Shortly after my teenage son Henry died on May 31, the results of his preliminary autopsy were given to the press before we were even aware they were available. At that time, law enforcement authorities spoke to the media about the preliminary autopsy’s finding of no skull fracture, saying that this finding supported their belief that Henry had never sustained a blow to the head from a weapon of any kind. (In fact, the assailants have admitted assaulting Henry during a drug deal robbery; the only part they deny, really is that they used a weapon. Other, extensive medical and corroborating witness evidence contradicts the assailants’ claims of how the assault took place, and whether they used a weapon.)

I have now had Henry’s final autopsy in my possession for a week or two. Authorities and our family agreed that it was best to keep the details of the report under wraps while the investigation is ongoing. So I have not mentioned publicly that I have it, or what it says. However, it turns out that the ME’s office has provided Henry’s final autopsy to the Knoxville News Sentinel, at the newspaper’s request, and the ME has gone on the record with a reporter about the autopsy findings. The KNS will be running a story about this, and today, they asked for and got my response to the ME’s findings and statements to them.

Thus, I feel it’s now acceptable for me to comment here about the autopsy, and where things stand with the investigation as far as I am concerned.

First, I want to make it very clear that I absolutely understand and respect the newspaper’s responsibility to ask for Henry’s final autopsy from the ME – that is their job as journalists. And I understand that the ME was totally free to release the autopsy and speak directly to the reporter (Don Jacobs, an excellent and well respected journalist). However, now that my son’s autopsy is going to hit the Web and be reported in print, I feel like I have a responsibility to speak up as well.

Henry’s final autopsy was a nightmare for me to read. Imagine reading about how your child’s brain was removed for study, and how a Y shape was cut into his chest. His beautiful brown eyes were described clinically as “brown iride.” It was an extremely painful document to read. But I did read it very carefully.

Henry’s final cause of death was noted by the ME as hypoxic brain injury as the result of accidental opiate overdose. No evidence of any external head trauma or skull fracture was found. His toxicology report (from admission on April 27) revealed lots of different drugs in his system, including opiates in general and methadone specifically.

While some may believe that our family has some kind of dispute with the ME regarding what happened to our son – we absolutely don’t. We agree in general with her findings, and I have great respect for her expertise. However, there are some key points I want to make now that the autopsy and the ME’s remarks regarding it are going to be made public:

-Our family continues to believe, based on numerous conversations we have had with those who were with Henry the day he was assaulted, as well as the medical records from his 5 week stay in the hospital before his death that Henry was assaulted with some sort of weapon, likely a tire iron or something resembling a tire iron. I accept that the ME found no evidence of substantial head trauma on the day of his autopsy, but that doesn’t negate our belief based on ALL of the evidence that 5 weeks and 2 days before the autopsy, our son was assaulted with a weapon.

-We agree with the ME that Henry’s death was not DIRECTLY due to any head trauma sustained in the assault. However, we still don’t believe the people who assaulted him should be released from any liability just because the assault didn’t ultimately kill him.

-We agree with the ME that Henry’s final cause of death was hypoxic brain injury as a result of a drug overdose. What the autopsy does not and CANNOT show is the progression of Henry’s brain injury over the course of the previous five weeks before the autopsy. Henry’s actual, more specific cause of death was a very rare COMPLICATION from the drug overdose – a complication called Delayed Post Hypoxic Leukoencephalopathy. This is noted in his medical records. However, this distinction – which the ME does not note in her autopsy or mention in the interview she apparently gave to the newspaper – is ultimately meaningless with regard to potential criminal liability; the outcome of death from an overdose is the same, no matter how you pick apart the specifics. The bottom line is that my child died of a brain injury caused by the hypoxia (lack of oxygen) that came with a drug overdose, compounded by the fact that the people with him refused (not failed, but refused) to call for help for him for a significant period of time. The ME apparently believes that Henry was headed for death from the moment he entered the hospital, while his medical records demonstrate some improvement over two weeks followed by rapid decline after the DPHL process began. But again, this is nit-picking for purposes of potential criminal liability. My son would not be dead but for the overdose-related hypoxic brain injury he received. On this, we can all agree.

So here’s the main point I want to make: I don’t want to argue with anyone about the final autopsy results. There is no point in that and everyone is in agreement on the ultimate cause of death. Instead I want to focus on investigating the source of the drugs that caused Henry to overdose and the fact that he was in fatal distress for hours in a private residence with no call made to 911 until his brain was so badly damaged. I would also very much like to see a more complete investigation of the assault that preceded the overdose, but if I had to pick one thing (I shouldn’t have to pick) for authorities to focus on, it would be the circumstances surrounding the overdose and its aftermath – the 18 hours before Henry was finally taken to the hospital.

