Forever Seventeen

Growing up Jason had a happy, normal life. With the exception of my mom and dad getting a divorce, because my dad was and still is a drug addict/alcoholic. My mom worked and went to college and made a good living for Jason and me. Then she married a good man, who is now our dad Rick in 1993. He is a good husband and father. Jason had alot of friends. He was very smart. He didn't even have to study much. He could just read over a subject and ace the test.

We went to church at Marrable Hill Chapel. Jason ask Jesus into his heart when he was 7 years old. He was always active in Awanas. He boldly professed Christ as his Savior and witnessed to alot of people. There were a few of his friends that he led to the Lord. We always expected Jason to be a preacher. He had to have all of the dogs and cats we had to pray and ask Jesus in their hearts. He baptized them in the bathroom. He was also in Boy Scouts. He had one rank left to be, and that was his Eagle Scout rank. He loved going camping with scouts and to the summer camp. He had tons of badges that he had earned.


At the end of Jason's 9th grade year we started noticing a change in him. His grades were dropping and he was hanging around with a different group of people than he normally did. They were the kind of people who would come around if our parents were working, but leave if they came home. During the beginning of the 10th grade, my mom got a call from the school. They said that he wasn't there, so my mom and dad started looking for him and he had gotten arrested for skipping. He had a gallon of whisky and was drunk. My parents knew they had to do something, because he was going further away from us. They made arrangements to send him to a Christian Boarding school. Jason hated it so he drank gasoline, because he thought if he could die and get away from that place then he would. They took him to the hospital and got his stomach pumped. We went and got him. He started 2nd semester at a christian school here. He did so good the rest of that year. He made good grades and he played soccer. Our family was so proud of him. Then, for the 11th grade he begged my mom to let him go back to the public school. She did. He started drinking, drugging, and hanging with another crowd doing the same thing. He kept getting into trouble with the police. My parents tried to look for help everywhere. They sent him to hospitals to drug rehabs. He would finish the programs and get out and start doing everything again. It's like the places that were suppose to help made him tougher. They couldn't make him stay in school even after taking him to court and having the judge tell him he had to go. He kept skipping school and partying. My parents would take his car keys but that didn't even stop him. He just caught a ride with someone else. One time they took his car keys, he got so mad about it he took my moms pain pills, percadan and lorecet. He said that he would rather die than have his car taken away They had to take him to get his stomach pumped. So, they finally had him dropped from school and he went to get his GED. He scored really high on it.


Jason had met a girl named Lacy, and we could tell things were different about his feelings for her. We had never seen him care so much about any other girl. They dated for about 6 months. He still continued to party even though my parents protested against it. If Jason and Lacy had a fight he would threaten suicide. One time Lacy called our house and was crying really hard so my mom and dad rushed over to her house and found Jason just sitting in the car. They had had a big fight and he had ran a hose from his tail pipe into his window and stuffed rags all around it, Lacy said he told her he was going to kill himself because of their fight. After that my mom got him into counseling here.

Some more things happened with him and Lacy then she had done something that made him really mad. Her dad was getting mad at her for some things, so he sent her to Texas to live with her mom. Jason tried so hard to get her to come back, he called everyday and after a week he had got to where he didn't care about what happened or anything. He ended up getting busted with some other guys for possession.

