For reasons that will become clear, I have chosen to tell you first about Brian, the youngest of my three sons. He could not have experienced a more horrific adolescence, and yet he continues to press on. I am so incredibly proud of him for what he has endured and how he continues to display courage in the face of unimaginable pain.

Brian was born when his oldest brother Dave was 8 and Casey, his middle brother, was 4. His first six years were happy and normal, competing with his brothers and desperately wanting to be older, to be just like them.

My wife and I divorced when Brian was 7 and it sent shock-waves through the rest of the family. Dave was 15 at the time and trying to find himself. He spent most of his remaining teen years looking for answers in a mixture of marijuana, cigarettes and alcohol. His drug use became evident over time and I butted heads with him constantly. In retrospect, I was good at confronting -- but not at addressing and solving the root problem.

Dave was bright -- extremely bright. We had lived in Holland his first year in school and he was judged to be gifted by the American School in The Hague. He was articulate and a strong debater, and resisted all our attempts to reason with him. I will always regret not having been strong enough to insist that he get help for his substance abuse problem. His mother and I had tried on many occasions but Dave protested vehemently and dug in his heels. We just never fathomed that his need for a buzz would lead him to experiment with heroin.

Dave was now 23 and working in retail and Casey was 19 and attending college at the University of Connecticut and doing well. Casey had just returned home for summer break on Memorial Day weekend of 1997. Having been born in Miami in 1973, while I was business manager for the Miami Dolphins, Dave grew up a big Dolphins and Miami Heat fan. The Heat had just won the NBA Playoffs, and Dave arrived home with a friend and a bottle of rum he had won on the series. They had a drink, toasted the Heat’s accomplishment, and poked fun at Casey for being “Mr. College."

The phone rang at 4 a.m. the next morning. It was Stamford Hospital and the voice said, “Your son Dave is here and there has been an accident.” She added, “Is there someone who could come with you?”  At that moment, I knew. I woke up Casey and we drove in silence to the emergency room. We were brought to a waiting room where a distraught young couple sat holding hands. They had been with Dave in New York City, and had driven him to the hospital. After about 10 minutes, a nurse arrived and asked me to come with her. As she led me into a nearby room, the hospital chaplain appeared and took my arm. In a split second, my heart, and my life as I knew it, had stopped.

The sight of Dave’s lifeless body was jolting. I wasn’t sure I could or wanted to take another breath. As a practicing Catholic, I instinctively whispered the Act of Contrition in his ear, asking God to accept it as if it were coming from Dave himself.

The hours and days that followed are still a blur. I learned Dave’s friends had driven him around for hours before seeking help. They had been at a bar in the city and claimed Dave returned from a trip to the men’s room saying he had just done some “stuff”, felt weird, and then collapsed on the floor.