Nineteen years ago tonight, I went to bed for the last time without having my baby, Henry Louis Granju in my life. I was 3 days away from my due date. I was 23 years old.

I woke up at about 4am – my water had broken – and I inexplicably declared to my husband that we should scrub every surface in our small apartment before leaving for the hospital. As I recall, I did the tub and he did the kitchen counters.

We left for the hospital sometime that morning, and at 11:53 that night – on October 7th – Henry was born. He weighed just under seven pounds and just a tiny bit of the softest brown fuzz on his head. It was an easy, beautiful, joyous birth. It was – and still probably is – the happiest moment of my life, among so very many happy moments.

Henry, age 8 months

Everything in the world changed forever when the nurse first placed that wrapped up bundle of baby in my arms. Henry was very alert from the beginning, and he looked up at me with what would become his startlingly beautiful brown eyes, and I knew that there was NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING that I would not do to protect my son from harm.

Henry, age 2, just out of the bath

On May 31st of this year, in another hospital across town from the one in which he’d been born, Henry’s father and I held our son as he died in our arms. He was far too young to die – just a teenage boy, a senior in high school. Despite what at least one person involved in investigating Henry’s death has suggested, Henry certainly didn’t want to die; he wanted very much to live, even if he hadn’t quite figured out how to do that yet.

He was only 18 years old.

Keeping Henry – and later his brother and sisters – safe and happy and healthy has been the primary motivation for everything I have done in my life since the day he was born – his birth day. It’s very difficult knowing that despite trying my very best, I wasn’t able to protect him from drugs, from the disease of addiction, or from dangerous people who would prey on him.

I miss him so, so terribly. His little brother and sisters and his father and everyone else who loved him miss him every day – every minute of every day. But I will miss him especially on his birthday. This birthday marks the first time when Henry’s chronological age has passed the age he was when he died. That’s an incredibly difficult milestone to accept. It makes his loss seem much more permanent. I can no longer say that I have an 18 year old son; instead, the reality is that I have a dead son who would have been 19 on this day. And next year, he would have been 20, and then 21, and so on.

Henry’s 5th birthday. Yes, he’s dressed as a Power Ranger. He’s getting a big hug from best friend Dylan Margaret.

This is what I wrote about Henry on his birthday last year, when he turned 18. I never could have imagined what I would be writing this year.

Please, please talk to your kids about drugs. Do it today. Do it with an urgency you’ve never talked to them about anything else before. If you suspect that your child is “experimenting,” don’t pretend it isn’t happening, or that it isn’t that big a deal because “lots of kids try drugs and turn out just fine.” Remember, lots of kids ride around without seatbelts or drink and drive and somehow escape the potentially lethal consequences, but you wouldn’t stand for your child “experimenting” with either one of those behaviors.

In honor of Henry’s birthday, please learn from our tragedy. That’s what he would want, and I know it’s what his entire family and I want.

Happy birthday to my beloved, brilliant boy. This year, and every year now, your candles will be the stars and your gifts will be the lessons and love you left with all of us who knew you and adored you.

Henry Louis Granju – October 7, 1991 – May 31, 2010
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