Mom shares sorrows, hopes to stop deaths
Sign in Kyle to highlight dangers of fentanyl, which killed son
In the months after her firstborn son died of fentanyl poisoning, Janel Rodriguez has not hidden her tragedy from the world.
In fact, she’s putting it on a billboard.
Noah Rodriguez, 15, died of fentanyl poisoning Aug. 21 amid a string of such overdoses among students in the Hays Consolidated Independent School District.
Fentanyl, an opioid that the Drug Enforcement Administration says is 50 times more potent than heroin, appears in many illicitly produced drugs, from Xanax to oxycodone.
Her son’s death led Rodriguez to share her family’s grief in the hopes of preventing another life-shattering loss.
Her Kyle-area communi
ty’s support surprised Rodriguez. She’d expected to be judged for the nature of Noah’s death. Perhaps her neighbors would see Noah as an addict and their sympathy would fade.
“I was initially embarrassed,” Rodriguez said. “We don’t come from that; it’s not something that Noah saw us do. It’s not something that he was ever around.”
Even the Hays County Sheriff’s Office shared Rodriguez’s concern, she said.
“The sheriff’s department was concerned that people were going to look at Noah as a drug addict or like a junkie, instead of a curious teenager,” Rodriguez said. “His first time doing coke happened to put him in a coma. But we know a lot of people here, so everybody already knew Noah’s story.”
Despite what the neighbors might say, Rodriguez shared Noah’s story on social media and received an outpouring of support from friends and strangers alike. Many comments soothed her fears that Noah would be smeared as an addict.
“‘Don’t feel ashamed,’” Rodriguez said some people told her. “‘Thank you for speaking out because our kids need to hear this type of thing.’”
To get her message out to as many neighbors as possible, she’s renting a digital billboard on one of Texas’ busiest highways.
Rodriguez said the billboard will read: “Fentanyl steals your friends.” Pictures of Noah and two other Hays CISD students who died of fentanyl poisoning over the summer will accompany the message.
The billboard sits near Interstate 35’s Exit 217 in Kyle, Rodriguez said — an area shaken by a rise in fentanyl deaths and overdoses in recent months.
“I figured because we’re still having so many overdoses, if these kids see their actual friends on a billboard maybe it’ll (tell them) this is real,” Rodriguez said.
Without Noah
Noah’s family takes the grieving process “day by day,” Rodriguez said. On Saturday, they packed up Noah’s room, as his 5-yearold sister, Jolene Dunn, wanted her big brother’s room after his passing.
“It sucked, but it was easier than I thought it was going to be,” Rodriguez said. “I had my moments. But the reason why I chose to do it was to help me get through it.”
Jolene is in therapy to help process the loss and better express her feelings, as Rodriguez said her daughter’s behavior changed after Noah’s death.
Rodriguez is making “memory boxes” full of mementos for her 20month-old daughter, Alnora, and 3-month-old son, Mordecai, born two weeks before Noah’s passing.
“We’re always going to have his pictures around for the … younger ones, really, to know who he was, their big brother,” she said.
Brandon Dunn, Rodriguez’s husband, started working from home last week.
“I’m still nervous about him actually leaving the house because I feel like when I’m here alone, I have more time to think about Noah, to think about the situation, and then I’m sad,” said Rodriguez, who attended a DEA convention Wednesday in Houston. “So I might look at moving my desk to a friend’s house a few days out of the week or something. Just so I’m around people.”
Rodriguez said a graphic designer will start work on the billboard in December, while the design will go up Jan. 8. The billboard costs $1,800 a month and will run until April 8.
She’s made big strides toward her fundraising goal of $5,400; donations topped $4,000 as of Friday. If she passes the goal, she’ll look into renting another billboard or extending the original’s duration.
Rodriguez said she now speaks once or twice a week,often in tandem with local and national authorities, about the dangers that counterfeit pharmaceuticals pose.
Rodriguez also speaks to concerned parents looking for signs of drug abuse in their kids. She understands their concerns and thinks about the signs she and Dunn may have missed in Noah.
“I tell parents I don’t have any regrets as a parent on what I could have done or what I should have done because I feel like we did everything we could or we needed to do,” she said. “But at the end of the day, a teenager is going to do what a teenager wants to do.”
Rodriguez said a friend of Noah’s reached out to her to tell her they were not processing Noah’s death well and “still making these choices.” Several of Noah’s friends have overdosed since his passing and remain addicted to the same drugs that killed their classmates, Rodriguez said.
“Grief sucks, but you can’t continue to just suppress it,” Rodriguez said.
She makes herself available to whoever needs the help.
“I had a little eighthgrader boy come up to me after (a speaking event), and he thanked me for being there,” Rodriguez said. “His dad passed away in July from a fentanyl poisoning through heroin, and he was struggling.
“He’s reached out,” Rodriguez said. She wants to “just be a comfort to someone else. If I have to actually help them get into a rehab — I’m going to do whatever it takes.”