Why I want you to see my son dead
These last moments with my son won’t be in vain...
Glancing out the kitchen window, my heart jolted. ‘Andrew!’ I screamed, as my 8-year-old boy clambered up a tree, the pencil-thin branches bending under his weight.
‘Look, Mum,’ he giggled. ‘Look how high I can climb!’
Typical Andrew. As curious as he is fearless.
Ever since I’d adopted him in September 1996, aged 6, he’d been a daredevil.
A risk-taker, an adventurer.
Go fishing, and he’d be the one to get stuck in the mud!
But for all his mischief, Andrew was a kind, loving boy.
Always fixing things around the house, wrapping up gifts for us in electrical tape.
Still, there was a troubled side to Andrew too.
In care, he had developed mood disorders and depression.
By the time he got to us, he was on anti-psychotics
and anti-depressants.
He hated the way they made him feel – either so sedated he was like a zombie or so hyped up he couldn’t sleep.
So when he stopped taking them at 21, I understood.
The problem was, his depression returned, made him angry and defensive.
For months, he was so very unhappy.
Then, something remarkable changed.
He became calmer, more stable.
I thanked my lucky stars – my boy was back. Only it wasn’t luck. In February 2011, the police called saying Andrew had been arrested for breaking and entering. A mistake, I was sure. But at the station, Andrew confessed.
Said he’d been taking a potent prescription painkiller, and needed money to buy more. ‘But why?’ I pleaded. ‘Because it makes me feel happy, Mum,’ he replied.
That was when my heart broke. Andrew was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and served one year with a five-year probation. When he was released, he moved in with his sister Haley, then 26. Eventually, he got his own home just five minutes down the road from me. Found himself a job as a mechanic, met a girlfriend.
They visited us often. Andrew was besotted, back on his feet, back in control.
I was so proud of the man he’d become.
But then, in December 2017, it all fell apart again. Andrew split with his girlfriend and was crushed. Over the next year, he lost everything.
His job, his home, his car. By summer 2018, it was clear he was back on drugs. Dirty nails, missing teeth, arms covered in track marks. His appearance screamed ‘addict’.
But it wasn’t until he admitted everything that I finally believed it.
He said he’d been dabbling with drugs since prison.
He was back on powerful
prescription painkillers. Then heroin, often mixed with fentanyl – an opioid similar to morphine.
I was shocked.
When his relationship suddenly ended, he lost total control. Even sold heroin to others to fund his habit.
I’d lie awake at night, worrying if he was OK, where he was sleeping.
Then I found out he was living in the woods, here in Maryland, USA, with a group of addicts.
‘Please come home,’ I begged. Even offered to buy him a new tent or sleeping bag. He refused.
That September, in despair, his sisters Haley and Candace drove down there, bundled him into the back of their car, and brought him to me. I drove him to a detox centre.
He was out of his mind with withdrawal, crying like a baby, biting his arms to distract from the pain.
‘We’ll get you clean,’ I promised as he writhed in agony.
We arranged a prescribed daily dose of methadone – a heroin substitute used to treat addicts.
But it didn’t work, Andrew didn’t want it.
He just wanted to go back to his friends, his drugs.
So he did.
I was beside myself, yet totally helpless.
It felt inevitable when, on 7 October last year, Haley received a Facebook message saying Andrew had been found dead in the woods.
She rushed to the police station, and we were on FaceTime when they confirmed the body was his.
It felt like my heart had been ripped out.
Andrew, 29, had died of a deadly concoction of xylazine – an analgesic used for horses – and fentanyl. Alone.
Two days later, I went to see Andrew’s body.
The funeral director warned me to stay behind the window.
She said the smell was too much to handle.
Andrew had been dead for hours before he was found, exposed to the elements.
But this is my boy.
There was no way I wasn’t going to kiss him one last time. I asked my friend Lisa to take pictures, so I’d always remember.
The side of his face you can’t see in the photo looked very bruised, his skin black and mottled.
But despite it all, he still looked like Andrew, my beloved son. Driving home, I thought about our last conversation on the way back from rehab.
‘We’re not homeless, we’re a family,’ he’d said.
He’d claimed he looked after his mates while they took drugs, gave them clean needles.
Strangely, I couldn’t feel mad at him.
It sounded like my boy. Misguided, vulnerable – but, at heart, a good person.
On 21 October, we had a memorial for Andrew and invited his homeless friends.
We gave them backpacks filled with hygiene products, served pizza.
They all told me how Andrew looked out for them.
Despite his mistakes, I’m proud to call Andrew my son.
He was loved, not some worthless junkie.
Whenever I miss him, I watch videos on my phone of him laughing, rolling in the snow.
But because of Andrew’s choices, he’s dead.
I only hope, by sharing this picture of my last moments with him, it stops at least one person picking up a needle. Submitting to the same fate. Because drugs will take anyone, even a boy like my Andrew.
He was loved, not some worthless junkie