F.A.I.T.H.© - FAITH STAR

What A Long Strange Trip It's Been Chapter One I knew that God had sent Jason to me for only a short time. I always knew that. No one could understand why I did so much for Jason. “Tough Love” friends would tell me was the way to save Jason. They just didn’t get it but I did. Jason was not going to be saved from his fate. Not by me. Not by himself. Jason had sealed his fate long before anyone else could realize it. But I knew. I realized it. I walked on tip-toe around Jason. I was so scared that I would make him angry and that he would leave home. Afraid that I would never see him again. He was so easily bruised, my baby boy. So fragile emotionally. But oh, what a loving heart he had.

It is hard to explain just how I knew Jason would go to Heaven long before I would get there. Was it just coincidence? Could it have been that because my own mother had lost two sons that I was in fear of it happening to me? Could it have been my low self-esteem? Did I think that I deserved such pain as I had witnessed my mother and father go through? I didn’t at any time think it may happen. I knew it would happen. I had told my closest friends that I knew Jason would never live to see thirty years old. What I didn’t know was that Jason had told his friends the exact same thing. Even my precious child knew that he would die before turning thirty.

I don’t think Jason feared death as many people do. He believed in everlasting life and that nirvana waited there for him. He tried hard to make his life here conform to the unending highs and astounding wonders of the afterlife. Unfortunately for Jason LSD was the ticket to that high he always sought. That high instead lead to the end of his life here with us at the young age of twenty-three. Left behind were all the people who loved and adored my son including myself. He was like a tropical storm that blew it’s way into my life till it finally played itself out. Oh, what gale force winds this child of mine unleashed on this planet. Have you ever been in a storm with hurricane force winds thrashing, the sky looking violent, yet in the safety of your shelter you could ride out the storm and see the beauty in nature’s fury? That was my son.

Jason was an anarchist, a true rebel straight out of the dictionary in every sense of the word. But, Jason was a loving, caring tender heart. He protected his family as best he could. He protected his friends. He gave many a down and out friend free room and board. How he loved to cook for all his friends. He was great at it too! You could call Jason any hour of the day or night if you were in need and he would be there. No questions asked. Unfortunately most of those he befriended were not loyal, trustworthy friends as he was to them. He was way too trusting and that caused him much heartache and pain over the last five years especially.

Jason thought that all people should love and respect each other. He wanted there to be no more war, no more starvation. He believed that every soul should live in harmony with the next. He wanted Heaven on earth. What an ideal way of thinking he had, but I think the truth is that earth is our hell. It is here we are victims of evil forces. Here we learn what is needed to enter the gates of Heaven. It is here I believe souls are first sent to learn, and earn the love of God. Jason was always a very intelligent guy. He figured it out sooner than most of us do. He not only graduated from college receiving his degree in Applied Sciences the same month he died, (5 days after his death I was presented his degree), Jason earned his degree in humanity just through living. That diploma was his ticket through St. Peter’s gate. How could you not love, and miss a beautiful soul like that? If only he had loved himself as much as everyone loved him.

I read that each person who passes over leaves a gift behind. It is up to us to find it. It may take a while, but it is there. It seems inappropriate to feel this way I know. At the time of this writing I am new in grief having lost Jason only four months ago. So I am having a hard time with that thought, but in the back of my mind I know Jason left me more than just the money from an insurance policy. I believe in my heart that it involves doing my part to try and help others like Jason. Children who are meant to live on, but are in such pain that their lives seem to them too painful to face head on.

Jason gave his greatest gift when he left this world. For me it is hard to accept that right now. I honestly believe with all my heart that most all of us will be blessed by having loved Jason. We will one day know what the gift is. Jason always promised to look after me. He promised to repay me both financially and spiritually when he grew up, and to make me proud of him. Jason did just that. He left this world having kept his promise. His insurance paid off most all the credit card debt I had accumulated. Debt I mostly had acquired by being his sole support since Jason’s best friend Joey’s murder almost five years earlier. Rent, utilities, phone, food, clothes, legal fees, rehab, I paid all his expenses. I was thousand’s of dollars in debt when Jason died not including the cost of his death and burial. Didn’t he know that I would have gone to the poorhouse to save him? That there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to protect him?

