not a bad dream.

It's so damn unfair that beyond all the pain of his death I can find yet another level of pain just because I cannot say goodbye. And yet, somehow I must. Whether I cry to the heavens or weep by his grave, today is goodbye to the earthly part of my son.

And with all the pain and heartache this goodbye brings, it also brings thanksgiving for the child I knew and the lives he touched, the love and blessings he gave as my son before his demons defeated him. It also holds faith in the peace he has finally found and in a future reunion when there will be no more goodbyes.

http://www.twincountyfunerals.com/obituaries/Ethan-Funk/#!/Obituary

Why Did He Have to Die? Searching For Meaning

I remembered to feed my house dogs last night.

I'm not sure if anyone fed them the two days before or not. Maybe my husband mentioned it. Although my hens and outside dogs all are part of a routine that I've stumbled through blindly this week, the three little dogs who cuddle around me when I sit down are used to having food dropped in their bowls whenever they are empty. I honestly hadn't even looked at their bowls.

Of course, Monday I didn't even remember to eat until someone from my Sunday school class came with a box of food. I had started a pot of soup, because I knew in my head that we would need to eat. I had even forced my granddaughters to sit down and eat at lunch time, but food wasn't something that I wanted.

Once upon a time the death of a family member would have filled a home with visitors and food. Not too long ago, the phone would have carried the word from place to place. People would have stepped forward to make sure you ate and do what needed doing. Now I can't even think of what I might need when people do call or ask. There's no drawing together because life is so demanding that if you're not the one blindsided by the loss, it's hard to pull yourself free to do more than express condolences.

Now it's this glowing box that draws me like a moth each morning. Not long after I received word, it was Facebook where I turned to let my friends know. It's this blog where I poured out my feelings in an effort to find healing for myself and to try and wrap my head around the the way my life had suddenly changed. It's Facebook where I've found my friends and Ethan's friends reaching out and sometimes sharing memories, pictures, their pain and their prayers for us all. It's my infernal cell phone that I struggle to keep charged because of the texts and calls.

I've had so many people tell me I'm strong, but I don't feel strong. I get up in the morning and heat a cup of coffee, then sit by my computer for as long as I can stand. I write -- not everyone's response to what I'm going through, but what I feel like I have to do -- and I read and I cry. I do the same thing again at night after the children leave and my husband goes to bed. Those are the times when the house is absolutely quite except for the hum of the electric heater in this room and the click of the computer keys.

Part of me wants to stop the blog. Part of me says it's my lifeline. And then every day I look at the statistics on it and wonder if I've helped just one of the people reading it. Sometimes a stranger sends me a comment that makes me know I have and as I search for some kind of purpose in what God has chosen to work in the lives of my son, and I and all of our family and friends, some part of me believes this is it.

I prayed for so long that he would find sobriety. I realized it was not a gift I could give him, or something I could force on him either, so I prayed that God would do it. Every time he stumbled down another long hole that I never expected him to live in -- months in jail, a month in the hospital, months in physical rehabilitation, living in a homeless shelter -- I prayed that someone he might not have otherwise met would be able to say the words he needed to hear and show him the way to another life.

I pleaded with God, argued with God, tried to accept that there was a reason that he had to suffer so much. Although Ethan sometimes argued that he was happy with his life, with his drugs and addiction, there was often pain in his voice, his body was damaged from the drugs and accidents. He could never see it was his choices or seem to see a way to change, despite months of sober living, support groups, the kindness of strangers, and the deep well of love of his family and friends that as often as not he would turn his back on.

When he died, I asked why. Not why was he dead, because lately there had been so much pain in him that I had prayed for peace if not sobriety. Peace was what he was finally given. It wasn't the answer I wanted, but it was one I felt I could accept. Instead I asked why it took so long. Why did he have to hurt so long? Why didn't he die one of the times he was hauled to the ER unresponsive from an overdose? Why did he survive an accident that should have killed him? Why did he have to keep hurting?

