Scott's Story

Scott was born in Stratford, N.J. on July 29, 1971.
He was my second child (actually my third considering that my first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage at 4 1/2 months gestation).

When Scott was 3, his dad and I and his brother Dale, moved to N.C. where we had purchased 32 acres of wooded land. My husband put in a small lake. It was an idyllic setting for two adventurous boys. We lived there from the time Scott was 3 until he was 15 when we moved to Florida.
Years later, Scott would thank us over and over for bringing them up in the country and for allowing them to remain little kids, enjoying all the things that little country boys do, building forts, playing in the woods, swimming in the creek, etc.

Scott always marched to the beat of his own drum. I took him to our family doctor at one point and asked if he thought that Scott was "hyperactive." Back then we didn't refer to it as ADD. I knew that Scott had some sort of problem but didn't know what it was. The doctor assured me that he was just a typical young boy. My mom instinct told me otherwise.

When we moved to Florida, all was well until Scott turned 17. Scott was an extremely popular kid, was incredibly good looking, well built with a wonderful personality and a drop dead gorgeous smile and beautiful huge brown eyes.

He and his brother were in a band and then Scott went on to form his own band, Tantrum. The girls would all scream when he came on stage. He truly had the world by the tail.

Then on his 17th birthday one of his band mates gave him a line of cocaine for his "birthday present." And that was the beginning of the end.

During the intervening years he served a brief stint in the Navy where he was assigned Hospital Corpsman. This piqued his interest in medicine and eventually he went on to become an EMT, graduating first in his class. He then took the EMT to Paramedic program at our local community college and really loved being a Paramedic. But that wasn't quite enough for him, so then he took the Paramedic to RN program, becoming a Registered Nurse in one year.

Scott was an outstanding nurse and showed so much compassion for his patients. His ambition was to be a physician. He had been accepted into the ARNP program (Associate Registered Nurse Practitioner) where he would have seen his own patients. The next step would have been physician.

He accomplished all of this while at the same time suffering from the disease of Addiction. He was in several rehabs. He desperately tried to cure himself. He hated who he had become. It's so easy for others to say, well nobody forced him to take that first hit of cocaine. This is true. But when you're 17, no matter how many times your parents talk to you about the evils of cocaine and heroin and other hard drugs, you think you're invincible and that nothing bad will happen to you. And kids are curious. They want to try it all. They have to see for themselves.

Unfortunately Scott was born with the Addiction Gene. They know now for a fact that this gene does exist and if you're born with it, you're pretty much doomed from the start!

Scott loved animals and was always bringing home strays. He once beat the stuffing out of a kid who had mistreated a kitten. Scott couldn't stand for anyone to be cruel to animals.

He managed to pack a lot of living into a very short life. He went surfing in Australia for a month, he went skydiving. He would have his wonderful dog, Kazak, pull him along on his skate board, through the neighborhood. He could play just about any musical instrument. He enjoyed a brief experience as a professional writer. But once again, having accomplished that, he wanted to move on to something else. He could never sit still.

Scott had his own home and I cry when I realize now how many times he was alone and waking up wishing he were dead. He had grown to hate himself because of what the addiction had done to him. As he said to me, "Mom, nobody wakes up one day and decides to be a drug addict."

A few nights before Scott died he was visiting us and he was sick (drug sick). He was lying on the couch with his head in my lap and he reached up and put his arm around my neck and said "I love you mom." I sat there and stroked his head, always wondering how many more times we would have like this but never really believing that one day he really and truly would be gone from our lives forever.

Scott always told us he loved us. In fact, that same night he wrote on our bulletin board "I love you" and drew a smiley. That is still on our bulletin board today covered by a piece of Plexiglas to preserve it.

Scott promised me that he would never leave me. He was talking about never physically leaving me, never leaving Florida. He said he would always be here to be close to me. He was emotionally dependent which I feel is all a part of the disease of Addiction.

"The" phone call came at 1:15 a.m. on Monday, December 2nd, 2002. I will never forget those chilling words of the police detective who had come to give us the news. I hear those words over and over and over in my mind a hundred times a day. "He passed away at 10:30." Until you've heard those words or similar ones, you'll never know the devastation, the utter despair of having lost a child.

Scott was 31 years, 4 months, 2 days old when he left us. He left behind a loving girlfriend Amy, his precious dog Kazak, and his four precious cats, Bobby, Wookie, Marmalade and Pharaoh. His loving and devoted parents, Jack and Sherry, his big brother Dale and his grandfather, "Popeye, all of whom miss him terribly. His girlfriend took his cats where they reside happily with her today except for poor Pharaoh who died of thyroid cancer. His precious lab/rotty/dalmation mix, Kazak, is now our beloved dog.

One month after Scott died we held a memorial service for him in Sebastian, Florida at one of his favorite surfing spots, Spanish House. We took Kazak with us. His friend Bill paddled Scott's surfboard out into the water and scattered some of Scott's ashes. We all walked to the shoreline and threw flower petals into the water. At this point, Kazak, who had been stone quiet throughout the entire service, suddenly emitted the most mournful howl, all the time watching Bill scatter Scott's ashes. She knew!

Our lives will never be the same. It's like losing an appendage...you adjust to living without it but the loss is always there, always a reminder of something so precious in your life, now gone forever.

My son lives in my heart, in my thoughts constantly. He lived! He was a beautiful person! He loved! And he had a Disease!

If you know of someone who is an addict, please don't turn your back on them and look down on them. They really don't want to be who they are! If we could just turn back time........

Hugs and Peace,
Sherry