I know a great deal about what happened during that period. I can’t share any of it publicly because the investigation is ostensibly ongoing. I continue to believe that when all the facts are clear to Knox County authorities, they will choose to at least attempt prosecution.

Yes, my boy was a drug addict. Yes, he was involved in dangerous, risky, illegal activities. We’ve never denied that. But he didn’t intend to overdose and die, and he wouldn’t have but for the actions of certain individuals who have yet to be held accountable.

I know that nothing I do or say will bring Henry back. The reason that I continue to pursue this matter – even though it has led to a great deal of pain and hurt for me due to the way I’ve been characterized by some in authority – is because I simply couldn’t live with myself if I just let it go, and then another mother loses her child at the hands of the same people who were involved in my son’s overdose death, That’s why I won’t be quiet and go away. I don’t want to see any other family go through what we’re going through when I believe that it can be prevented via a thorough investigation and prosecution.

Additionally, it is my hope that my advocacy in this matter will fundamentally change the way overdose injuries and deaths are investigated and prosecuted in Knox County, which would go a long way toward helping to end the epidemic of opiate-related deaths that is currently ravaging our community.

Thanks to everyone for your continued support. It means a lot to me, and helps me stay focused when I get discouraged and feel like giving up.

Henry Louis Granju

October 7, 1991 – May 31, 2010

I’ve been looking back through texts between Henry and me in the last few weeks of his life. As I’ve mentioned, this was a period during which his drug use had somewhat suddenly escalated to a degree we’d never seen before. He came to me and admitted he was shooting up (opiate pain pills – which he would turn to an injectable liquid in whatever way addicts do that) for the first time. He was scared and knew things were getting out of hand, but he wasn’t allowing us to get him the help he needed. He was selling in order to support his own habit, which had become more and more demanding, and less than a week before he overdosed, his 19 year old girlfriend – whom he loved dearly, but who also had a terrible addiction to opiates – was arrested and jailed (this likely saved her life. Four and a half months later, she’s completed court-ordered rehab, is attending NA regularly and is working hard to stay clean. Our family is very proud of her and tells her so often.) He was utterly distraught when L was jailed and he couldn’t see her. He was frantic to try to get her out, and he told people he needed to do whatever it took to raise the money for her bail.

Henry was in a very, very dark place. He was a vulnerable, sick, very confused teenage boy with a powerful physical addiction to opiates that had become the driving force in his life.

And he was preyed upon.

Needless to say, this was a terrifically painful period for me. I knew he was getting much worse, very fast. It was terrifying to know that he was out in such a dangerous world without me, but I couldn’t allow him to live at home until he agreed to accept help. I prayed that he would be arrested, so he would be locked up away from the people and drugs that could hurt him. But unfortunately, he wasn’t.

Here are some of our text exchanges from that last period. I am sharing them because as with the other things I am offering publicly since Henry’s death, I want to give others some insight into what it’s like to try to parent a child with a very serious drug addiction. I hope it might help in understanding the hold that drugs have on even the sweetest and most loving addict, with even the most adoring and supportive family.

April 22, 2010

Me: Where are you and L staying?

Henry: We’re staying whereever we can stay. I don’t want to impose on (relatives) anymore

Me: Are you safe? You know I am here for you if you decide you want help or need help, right? And I will always feed you sweetie. I love you so.

Henry: I love you too Mom.

Me: Do you have enough to eat?

Henry: Yes, usually.

Me: Honey, you know your mama will always feed you. You don’t have to live like this

April 26, 2010 (this was the day after Henry had been assaulted. He was in pain, self-medicating, and would within hours drive away with the people in whose house he overdosed.)

Me: Henry – what are you doing today?

Henry: Hanging out with N today. I went to court today and they wouldn’t let me see her. It’s not looking good.

Me:I’m sorry honey. Are you going to try to find a job? Maybe take some classes?

Henry: I don’t know yet really. I’m having a rough day .

Me: How can I help you? How can YOU help you?

Henry: I don’t know. I’ll call you later (he did try to call me later that day – twice. But I missed his calls)

Me: Ok honey. I love you

Henry: Love you too

The next time I saw my son after this exchange, less than 24 hours later, he was in a coma and on life support

Another entry from Henry’s journal – spring of ’09. Clearly, he was a little bored

—————————————-

Once upon a time there was a man named Lennywinks. Lennywinks was a very short, bald and tubby man who enjoyed World of Warcraft and cottage cheese.