The answer is that I don't know. I don't know how his experiences changed his soul. While he couldn't escape his addiction, he also couldn't escape his salvation, and perhaps there were things he learned about himself and his God in those months that he had no way to share with us.

Perhaps while he stumbled through a life that was destined to end too soon, he was the tool that changed someone else's life, if not in how he lived, then in how he died. Perhaps the people who helped him, or who tried to, learned something from the experience that will make them better at helping someone else. Maybe his friends who are still stunned and wondering what happened to the wonderful kid they grew up with will remember the path he took and not only avoid it themselves, but watch for those signs of danger in their friends, siblings, and their own children.

I don't believe that his life or his pain, or mine for that matter, were in vain, even though I may never understand it. Not in this life, anyway. And when the time comes that I could gain that understanding, it won't matter any more. I'll be able to put aside this pain and anger and leave it all behind, and if understanding comes, it will only be as a brief ah-ha moment when we're together again with our Savior and celebrating freedom from this world that is not our home.

So I sit at my computer, because while God gave him pain and addiction, for years he has given me words. This process is my therapy, but maybe someone else's as well. Just as I originally committed to writing every day just to get in the habit, now I'm committed to writing because there may be someone else who needs this as badly as I do. I know that grief consumes me now, that maybe it hurts as badly to read it as it does to write it some days, and that many people will never understand why I do it. And that doesn't matter.

I know in some bright, sunny future time I can hardly imagine now while I'm cloaked in this dark blanket of grief, the things that make my day once again will be lighthearted and the ups and downs that I once knew. But through it there will still wind a thread of pain and loss that I've got to learn how to live with and accept. Thanks to this blog and my inability to be less than honest, I know there are so many other parents and families struggling with that same fate and I'm going to be here so they know they're not alone.

Goodbye, My Little Boy

Yesterday the phone rang with the call some part of me has been expecting for a year or two now. It was the Galax Police Department calling to notify me they had found my 23-year-old son dead in his apartment after being asked to do a welfare check.

It's the call no mother wants to get, but after living with his addiction for so long it was one I expected at the back of my mind. I thought I was prepared, but really, until the phone rang I always clung to hope that he would turn his life around.

I'm still struggling to wrap my head and heart around the idea that this time he really is gone. Our communication has been so spotty for years, so full of anger at times, that I'm used to not hearing from him for days or weeks. Just a week ago, he called wanting a Playstation 4 for Christmas. I told him no.

He had skipped Thanksgiving, I think at least partly because he was angry with me over a Facebook post in which I was thankful for him, despite the fact that he hadn't always been the son I imagined. I was uncertain over what Christmas would bring. Maybe that was the cloud that's been hanging over my holiday. I hadn't even bought him any gifts.

Now I won't get to, ever again.

There's a picture of him on the living room wall holding my dog last Christmas, sporting a goofy toboggan and a grin. When he was straight, he had a lethal sense of humor and was always worried about me. In my memories he is the golden haired little boy who trooped behind his older sister and worried her to death as she played; the elementary schooler who liked being smart and didn't care for basketball or karate; the middle schooler who put on weight and had braces and didn't like himself as much as he should have because I still loved his smile. He's also the sullen teen who stretched out and became tall and lean, who gave up band and skate boarding, who put his fist through the wall and wouldn't do chores. Yet on good days he still gave awesome hugs and when he managed a smile, the room would light up.

The good days, however, seemed fewer and farther between the older he got. Instead of correcting his path, he intentionally chose it, repeatedly. We argued, by text, at great length last month about all the wonderful things he thought his drug of choice did for him and whether or not he was happy. When he was high, he thought he was Death incarnate, or maybe god. He was immortal and capable of anything he set his mind to doing. He hated everything around him except the video games in which he could further escape from reality.

I know he had dreams -- of being a video game designer, of having a family and being a dad. He told me he wanted to be a good dad, which was so sad because his dad was such a deadbeat, and he was great with children. His nieces adored him. But he poisoned his chances at all that when he started using drugs, when he chose repeatedly to keep using them. In many ways, I lost my son when he and his best friend started getting high. He was never the same after that; moody, angry, scary and demanding.

