As people filed past the coffin, tears streaming, I’m sure they were wondering how different Kim’s life could have been.
It always seems like a terrible nightmare when you have to attend the funeral of a young person. The younger the person is, the more terrible the nightmare. Kim was only 15. As people filed past the coffin, tears streaming, I’m sure they were wondering how different Kim’s life could have been.
There were people there from all walks of life but many of them obviously were family friends. Kim was dressed in a pair of jeans and a nice white blouse with long sleeves. Her hair was pulled back, as it had been in life. The morticians did a good job but they could not erase all of the signs on Kim’s face. Kim was a drug addict and had died as a result of that addiction. Kim had become an addict at the age of 12. That’s when her aunt introduced her to crack cocaine. Kim, who had been a slightly above average student slowly, started dropping in her grades. She spent more and more time at her aunt’s place so she could party with her aunt and her friends. Kim’s mom knew her sister did crack but she never thought in a million years that she would give any to Kim. Kim’s mom worked hard to provide for Kim and her brother. Now, her baby was gone and although she tried to cope, shortly after the funeral she began to smoke marijuana. Rocked by grief and not knowing where to turn, her life began going downhill and along with hers and her son’s. She just didn’t know where to turn, what to do to stop the hurt so she filled it with drugs. First marijuana, a little cocaine, and then a little more cocaine. She quit her job and started selling weed. She just wanted her little girl back, but what she didn’t realize is that she was part of the drug addiction trap.
Most people do not start out doing drugs with the intention of becoming drug addicts. Most do it to have fun, or perhaps to ease pain. Kim probably started to have a little fun and perhaps out of curiosity. She not only became addicted, but also ended up overdosing at the tender age of 15. Her Mother had been able to avoid drugs in her life because she focused on her children and knew the history in her family. The death of Kim was just too much, so the cycle continued.
Pat is a lady I more know of than know, but due to circumstances I feel I know her very well. Pat’s son was married to my stepdaughter, Erica. His name was Anthony. I didn’t like Anthony. In fact, no one really liked Anthony. He was a thug and a cocaine addict. He was cruel to Erica and half the time ignored his own children. Anthony had one brother and one sister. Again, they were not the best of people to know and certainly not as sweet as their mother Pat. Of course, the grand kids adored them all so that was just the way it was. The series of events that were about to unfold were incredibly coincidental not just in one way, or two, but three. The most important of these was drug addiction.
I got the phone call right after I had seen the nightly news. Anthony had been in a car accident at a bad interstate intersection and had been killed instantly. Although he and Erica were divorced, I knew she and the kids would be having a hard time. Drug addiction had killed their father and now three small children would have to deal with that. Of course, the kids had no idea about the cocaine addiction, but nonetheless, they may have to worry about it in the future. A child never gets over losing a parent just as a parent never gets over losing a child, but after a while, Pat, Erica, and the kids had moved forward with their lives.
Fast-forward two years and it is like watching a rerun on the news. It was the same intersection that Anthony was killed at, but this time, it was his brother and his sister that were killed in the crash. Both of them were high on cocaine. I must have sat there for 5 minutes just numb. Poor Pat. Not one or two, but all three of her children killed at the same intersection and all high on cocaine at the time. Drug addictions had taken all three of her children from her. My grand kids lost their father, aunt, and uncle because of addiction to drugs. I cannot imagine the sorrow that Pat felt burying the last two of her children. Here is a mother who never intended for her children to become drug addicts, but they did. Their drug addiction ultimately lead them all to the same place to die in an automobile accident while high on cocaine. At one time, Pat had three beautiful children playing at her feet. Thanks to drug addiction, then there were none.