Jason never let go of his grief or his guilt over Joey’s murder. He felt that if he had just been there he could have stopped it from happening. If he had been there he would have most likely been shot and killed at the same time. I think he also felt guilty over how deeply they had become involved in the drug underworld. I wish I knew then what I am now learning about how to grieve so that I would have known how to help Jason when he needed it most. I lost my precious child, my beautiful, intelligent baby boy. You would have thought that Joey’s murder would have been enough to open up his eyes and turn away from that lifestyle. Instead it set the course for his own tragic death. I knew it, and that is where my guilt comes in just as his did over Joey’s death. I knew drugs would end his life soon. Everyday could be the day that Jason dies. For five years everyday was a living nightmare of worry and fear.

If only I had known how to stop it. How to change it. I even went so far as to rent the apartment downstairs from his to be close so I could protect him. All I really did was prolong the inevitable, and put my daughter’s life and my own in danger, in the line of fire. Some people cheat death against overwhelming odds. My child could not overcome himself or his own death. I was helpless to stop it. Death loomed over our lives for five years. Waiting, just waiting to end a brilliant young man’s life, and destroy mine in it’s wake.

He made his last gift with the ultimate sacrifice. Jason did not choose to give up his life. Though he died by his own hand, it was an accident. Jason had taken LSD. He was out of his mind when the accident happened. We know this because he did manage to dial my home. His sister heard his last words when she answered the phone. “I have eaten too much shit! I am in hell”. After learning I was not home to help him, Jason hung up the phone and dove head first through the small stained glass window on the third floor.

It is my belief that Jason saw the window as a means of escape from the horror going on in his head. Jason would give his keys to one of his roommates to borrow his car quite often. I would pick him up from school on those days, and watch him climb through his window and disappear inside. I cannot remember a single place we ever lived that Jason had not had his keys time, and time again. In and out of windows was a habit of his. I use to get mad at him for ruining so many windows. I always had to pay to fix them, but that was Jason.

Though Jason never meant to kill himself, the knowledge of his having left this world by his own hand still held the dark, evil stigma of suicide. His family and friends knew better. It was the acquaintances that quickly spread the rumors that he had killed himself. The rumors just got wilder and wilder. Jason had slashed his wrists and throat in one rumor. Jason had been murdered by the gang that he owed money to before he went into rehab was another. Yet another rumor spread by the daughter of a dentist in the same office as Scott who was like a father figure to Jason, told people there was writing on the walls of the stairway written in blood. This girl didn’t even know my son or the circumstances surrounding his death. None of these rumors were true and they left me hurt and bewildered. How could strangers be so unkind?

This made my sorrow so much deeper. Did these people never once stop to think how much this hurt his family? Did they even care? Jason did indeed have drug dealers after him. There was indeed an unmailed letter lying on his couch to his best friend Josh. In the letter Jason wrote, “If anything should happen to me Randi knows who did it. They are after me again for the money I owe”. I wonder if it was this threat that brought about Jason’s taking so much LSD trying to get his head in a better state of mind. He had taken hundreds of acid trips before. He thought he could handle even a bad trip. He loved the way it made him feel most every time, but this time it all went wrong.

You see Jason had come to me only four hours before to confess that he had gotten involved with drugs again. He had tried to buy marijuana in hopes of making enough money off of it to repay his debt to this gang. Unfortunately, Jason told me the person he gave his money to, ripped him off. He was so ashamed that afternoon of February 28th, 1998. With his head down, eyes looking at the floor he told me of his desperate situation. He shamefully asked if he could borrow his rent money or he would be kicked out. I wrote out the check, made a joke to try and lighten his depression and shame, hugged and kissed him and told him I loved him. Jason said “I love you Mom and I am sorry”. Those were the last words my son would ever say to me. The last hug, the last kiss I was to ever get from Jason. Four hours later, he was DOA at the trauma center.

