 September 8, 1968 - January 20, 1989
My only child, John, was born September 8, 1968. He weighed six pounds and was the most beautiful baby! He had a head full of dark hair with ten little fingers and ten little toes. He was my little man. He was the best baby! I used to wake up in the morning to his coo! I would lay in bed and listen to him in his room laughing, cooing, and making the cutest little noises. I would smile and my heart would swell with pride. John was a real pleasure to have as a child. We were always close! When he was six months old, we discovered he was asthmatic. This condition stopped suddenly when he was twelve years old. For those twelve years, he was rushed to the Emergency Room battling the affects of asthma. When we cooked a meal, John had to be right there. He was three years old. He would pull up his little chair to the stove and his job was to stir the pots. One morning at 6:00 a.m., he came rushing into my room where I was still sleeping and yelled, "Mommy, Mommy, come turn my egg!" I immediately rushed out of bed. Sure enough, he had gotten a skillet out of the cabinet, an egg out of the refrigerator and it was frying charred and sticking to the pan! He had his little chair up against the stove and was cooking an egg! That was the last time he ever tried to cook his own breakfast. A couple of weeks later, it was 5:00 a.m. He had gotten up early to play with his little hot wheels. These were his favorite toys. He went to the kitchen, put his little chair up to the stove, climbed on the stove to find a box of matches. He struck a match and scared him so badly, that he threw it in the garbage can next to the refrigerator. He came running into my room yelling, "Fire! Fire!" I again immediately jumped out of bed and sure enough, the flames were up over the refrigerator. I got the fire out and all turned out well. He never struck another match, even if he found them lying on the counter. When John was four, he began going through another phase. He was in pre-kindergarten and when I would not let him have his way, he began stomping his foot at me. One day he wanted to go out to play. There was snow and ice on the ground and I told him no, but that later when it warmed up, we would go outside and build a snowman. He would stand at the window, looking at the fresh snow and ask me again if he could go outside. I told him the same thing. The second time, he got really angry and stomped his foot at me and said, "I hate you". I was so shocked that I looked at him and immediately broke out into tears. He had never said that to me before. Now this was a child who had a heart of gold! He came over to me and asked me why I was crying. He really had no idea what those words meant. I stopped crying and told him what they meant and he started crying. We cried together for a few minutes. He told me he was sorry and he never said those words to me again. In fact, John was just the opposite. He told me often, "Mommy, I love you!" I remarried when he was six years old. His new stepfather had four children by his previous marriage, which we raised off and on. John had really wanted brothers and sisters and now he had them. He was the happiest I had ever seen him. They were somewhat rough and John would be afraid to tell me some of things they would put him through, but eventually I found out and began watching him even closer than I had before. Eventually our new united families got used to each other and everything smoothed out. As his teens progressed, he began leaving the house without telling me where he was going. House rules stated that when we left the house, we had to tell each other where we were going and John had to leave a telephone number where he could be reached. When this new phase started, I would ask him where he was going and he would tell me, "Mom, don't you trust me?" I tried to explain to him that it was not a matter of trust, but common courtesy of letting others in the family know where he was in case of an emergency As John went into his teens, he and I were still close. He would have friends sleep over and would always kiss me goodnight, even with his friends in the house. He very rarely spent the night at his friends' houses, because he liked sleeping in his own bed and he could take care of his "Mom" better if he were in the house. His stepfather and I had our problems off and on, so John still felt he was the man of the family. One night, after work, I went out with a few friends and decided it was the perfect time to teach him a lesson. I did not call home! I was worried all night and could not really enjoy myself, but I knew I had to stick to my plan. I got home about two in the morning. As I approached the apartment, I noticed every light in the place was turned on full blast. As I walked through the door, I saw John pacing the floor, worried to death! He came up to me and said, "Mom, where have you been! You've never done this before!" I told him I was out with friends. He said, "You mean you were out with your friends, while I was worried to death about you, and you didn't call home!" I told him that I did not want to call home in case he was sleep. He said, "That's no excuse! I do not care that you would have woke me up. I was worried about you." I told him to sit down on the sofa and we were going to have a little talk. He sat down with me and had big tears in his eyes. I asked him if this all sounded familiar. Before I even said it, he knew that it did sound familiar and that he had pulled the same stunts on me. He also knew that minute that he had been taught a valuable lesson. From then on, he told me where he was going and whom he would be with and if he ended up somewhere else, he would call me either at home or at work to let me know where he was. I never had to worry about not knowing where he was anymore. Later that year, my husband and I reconciled. John loved my husband as he did his own father. My husband was very strict and John began the rebellion side. He and my husband would have terrible fights to the point that one day it was decided that John should go stay with his real father for a while, just to let him see how good he had it at home. I was totally against this and it caused problems with my marriage again. I agreed to try it, but was very unhappy. Every day I had off from work I was with John. We had good quality time together. We would go out to dinner, lunch and breakfast. One day, (John had just turned 20) I got out of bed, got dressed and immediately picked up my car keys to go visit him. I didn't think twice about us going out to breakfast. We sat there for almost 3 hours because I could not take it anymore. I was going to bring him home. We talked about how we were going to handle his stepfather. John and I had one of the best conversations we had ever had. We made future plans, but he wanted to stay one more day in order to explain to his biological father, that he was going home. He then told me why. He said his father had been acting very strange the past few weeks and that he had caught him doing drugs! He said he didn't want to just leave him without explaining it to him. When our breakfast was finished, I drove him back home. I told him I would pick him up in 2 days. This would give him a chance to talk to his father and to pack his clothes. He reached over and kissed me goodbye and said, "Mom, I love you." These were the last words I would hear my son say!   
  
| John's Page Three | John's Page Four | John's Page Five | JR & Miss Elly | Home | My Parents Are Survivors |
 |