Lennywinks returned to his haiku.

I’ve been slowly reading through Henry’s journals and letters from his nine months away in treatment last year. I never opened them before he died because they were obviously private. After, I knew I wanted to read all of it, but I couldn’t work up the strength to do it. Finally, this week I took out the wrapped bundle of papers and messy notebooks and sketchpads from the bottom drawer of his dresser, and I took it with me on my trip to Utah to read while I was all alone in my hotel room. I knew I would cry, so I thought this would be a good time to dig into Henry’s writing.

And I did cry.

I cried because he was so funny and smart and such a good writer, and I cried to read his essay on how deeply wounded he was by his parents’ divorce. I cried when I read the letters his younger siblings sent him while he was in treatment, so hopeful and loving (and which he’d saved and carried around with him for the next seven months, and then brought home with him, carefully folded into his journal). And I cried when I saw the sketch he’d drawn of “my family,” which included an adorable rendering of his baby sister, C.

It was very hard to read all of it. His desire to get clean and stay clean and his deep fears that he wouldn’t be able to pull it off after returning home are a constant theme. His love for his family is writ large on every page; this was not a boy who had become estranged from or angry at his parents and siblings and extended family, even though he was struggling with something that very often alienates teenagers from the people who love them most. No, Henry’s struggle was never with us, really. It was completely internal for him. And reading of the pain that his addiction caused him just broke my heart. When you see an addict’s external behaviors, which seem so carelessly dangerous and thoughtless, it’s easy to believe that he or she doesn’t want to stop or isn’t bothered by what life has become. In Henry’s case, he was obviously tortured by it. This simply wasn’t the life he wanted and it wasn’t who he expected or wanted to be, but by age 17, when he wrote these journal entries, he had already begun to doubt that he was capable of beating back the drugs for good. He felt inadequate for the task.

I am going to share some bits and pieces of Henry’s journal on my blog, and the first thing I want to share is this gratitude list that he compiled while in the first three months of treatment at a wilderness-based prigram in North Carolina. Helping recovering addicts recognize what they have to be grateful for is something a lot of treatment programs emphasize, so Henry was asked by his therapist to make up a list.

The result, written pretty much exactly one year before he died is pure Henry:

Henry’s Gratitude List
Spring 2009 – Age 17


Family
Girls
Friends
Music
Laughter
Dreams
Art
Memories
Concerts
My Parents
My little brother
My sisters
My dog
Jerry Garcia
Birthdays
Oceans
Funk
Love
Rhthym
Guitars
Waterslides
Plastic
Aluminum
Titanium
Amoxicillin
Penicillin
Windows Operating System
Air Conditioning
Lars
Hovercrafts
Banjos
Caterpillars
Socks
Trampolines
Loin Cloths
Lacrosse
Monkeys
Sea Monkeys
Sea Horses

Henry and his little brother E

So I am in Salt Lake City for the first time ever. Actually, I’ve never been to Utah at all, although I’ve always wanted to visit, both because all those panoramic exterior shots in Big Love look absolutely gorgeous, and also because I’ve always – and somewhat inexplicably – been something of a Mormon history buff. I’m fascinated by the way the LDS pioneers persevered against unbelievable odds to create their own nation within a nation here in Utah. One thing I noticed right away when I arrived is that people here are exceptionally tidy-looking. And they just exude industriousness. Just being around these people, I feel lazy, messy and inadequate. The Latter Day Saints – both past and present – are fascinating folks, fo sho.

I am sitting here in my hotel room, trying to get a little work done before I go meet up with Jon and Heather to visit and talk about some business stuff. I am really looking forward to seeing them, and checking out their new digs. H is apparently feeling a bit puny today due to a cold, so I may not be able to drag her out with us after our meeting this afternoon (I plan to try though!), but in any event, I am really looking forward to meeting up for dinner tonight with another fave blogger of mine, Monica B, otherwise known as The Girl Who. (Isn’t it kind of weird that Salt Lake City is so loaded up with super-gorgeous, hilarious, more than slightly profane, ex-Mormon girl bloggers? What if Knoxville were all covered up with tall, blonde, cursing ex-Southern Baptist girl bloggers? Yeah – it would be kind of like that.) But anyway, Monica and I , and maybe her hubby are going to take downtown SLC by storm tonight – or at least have dinner and drinks and check out the very fascinating Temple Square – right up the street from my hotel – on foot. (I’ll have to drink Monica’s beer for her though because she’s knocked up. But I don’t mind. I’m happy to shoulder the burden.)