My name is Sandy LaCagnina Doss and Jason Anthony Barganier is my only son. I have never published my book before. This is the first time anyone else has seen any part of my book published. I hope that it will help you understand that drugs do not discriminate. They are a silent stalker out there in the night to capture our children and take their lives. Addiction knows no racial, gender or ecomonic bias - it can strike anyone. I believe it is important to put the story out there in order to put faces and families to the statistics.

Please visit Angels of Addiction and sign my guestbook when you have viewed the site. There you will see the beautiful faces of innocent children captured by the stalker and their young lives taken away form us. Help fight the war on drugs and visit Angels of Addiction . Please come back each month and continue to read my book. I would also like to ask you to pass the story on - it may help save the life of someone else's child or comfort another grieving parent. Angels of Addiction offers online support to anyone suffering from the effects of addiction or drug/alcohol use. Tuesday nights at 8PM EST the chatroom is open and we gather together to reach out to others who are grieving or suffering from the devastation of drugs. Join us each week for our online support group. It is a safe place to come where no one will judge - only offer support and love.

Chapter Two

After Jason left my apartment I went fishing with friends about 45 minutes away from our home. I had just walked in the door when my friends phone rang. It was my daughter Mindy. My daughter said that Jason had just called home looking for me. When she told him I was not home Jason told her he had eaten to much stuff and was freaking out. “What did you eat” she asked him. “Acid” was Jason’s reply. Next his sister asked him where he was to which Jason replied “Hell”.

I hung the phone up not sure what to do. An eerie feeling came over me, and I guess I was probably trying to deny the seriousness of the situation. I remember I sat there for a second. Then I told my friends I had to go, there was a problem with Jason. Ellen, who had lost her own son Jason not long ago suggested Charlie to go with me. I said no, that I was not sure what I would find. I would go alone and call later. I jumped in the car and now my fear was multiplying. All at once I knew something was terribly wrong. I prayed as I drove as fast as I could back to Memphis.

I had no idea where I was going. The kids had not been able to pay their phone bill and the phone at Jason’s apartment was disconnected as far as I knew. The only thing I could do at that time was to just pray he was calling from home. Panic raced through my mind. What if he were dying and I couldn’t find him. Where could he have called from. Finally I remembered Mindy had caller ID on her phone so I called back and asked her where he had called from. She said that he did not say, he just hung up the phone. I asked her to check caller ID. She gave me a number I was not familiar with so I dialed it right away.

I called on the car phone during the long drive back to midtown Memphis from Olive Branch, Mississippi where I had gone fishing. A girl answered. “This is Jason’s mom, where is he?”, I asked. At that time she began to cry. “Something terrible has happened here”, she told me. “What?” I screamed, and she proceeded to tell me that Jason had jumped out a third story window. “I’m almost there” I cried and hung up the phone. Next I called my daughter at home to tell her what had happened and to come quick. Then I called my life-long friend Helen and told her Jason had fallen from a third story window and that I needed her. I told her I could not face this alone.

When I arrived at Jason’s apartment I went in the back entrance where the parking lot was. I noticed a girl standing outside with a small child. She was telling this child that they had to wait for Jason’s mother. Having come in the back way I did not see the many, many police cars blocking the street in front. I told the girl I was Jason’s mom and asked where he was. The girl now informed me that the ambulance had taken Jason to the trauma center at The Med.

How I ever made it to The Med I do not know. I was trying to get there as fast as I could, but I kept making wrong turns. I was trying so hard to figure out the area of town I was in, trying to remember which streets I needed to turn on to get to the emergency room. Finally I was there and ran inside to find my child. It was here. The moment I had imagined a thousand times in my mind. My son’s death. Only now it didn’t seem real. I had imagined it so many times, in every possible manner that now it was just hard to believe. Already shock had set in and I was in a daze.

I ran inside and asked the security guard where my son was. I was asked to wait in the emergency waiting area. I walked in and a young girl came up to me in tears. It was one of my son’s roommates, Kelly. I had never even met either of his roommates yet. They only just all three moved in together two months earlier. They all had different schedules so no one was ever home when I would go to visit Jason.

