John David was my only son.  He was 28 years old when he died due to complications from a two to three year addiction to Vicoden. He was young enough to still have his many dreams realized.  When I have dreams about him, or think of certain memories, most often he is still a laughing, curious sweet little boy.  When John was just a little guy, I knew he was different from many kids. He was exceptionally bright and very independent. He was always so happy!  My family and friends always commented on what a good natured baby and little boy he was, always laughing and finding many unique and creative ways to amuse himself.  He talked early and it didn’t take long for his charming personality to emerge.  We had moved to Phoenix, AZ when John was 2 years old.  We were flying back to Michigan for a visit and I still have a vivid memory of John, probably about the age of 4, walking up and down the aisle of the airplane saying “Hi!” to the passengers and engaging them in conversation.  He was sweet and pleasant and curious and none of the passengers seemed to mind.  He was quite entertaining. As a child, and even as he grew older, it was very difficult to get angry at John when he misbehaved, as he always gave that engaging smile or grin and had something funny to say.  I can honestly say he was an absolute joy in my life and brought a laugh and smile to me each and every day.

We eventually moved back to Michigan when John was about 10 years old, and we settled into a nice, middle class neighborhood with wonderful schools. We had a beautiful home with the dogs and a cat to go with it.  Our family consisted of your typical Mom and Dad, John and his older sister, Lisa.  John was very much “the boy next door” type – most of the time. He had many friends and was well liked by his teachers and his friend’s parents.  But he was always distracted in school, and a psychological evaluation revealed that John had an extremely high IQ, and possibly an attention deficit disorder.  It was recommended that he should be enrolled in the gifted program in our school district, which ironically was based in the school where I worked.  But John did not want to be isolated from his neighborhood friends; they were his life line.  So he remained in regular classes, was very popular in school, and had a witty sense of humor well beyond his years.  He was very artistic, loved music and played the drums.  John also definitely had a “claim to fame” as he was a very talented athlete, both in baseball and basketball.  But his true love was baseball, and as the years went on and he played in high school and city leagues and made a name for himself as an all star pitcher.  I was so very proud of him, tried to never miss a game, and loved going to the state tournaments to watch him pitch.  And when he had a bad game, I made sure to acknowledge his disappointment and tell him how proud I was of him anyway and that we can’t always win.   Quite sadly, his pitching arm developed a damaged tendon in his last year of high school and his baseball playing years were coming to an end.  He appeared to take it well, but I could always sense that he felt a great loss of a big dream.

Going back a few years, when John was 14, things began to change.