I was feeling very, very, extra sad about Henry yesterday. While traveling to SLC from Knoxville – via Atlanta, I saw so many sweet, healthy 17-20 year old, shaggy haired boys, guitars and duffel bags slung diffidently over their still-growing shoulders, happily striding through airports on their way to college or travel abroad or wherever. I wanted so much to see Henry have the chance to travel, to go to college, to see the world and then tell me all about it. Instead, he’s gone forever for no reason I can quite figure out. I miss him so much that it aches. There’s an ache that just never stops, even when I am otherwise feeling joy or having fun. I brought his journal from his first three months in treatment with me on this trip and I read it last night before I fell asleep. He was such a special, quirky, tortured person. So funny and creative and loving. The world is dimmer without him in it.

Okay, gonna shake off the blues right now and enjoy the day ahead. The Wasatch mountains out my hotel window are beautiful.

Why, when a nearly lifeless, heavily drugged teenager is found by paramedics at midday in the private residence of two adults with whom he has no identifiable relationship, and when the adults have no reasonable explanation for why the teenager was in their home in the first place, and when at least one of the two adults has a criminal record, is the residence not secured properly  – at least in the short term – or given even cursory professional investigation as a potential crime scene? This omission  strikes me as something our community would find problematic.  I mean, wouldn’t this scene seem a little fishy to you,  and especially if you were a trained law enforcement professional?

Perhaps an investigation would turn up no evidence of potential criminal activity at the scene where the teen was found. But shouldn’t local law enforcement treat this scenario as a crime scene  until they know for sure how this high school senior ended up near death in these random adults’ residence at noon on a weekday? Wouldn’t you think they would WANT to know what the heck was going on in this residence, and determine for themselves precisely what the nature of these adults’ relationship to this teenager was?

According to federal authorities, yes…yes they should. To wit:

…officers should secure the crime scene (NOTE : the author is referring to the site of an overdose critical injury or fatality as the “crime scene”) as if it were the site of a homicide. They should direct nonessential personnel, such as emergency medical workers, and family members away from the area and document everyone who enters it. Homicide and drug investigators, as well as crime scene technicians, should be called to the site. Before anything is disturbed, the entire scene should be photographed, including the victim. Only then should the victim be turned over to the medical examiner for an autopsy. Finally, investigators should perform an organized search to gather physical evidence.

Drug crimes usually yield two valuable pieces of evidence not always present in other crimes. First, investigators should pay particular attention to any items of paraphernalia that could be used to package and store drugs, as well as to mechanisms that someone could use to ingest a drug. Heroin typically is packaged in small glassine or wax bags about the size of a quarter and then is ingested by either snorting it through the nose or injecting it into the body. During the search, investigators should look for cut drinking straws or rolled paper, such as dollar bills, used to snort heroin. To inject heroin, users must liquefy it, typically accomplished by heating the heroin and some water on a spoon with a candle or cigarette lighter. Therefore, investigators also should search for spoons, heat sources, and hypodermic needles used to inject heroin. Because prescription drugs can be crushed and snorted, investigators should look for pill bottles and devices capable of crushing hard pills into a powder.

Items of drug paraphernalia prove especially important because they may contain samples of the drug. Officers should carefully package objects suspected of containing drugs or drug residue in separate containers and transfer them to a laboratory for analysis to determine the specific drug, its purity level, and any adulterants or other substances combined with it. Advances in technology have enabled some laboratories to conduct a signature analysis of the drugs that provides its specific chemical composition, or signature,6 which then can be compared with that of another sample of drugs to help determine if both originated from the same batch. This test can prove crucial in linking the drugs found on an overdose victim back to the original dealer. In addition to chemical testing, investigators should request that the submitted evidence be examined for latent fingerprints.

(I know I am not supposed to even MENTION this stuff publicly. I am supposed to sit back month after month and continue to express total confidence that everything is being investigated thoroughly and aggressively. But I gotta tell you, this is becoming increasingly difficult for me to do.  My child was hospitalized April 27th and died May 31. It is now August 25th.)

April 27, 2010

May 31, 2010

Please know that I have not made the decision to share these very upsetting, painful, intimate photos of my child lightly. I’ve agonized over it. But after a lot of thought, I decided that I want this community to see more clearly than my words can convey what happened to my child.