He always thought that since it wasn't an illegal drug, or even one he had to obtain illegally, that it was OK. Dextromethorphan is a cough suppressant and central nervous system depressant. It's sold over the counter and safe in recommended dosages. Taken a whole pack or more at a time, however, it mimics the effects of PCPs. It causes psychosis, seizures, organ damage, and potentially death.

He left home for nearly a year when he was 16, loading his belongings in a rage on the day my grandfather died. Even when he didn't live with me though, I gave him a phone to keep in touch, came to his rescue when he needed me, took afternoons off work to deal with a broken heart. He came home the next summer because they didn't have room for him any more and I wanted him to finish school, which he did. But frankly, I was afraid of him and his angry outbursts. He turned 18 and graduated, still with no purpose or desire to have one, and I made him move out.

He had a few jobs, wrecked a few cars, and was living in his car when one last accident ended its usefulness. By then he was having seizures. He was unable to work, so I rented him an apartment and took him regularly to Winston-Salem to see a doctor and psychologist. We didn't know that, even then, he continued to use. Then he found a roommate and they got high together, he went into a psychosis and pulled a Japanese sword on the roommate, and we found out the truth. He was in jail when we cleaned out his apartment and found bag after bag of empty blister packs where he'd been taking drugs -- drugs he stole, by the way.

I should have known by the illogical rages, I guess. But even though I knew the drugs had caused the neurological damage that brought on the seizures, I didn't know their effects as well as I would have some widely discussed street drug.

When he got out of jail, I refused to enable him any more. He moved to Virginia with my parents. He never worked again, except odd jobs at the church and for my family. When my dad's illness meant mom couldn't take care of him as well, he first rented a house, then lost his job at the church and wound up in the homeless shelter. During that time he had a horrific wreck in which he should have been killed. He was high and in a blackout, hit a parked car and went over an embankment. He was ejected and broke multiple bones, including his back, but was not paralyzed. We were all convinced that would be hitting bottom.

For months, back at the shelter, he stayed on the straight and narrow. He had to because of random drug testing. He was a house monitor, had friends and was fun to be around again. When he moved out into an apartment, the first thing he did was get high. This summer police called me and asked if I was his mom. I expected the next words to be a death notification. No, he was on the streets acting strange. He spent two nights in jail for public intoxication.

I hate to admit how seldom I've seen him since his birthday in April. He was in a downward spiral that I knew I was powerless to stop. I talked to him on the phone fairly regularly and tried to make sure he knew I loved him. Often when he called his voice was unintelligible and I would strain to have a conversation, never knowing if he were high or if were an aftereffect of the drugs. Sometimes he called in tears from emotional or mental pain. Lately there had been physical pain as well, but he would not see a doctor.

For years I've prayed for God to heal him, to make him choose sobriety, and more recently just to take away the pain that seemed to drive him. At last, Ethan hurts no more. At one level, my prayers have been answered.

There's a hole in my heart and an ache in my stomach. I'm not sure if writing about it makes it more real, or less. I know now I've had almost a day to process and I'm still not sure I'm ready to do anything else. I hate that, right now, so many of my memories are not good, but maybe that's what I need to get through the next few days. I refuse to take a photo album down and bring happier ones to the surface.

I've been touched by how many people have reached out to me and wept again when I realized how many of my friends have already, in some form, walked this path I'm on. I don't know what to tell people I need beyond time. I'm trying to go on with life and do the things I enjoy instead of trembling in a corner in sackcloth and ashes, and I know that may raise a few eyebrows but my grief won't change his death, just as it never changed the way he chose to live.

I know I'm fragile right now and I'm trying to take care of myself. I wish I could hug him one more time and remind him again that I love him, no matter what. That not being possible I want to hold my daughter and granddaughters and feel the breath in their lungs and the beat of their hearts.

I want to somehow know that he's finally at peace and that I won't ever have to feel this way again.