Kelly was crying, and we fell into each others arms. Then the Chaplain came into the waiting room. He told me that my son had suffered serious injury to the skull, and had internal bleeding. That was all he could tell me for now. The Chaplain said that the doctors needed to do a CAT scan on Jason, but because of the internal bleeding his blood pressure was erratic. They needed to stabilize him before they could proceed any further. The Chaplain did not tell me that Jason had arrived DOA, nor did he tell me that they had resuscitated his heart and placed him on life support. I found that out only by reading the police report I was later required to furnish to Jason’s insurance company.

Kelly and I sat together crying and praying that Jason would be all right. It was at this point that things start to blur.I remember that was when Helen arrived at the hospital. I knew that the end of my son’s life had arrived. I had no husband, no boyfriend. I am a single parent. I had no one else to see me through this except a few friends. I had been estranged from my family for several years. I did not want to face this all alone.

All we could do was wait. The Chaplain came back in, got down on his knees and I think he took my hand. He told me that Jason had been taken into surgery to repair the internal bleeding. His next words dropped me to my knees. The Chaplain said that the doctors thought my son may be brain dead. As I fell to the floor on my knees I looked up towards the sky and screamed “Dear God, not my baby, God please, not my baby. Don’t take my baby away from me!”

By now two more friends had arrived. The Chaplain had gone back to his duties after telling me he would return as soon as he knew more. I told my three friends that I wanted to go outside and smoke a cigarette. They led me outside. I don’t remember anything other than when we were walking back in, we met the Chaplain in the hall. He told me that Jason had just come out of surgery and the doctor wanted to talk to me. I was led me to a set of double doors where the doctor was waiting.

The doctor said that Jason had a ruptured spleen, that was the source of the internal bleeding. He told me they had repaired my son’s spleen. He went on to say that both of Jason’s lungs were crushed, his shoulder broken, and finally he closed by saying that Jason’s skull had fractured just like an egg would if you dropped it on the concrete. By this point I think I was unable to speak. All I remember after that was my friends fainting around me. Terry was being taken away in a wheelchair to have the gash over his eye sutured. A result of hitting the cold, hard floor when he fainted. Later he told me that it was not so much what the doctor had said that caused him to faint, but that it was the look of pain, terror, and grief on my face.

I think the doctor told me at that time that Jason was believed brain dead, but that the law required he be placed on life support for 6 hours at which time a test would be administered to establish brain death. I asked to see my son. I asked Helen to go with me, but she said she just could not go in there with me, she couldn’t handle it so I went alone… and scared.

I was led to the NICU unit. The doctor led me to a curtained off bed where my beloved son lay, his head swollen, blood coming from out his nose, black and blue bruises over his right eye and down his chest. He was hooked up to wires everywhere, IV’s in his arms, and a machine doing his breathing for him. I went to my son’s side and began to talk to him and stroke his face. I am not sure what I was saying. I think I remember telling him he could beat this, but in my heart I knew he had left already. He had left to go find Heaven. He had left me behind. He wasn’t suppose to go before me.

I was remembering back to November of 1996, when Jason came to me and admitted being hooked on drugs, and asked for help. I hugged him tight that night standing there in the dining room, and kept saying “Please Jason, I don’t want you to die, please Jason, don’t die”, and he promised me that he would not. As I stood over him now all I could think of was that night. Now Jason was gone, but he had promised me. He had promised me he would not die, he would not leave me. I kept talking to him and stroking his cheek, but I knew it was futile. I knew he had left me in search of Heaven. I stood there remembering the last 16 months of Jason’s life.

Please visit Angels of Addiction and sign my guestbook when you have viewed the site. There you will see the beautiful faces of innocent children captured by the stalker and their young lives taken away form us. Help fight the war on drugs and visit Angels of Addiction . Please come back each month and continue to read a chapter of my book. I would also like to ask you to pass the story on - it may help save the life of someone else's child or comfort another grieving parent. Angels of Addiction offers online support to anyone suffering from the effects of addiction or drug/alcohol use. Tuesday nights at 8PM EST the chatroom is open and we gather together to reach out to others who are grieving or suffering from the devastation of drugs in teir life. Join us each week for our online support group. It is a safe place to come where no one will judge - only offer support and love.