Moving forward

Dave and Betsy were at their Conneaut Lake house the day they got the call. Zach had just talked to his dad on the phone, so he knew something was wrong when Dave called back so quickly.

Tyler overdosed again. They had to get to Florida as soon as possible.

Details of Tyler’s death remain scarce. The family doesn’t know who supplied him with heroin or how it got in the rehab center. The Challingsworths continue searching for closure they might never have.

One of the hardest things for the family was sharing a secret they tried to hide from the world.

“It was making those hard phone calls, and telling people what happened,” Betsy said. “Friends assuming he had been in an accident or something, and us having to say the words, ‘He died of a heroin overdose.’ It’s so hard — hard to catch your breath.”

The Challingsworths weren’t sure how they’d make it through Tyler’s birthday three weeks later, but his friends came over for pizza and stories about the good times. That’s when they realized this must be their chance to somehow try to make a difference.

“You can’t come to terms with it, really. You just have to, as he always used to say, keep on keepin’ on,” Zach said as his father wiped away a tear. “You’ve just got to keep moving forward. It’s never going to be OK that he passed away, but you just have to live your life, and he would want us to do that.”

He may not have wanted a golf outing in his honor — they all laugh at how much he hated that sport — but July 15 at Quicksilver Golf Club will be the inaugural event for the Tyler Challingsworth Foundation of Hope. Part of the proceeds will go to a yearly scholarship for a South Fayette football player; a portion to homeless shelters and food pantries because