It had been a little over a week that Lacy had been gone. The next day after he had gotten arrested and he called her, I could hear him crying and begging her. (He was in my mom and dads room with the door shut.) I could hear him telling her that he was going to kill himself if she didn't come back and then I heard glass breaking. He called for me so I opened the door and ask him if he was okay and he said yes and asked me where the guns were. Luckily my dad had gotten rid of all the guns. Finally he came out, I saw that he had cut himself on the wrist and blood was everywhere, he was still talking to Lacy on the cordless, he told me to get him a cigarette and not to call Moma. He walked around the house breaking things. I brought him the cigarette. He had a pair of scizzors jabbing his wrist telling her he was killing himself. I was so scared, that I snuck to the neighbors and called moma. My dad was the first one home in like a second. He talked to Jason. Jason was sitting on the bathroom floor crying. They finally talked him into going to the hospital. He did have to have stitches, but they also made him go to a mental hospital. He was so mad at us. He was begging us not to send him and he thought we sent him there because we didn't love him. My family was so scared of him hurting himself. Moma called everyday and we went almost every weekend to see him. They had diagnosed him as having severe manic deppression. They tried different antideppresants on him and we thought he was better. He had even told my mom about all of the different drugs he had tried and he knew that he was an addict and he said that he wasn't going to do it any more. It seemed like he wanted to change. So, after months of him being in the hospital they let him come home and start college. They got him going back to his therepist here and also had him enrolled in the extensive outpatient drug treatment. He still tried to call Lacy everyday but she had moved from Texas to Oklahoma or somewhere else. He found another friend who had been through alot of the same things and appeared to be doing better. His old friends tried to come around but my mom and dad would run them off because they didn't want Jason to be tempted. One Saturday night he spent the night with his new friend, and they snuck out and got drunk. They robbed some cars. All we know that Jason took was a 38 special. Another friend had said that on Friday night Jason went riding with him and he said," I have to get a gun," he ask him "why", and he never said.

Jason had been throwing up alot and never felt good. On September 28, 1999 moma woke up and she said that she had a weird feeling, she decided that she wasn't going to work. She called and made her and Jason an appointment at the Dr. Then his friend that he spent the night with called and said he wanted to talk to Jason and said it was important. Moma gave Jason the phone and listened on the other end. He told Jason that the police knew they did the breakins and they had to leave now. Jason said "I can't man. I have to go to the Dr today. Moma went out and confronted Jason about the phone call and he tried to lie to her but she explained that she overheard the conversation. He said he didn't take anything. Then the guys mother came over and talked to Jason. She told us that there was a pistol stolen. My dad went out and searched Jason's room. In the meantime moma called a friend who is an attorney and they were going to see Jason that day. My dad and I were leaving to go and get a playstation game and Jason's friends mom had left. Jason was sitting there and he had been crying, I went over and hugged him and we told each other how much we loved each other, he promised me he wouldn't do anything stupid. After we left, he and moma were talking and hugging. He told moma they broke into the cars because they were drunk and if he could take back Saturday night he would. He said,"I love you moma and you have been the best mom in the world and none of this is your fault." Then the loudest knock came to the door, and Jason started freaking out. She told him to go and she would get rid of them. So he went to the bathroom. Dad and me came back while moma was talking to the police and dad started talking to them. I went into moma's bathroom to look out the window at the police. I didn't know that Jason was in the shower and he said, Is it just you? I said yes. He said, Are they Police. I said yea and then I said they are coming in. He started getting scared and said Don't tell them I'm in here, Please. I promised I wouldn't and ran to my room. Then moma came in my room which is right across form her room and ask me if I had seen Jason, I said no. She headed into her room and into the bathroom, I heard a noise and it was her, she found Jason and saw the gun, she tried to get it from him and they fell against the shower. She said immediately she thought of me and that I was right there and if I came in there and they were struggling for the gun it could go off and shoot me, so she turned and left Jason as I was coming she pushed me really hard we strarted running down the hall and my dad and the police were coming and the other way towards the bathroom it was at that time we heard the gunshot, it didn't really sound loud, sort of like a bb gun but moma grabbed me and took me out of the house, she turned and called 911. Then we went to the neighbors so we wouldn't see. After the ambulance left we went to the emergency room behind it and it was there that they told us that he didn't make it. We don't know for sure if he was already planning to do that on that day. We heard that Jason and the other guy that did that with him on Saturday night were going to run but were going to kill themselves if they got caught.

All I know is that we all miss him so much, and this is the worst thing that has ever happened in our life. I believe with all of my heart that my mom and dad did everything they could possibly do to get Jason help right up until the very end. My mom had called a preacher to come and talk to Jason and also just days earlier had written to Focus on the Family to ask their advise on what to do. Also Jason had good friends that didn't drink and drug that tried to hang around him and be there for him and hold him accountable. I know that Jason is in heaven now. As much as I miss him, I know he is in a far better place, with no more pain, heartach, or deppression. One day I will see him again.


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