 The next day was Friday. I was getting dressed for work, when the phone rang. It was a supervisor at work telling me that my son had an accident and to please contact their neighbor immediately. I tried to call, but there was no answer. I tried several more times, but still there was no answer. I finally called the Supervisor at work and questioned him further. At this point, I was shaking so badly, I could barely hold the phone in my hand. I asked him to tell me exactly what the neighbor said. He said that my son had an accident. I asked him what kind of accident. I could tell him didn't want to tell me. I was still shaking very badly. I began screaming at the Supervisor. Telling him that I could not reach the neighbor and for him to please tell me if he knew something. The Supervisor was almost in tears when he said, "There's been an accident with a gun." I dropped the phone! I was shaking so badly that I fell off the sofa. I then grabbed the phone to call the neighbor once again. This time she answered. She told me that there had been an accident and that a Sheriff's deputy wanted to talk to me. The deputy asked me if I was John's mother. She told me that John had been shot with a .25 caliber pistol and that she didn't know how badly he was hurt. I asked her to please put my ex-husband on the phone. I was hysterical by now. I asked him if John was all right. He was very passive and said he didn't know. John was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. I hung up the telephone and managed to call my husband at work. I knew there was no way I could drive to the hospital. He said he would be home immediately. He told me not to worry because a .25 caliber gun couldn't cause much damage. I was still shaking and crying while I waited for my husband to come home. I called my parents, who said they would meet us at the hospital. I packed a little bag with all that I would need to stay at the hospital for a couple of days. I had the most horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I couldn't explain it. When we got to the hospital. I approached the desk. The nurse asked me if I was the mother of the patient with a gunshot wound. I said yes. I asked her how he was feeling. She would not answer any of my questions. She told me to step into this little room. My parents were already there with the doctor. He completely ignored me and continued talking to my parents. My Mother walked over to my side and said, "Oh, Sonya!" I was crying, shaking and scared! I interrupted what the doctor was saying and asked him how my son was doing. He looked at me and told me he didn't make it. It didn't sink in what he was telling me. My knees began to buckle at that moment and I was on the floor. After about an hour, I looked up and saw my brother there. He was crying, my parents were crying. My brother kept going in and out of the room, which I couldn't understand. He had taken charge and called my doctor to get a sedative for me. He had to identify my son's body. I still didn't believe it and I told them I wanted to see John. No one wanted me to see him. I talked to the doctor for another hour. He told me they had done everything they could to save his life. He had been shot in the heart and the bullet went into his heart and out the other side of his heart. He actually died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, but that he was such a strong young man, they still tried to save him. After another hour, I had to go home. I knew if I didn't leave that hospital, I was going to scream at the top of my lungs. The pain was just too much and I knew I was about to suffocate. My parents tried to talk me into going to their house. I only wanted to be in my own home. I wanted to be in the home that I had known the past 15 years. I wanted to shut the doors and never go outside again. I wanted to die. I walked in the house and picked up John's picture. I felt that was all I had left of his handsome face. I couldn't cry anymore. I was in shock. I felt like it was somebody else going through this pain. My brother came over after a while and gave me a tranquilizer. I did stop shaking after that for a little while. My family stayed almost all night. My friends at work began streaming in the front door. There are 500 people where I work and I do not know who ran the company because they all began coming over in shifts. Time seemed to stand still. I didn't realize this was all going on around me. I saw people's faces, but it did not register that this was anything but a dream. I finally looked up to see all that was going on around me. My house was full of people, flowers and food. I began to feel I should keep busy. I had guests, I had to make sure they had plenty to eat and drink. They all looked at me like I had two heads! Around midnight, they were all gone except my immediate family. I needed the quiet and rest. After I went to sleep, everyone thought it was safe to leave. An hour after I fell a sleep, I was awake again. The telephone had been ringing all day, people had been there all night and I needed to be alone. I got out of bed and went to the living room. I called my best friend who lived in another city to tell her about John. We cried together for about an hour. I sat in the living room in a total daze for the next 3 hours. I cried, but I tried to cry quietly. At six in the morning, I turned on the television. The news stations told about John's shooting. Then at seven in the morning, Florida was putting serial killer, Ted Bundy to death in the Electric Chair. I sat there watching that news broadcast and I wanted to pull that switch so bad that I could taste it. I was now angry! The Sheriff's office did not release my son's body until Monday. The Homicide Detective came to our house to talk to me. He told me at first when the call came, in the girl told them that John had shot himself. They thought it was a suicide! That is what the case was based on the first ½ hour they were at the scene. They then found out that a girl had shot John and ran out of the house. He told me John's biological father was a drug user and he had been letting the drug dealer use his house in exchange for drugs. The girl who shot John was the girlfriend of this drug dealer. The girl turned herself in to the Sheriff that day. She told the Sheriff she saw the gun on the table and thought it had no bullets in it. She was pretending that she was going to shoot John. It was later found out that the bullets had been emptied out of the gun, but that it was the type of gun that one bullet stayed in the chamber. They arrested the girl who shot John, but let her out on her own recognizance. There were people visiting constantly in the next five days. John's viewing was Wednesday. At this point, since I had not seen his body, I was convinced that he was somebody else and not John. My husband and brother had set up the funeral of someone else. I would walk into that funeral home and somebody else would be lying in that casket. That gave me the strength to prove that the John was still alive. I was shaking again. Constantly the past few days I was given tranquilizers. The night of John's viewing, I had three tranquilizers in ½ hour intervals. I was still on my feet! I walked into the room where the casket was held. For the first time, since all of this horrible mess started, I saw my son. He really was dead! This was like losing him again. I grabbed him and hugged him until I thought I was going to burst. I was crying hysterically again. He really was gone. After about ½ hour, my husband wanted me to walk around the room to catch my breath. He began showing me all of the hundreds of flowers that had been received. About 200 people attended the viewing on Wednesday. John's biological father came into the room with his family. I couldn't have anything to do with him. He knew not to even approach me! My entire family wanted to kill him with their bare hands. I saw a lot of anger and I panicked. I didn't want my son's viewing turned into a brawl. I pleaded with them to please not do anything. This was John's time, and I didn't want anything else to happen. They would never have done anything like that, however, they felt they had to be close to me in case my ex-husband came anywhere near me.   
  
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