Some would argue, I know, that fatal overdoses from illicit drugs – or those leading to critical injury – should simply be treated as unfortunate accidents that don’t necessitate any criminal investigation or potential prosecution for anyone involved.  Again, federal law enforcement authorities disagree and have some specific guidance for communities battling the scourge of opiate addiction and overdose, as we clearly are in Knoxville, Tennessee:

A drug overdose that drew national media attention inspired the creation of a law that now allows investigators to target drug trafficking organizations responsible for overdose deaths. In June 1986, the Boston Celtics’ first-round draft pick, Len Bias, was found dead in his college dormitory from a drug overdose. That same year, in response to Bias’ death, as well as to the proliferation of crack cocaine, Congress enacted new federal drug laws. One of the provisions, commonly referred to as the Len Bias Law, provides for a mandatory minimum term of incarceration for 20 years and a maximum life sentence for a dealer who distributes drugs that cause death or serious bodily injury.9 Therefore, drug dealers face a penalty of no less than 20 years in federal prison if it can be determined that the drugs they sold caused the overdose, regardless of the quantity. In federal, as well as most state, prosecutions, sentences for drug crimes are determined by the quantity of drugs sold. In cases involving an overdose, however, the quantity of drug sold is secondary, possibly even irrelevant, in determining a defendant’s sentence. It is not necessary that the victim die from a drug overdose for this law to apply. The Len Bias Law provides for the same punishment if death or serious bodily injury occurs as a result of the drugs.10 Federal law defines serious bodily injury as that which involves, “a substantial risk of death; protracted and obvious disfigurement; or protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty.”11 If the victim suffers a drug overdose but does not die, investigators should consult with their prosecutor to determine if the overdose falls within the definition of serious bodily injury.

All law enforcement agencies should join in this effort to investigate these crimes. The benefit of investigating drug overdoses derives from the enhanced sentencing provision of the law. Faced with lengthy jail terms, as well as the desire not to be associated with a death, suspects and potential defendants may be more apt to cooperate with law enforcement than in other investigations. Cooperation may allow defendants to escape the mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years. To this end, investigators may be able to quickly garner the assistance of suspects, thereby rapidly identifying and targeting other persons working up the chain of supply. Rather than targeting a single dealer, investigations should aim to identify all individuals involved in the chain of distribution of the drugs to the victim, thus dismantling an entire organization.

Let me be as clear as I can: based on what I know with significant certainty about what happened to my teenage son – both with regard to the assault and the overdose he suffered  – there is a HIGH likelihood that someone else’s teenage or young adult son or daughter in our community will also overdose and die in a similar fashion unless investigators and prosecutors treat Henry’s death as something other than an unfortunate accident attributable only to my son’s admitted drug problem.  And that breaks my heart. Because I can’t ever have my child back, but no one else should lose their beloved boy or girl because no one in authority cared enough about this case to truly advocate for the very best investigation and at least an attempt at prosecution.

Henry with his little brother and sisters (he’s holding C), plus cousins at our annual family beach trip.

Yesterday Henry’s little brother, E, who is 12, asked me why the people who gave his big brother the drugs that hurt him haven’t been arrested. I told him I couldn’t really answer that. He asked me if the people who hit Henry in the head and chest had been arrested. I told him they hadn’t. Then he asked me if the grown-ups who refused to call 911 for a long while when Henry was lying unconscious and barely breathing right in front of them were in any kind of trouble. I told him no, not so far. He was very confused.

So am I.

I’ve been revisiting some of the photos from Henry’s 5 week hospitalization.

This one was taken at UTMC about 10 days after he was admitted, after he was off all life support (he eventually was placed back on life support in the last week of his life) and out of the neck brace. The bruising on his face had healed and we believed we had gotten through the worst, and that he would be okay.

He looks so young in this picture. Because he was. He was just a boy.

Henry with his dad after he was moved to the neuro rehab center at St. Mary’s.

Henry with his beloved little sister and M, his stepmama, who did so much to care for him the entire time he was hospitalized. I can never thank her enough.

Yesterday, in reviewing Henry’s phone records I made a discovery that knocked the breath out of me.

On April 26th, just past 5 pm, shortly before he got in a car with someone and drove away to the residence where would overdose and receive critical brain injuries over the next 18 hours, he tried to call me. In fact, he tried to call me twice – at two numbers.

And I didn’t get the call or answer. And I never realized until now he’d tried to call.

