An Emotional Account of My Son's Death

There was confusion. A multitude of negative emotions swirled through my being. I could see glimpses of angry faces and hear angry voices, but I couldn't make out what was being said or what the argument was all about. Chaos. Turmoil. I was crying..........pleading..........for what I didn't know. Then there was a shot. The shot rang out from the barrel of a pump shotgun. I saw someone aim and pull the trigger and then I saw my son fall. I knew he was gone.

Then, I awoke. It was simply a dream. I was breathing hard and trying to calm down. Telling myself it was just a nightmare, I began to rest in the verses of scripture that I had been repeating to myself for weeks now. Psalm 91. I had learned it as a child in the King James Version and repeated it to myself often.

1 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.


2 I will say of the LORD,
He is my refuge and my fortress:
my God; in him will I trust.


3 Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler,
and from the noisome pestilence.


4 He shall cover thee with his feathers,
and under his wings shalt thou trust:
his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.


5 Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night;
nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

6 nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness;
nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.


7 A thousand shall fall at thy side,
and ten thousand at thy right hand;
but it shall not come nigh thee.


8 Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold
and see the reward of the wicked.


9 Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge,
even the Most High, thy habitation;


10 there shall no evil befall thee,
neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.


11 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, Mt. 4.6 • Lk. 4.10
to keep thee in all thy ways.


12 They shall bear thee up in their hands,
lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Mt. 4.6 • Lk. 4.11


13 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder:
the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. Lk. 10.19


14 Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him:
I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.


15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him:
I will be with him in trouble;
I will deliver him, and honor him.


16 With long life will I satisfy him,
and show him my salvation.
I drifted back to sleep only to be awakened again by my cell phone ringing. I looked at the clock. It was 2:30 am. I felt my heart tighten with fear. When I answered, the voice on the other end said, "Josh has been shot. It's more than likely fatal."

I remember saying "NO". I don't remember what else I said. I think I asked a lot of practical questions because I tend to be very practical in the middle of a crisis. It's later that I fall apart.

No one really knew anything yet. The police were there. Josh had been flown to Denver and was on life support but stable. I was told if he survived, he would never be able to function as a normal 18 year old boy again
Minutes...........hours..................I lost track of time. It was as if time just stood still. I have an antique clock on my book case that has not run in quite a while. I nervously got up and began cleaning house waiting for more phone calls from the officials.............doctors, hospitals, the police. The clock got bumped and began to tick. I heard each second, ticking away as I agonized in grief.

The police called and they said the "accident" looked self inflicted. What? My mind screamed “NO”, but I remained calm. I asked a lot of practical questions. I made phone calls to get practical answers.

I talked to the surgeon in Denver. He said that Josh would not survive aside from life support. I talked with Josh's dad and we made the decision to take him off life support, but I asked that his organs be donated. Josh had always said if he died, he wanted to be an organ donor. This delayed us taking him off the life support because we had to wait for the team to get together to harvest his organs.

The clock ticked.........each sound echoing through my head. There was one delay after another and road block after road block with the harvest team. We waited.

The police called. They had made an arrest. What? An arrest? What do you mean? I did not understand. There might be murder charges. My mind was fuzzy but murder charges made sense to me. I had seen the whole thing in my dream. Someone had killed Josh. I knew in my heart that he did not kill himself.

My mind was so fuzzy. My child lay a thousand miles away from me in a hospital bed, but he was already gone except for the life support.

As morning dawned, people came and took over milking the cows, cooking food, answering the phone. I sat in a chair and listened to the clock ticking away the seconds as I waited for my son to go. I had to make those terrible calls to close family including my daughter who was at her grandparent's house visiting. She had just been with Josh days before and had asked him to come home with her but he had told her that he needed to stay. His “friends” were depending on him to help pay the bills. Maybe at the first of the year he would come home. Yes, he would come home in January.

I called my daughter. She began to scream. “No. It isn't true. I hate you. I hate Josh. I hate God.” My heart just ached as he heard her agony but could not be there to hold her as she screamed out her anger. Then she got silent. There would be no more tears from her for a while.
The police called again. They would press murder charges but that would be hard to prove. Instead, they were charging J with Manslaughter/assisting suicide charges. My mind just reeled. I kept saying, "I know my son did not commit suicide." They were handling me with kid gloves. I wanted answers. I wanted the truth and what I was getting was not the truth. Well, at least they had arrested him.

The day slowly ticked by. People brought food. Lots of telephone calls from people who cared. All I could do was sit in the chair and cry.

Evening came and Josh was still on life support. It had been almost 24 hours. The Harvest team was throwing up more roadblocks. Finally, we said if they did not have their act together, we were taking Josh off life support. We just couldn't keep doing this.

We made the decision. By this time, my ex was at the hospital. He called and I heard the monitors continue as they took Josh off life support. He continued to live on his own for a while longer while the seconds ticked by on the clock.
I sat and waited in the chair listening to the ticking and waiting for the phone call. Almost 24 hours after my dream, the nightmare became a reality. The phone rang and I was given the message that Josh was gone.
Sometime that day, September 16th, 2008, the clock stopped ticking. It has not run since.

One breath at a time I have tried to make it through each day.

I asked for the police reports as I was not getting straight answers through the DA's office. J, Josh's roommate was drinking. He kept pushing Josh as he always did. My Josh was a kid that always tried to help people. He looked up to J. Josh had some learning disabilities and although he looked like other kids, he had always been different. He didn't process information quite the same as other kids do. He had always struggled with school. J and Josh's other friend J2 were rough kids. They had been around the block many times. They were using Josh to help pay the rent in their apartment but they made him sleep on the futon that was much to short for his 6'4" frame. They took his money. He hid his valuable items at the homes of other friends so that these boys would not take them away from him. Josh didn't even have a place to put his clothes. Josh always wanted to help these boys. When I would tell Josh how evil these boys were, he would just tell me that I didn't understand them. He would tell me that really they had good hearts, that I just couldn't see it.

That night J argued with Josh about something. There were witnesses there. They say they don't know what the argument was about. They say and J has admitted, that he went into the other room and loaded three shells in the shotgun. It was a pump shotgun, just like what I saw in my dream. He came out of the room with the shotgun. J2 says that J gave the gun to Josh and he shot himself but nothing in the police report shows concrete evidence as far as I am concerned. When the police got there, according to the report, J had removed the two other shells from the shotgun. Personally, I believe J killed Josh and then intended to kill J2 and then himself but chickened out after seeing what he did to my son.

The whole thing drags on in court. With the charge they have given J of Manslaughter/Assisted suicide, it is my understanding the maximum sentence J could get would be 3 years. And so I wait. I breathe. I honor the memory of my child. (Edited: Since this was written, J was charged and received only three months in jail.)