I dreamed of Henry last night, which hasn’t happened often. He was at the top of our stairs in our house, smiling at me and motioning me to come upstairs and talk to him. He was about 14 or 15 years old in the dream, and I tried to follow him up the stairs so I could see him and touch him. He was smiling and seemed okay. Then it was all gone. Later in the night I dreamed that he joined me at a restaurant. Again, he was happy and healthy and was about 15 years old. I pulled him onto my lap and just hugged him and hugged him. I begged him to stay with me, but he vanished.

Henry spent about 9 months in inpatient drug treatment last year. He spent 3 months at a wilderness treatment program near Asheville, NC and then another 6 months at a program in Montana based on the “Positive Peer Culture” (also known as PPC) model. He had terrific therapists and counselors at both programs who worked very hard to try to help Henry break free of his addiction to drugs, and to help his family learn better skills for supporting Henry in recovery.

Here are some thoughts about Henry from one of the girls who attended the Montana program with him (“Echo” refers to the boys’ group cottage in which Henry lived and “Sapphire” was the girls’ cottage/group).

The most important thing is to remember Henry the proper, respectful way—the way he was. The way he is. Henry was not “a” drug addict but a beautiful, talented, unique human being. Surely he had his own problems (don’t we all!), but I remember, and I’m sure everyone at the program, especially Echo, as being such a warm and bright individual with a wonderful future ahead of him. He didn’t leave the program very successfully, but he left having successfully brightened each of our difficult and dull days, making strong friendships, and leaving us all with a fantastic lasting impression. I remember how much Echo loved him and I remember how much we used to love listening to Henry play the guitar on the porch of the Echo cottage. He was wonderful at guitar. We, Sapphire, actually used to sit on the window sills and listen to Henry and whomever else play the guitar (on top of spying on their cottage… heh). We would watch them have techno dance parties in their cottage and wish we could get away with fun like that in our own cottage. And I remember the stone and wire necklace he wore that everybody loved. I recall how disappointed I was when he shaved his head because I loved his big, curly, unruly hair. It suited his different and unique personality.

This is Henry with his Dad when they arrived at the therapeutic boarding school he attended in Montana. It was a beautiful setting for Henry to work on his recovery.

Although Henry chose to leave the program when he turned 18, in October instead of staying longer, which would have been our choice, our whole family had high hopes for his ability to stay clean and move forward with his life when he got back to Knoxville. I was SO EXCITED that he was coming home. I had missed him like crazy.

Here is Henry about one week – maybe less – after returning to Tennessee from Montana. He had just turned 18.

I never could have imagined that he would be gone forever before the next summer.

Henry began using again – and selling drugs to support his escalating opiate use – within only a few weeks of returning home from Montana. At that point, we had to make the difficult decision to tell him he could either enter an intensive outpatient program and attend daily 12 step meetings, plus agree to random drug tests, or move out of our house. He chose the latter. The day I told him he had to get out, and packed up his things for him to take was – until his hospitalization – the worst day of my life. I knew it was what needed to happen in order for Henry to perhaps experience the natural consequences that would allow him to realize he needed help, but it was hell to actually tell my child that he needed to get out of the house.

We saw Henry frequently over the next 7 months, until he was hospitalized on April 27. He would sometimes spend the night with us, which made me very happy, even though we wouldn’t let him actually move back in unless he accepted the help his father and I were desperately trying to make him understand that he needed. But on those nights when he would come and stay overnight, I could mother him just a little. I could feed him and hang out with him, and his sisters and brother got to spend some time with them. He always promised them that he was in the process of getting clean. They always believed him.

Here is Henry, wrapped in a blanket and kicked back on our couch, watching a movie. This was taken in January 2010.

Because we wouldn’t let him live at home unless he agreed to get help, he alternately stayed with relatives – a dangerously enabling situation to which his father and I strenuously objected – or he drifted from place to place. We could not force him to do anything because he was 18, and this removed virtually all our parental rights under the law. I looked into pursuing a legal guardianship based on his obvious mental incompetence due to his addiction, but was discouraged by the lawyer with whom I spoke. He told me that if Henry contested the guardianship, my prospects were dim for regaining legal authority to force him back into treatment. I spoke with police officers and a defense attorney about whether I could or should try to get him arrested for using or selling, but everyone discouraged me, saying that once he was in the system, things would be worse for him. In hindsight, I should have done everything I could to get him arrested. The system would have been safer for him than the residence where he spent the last 18 hours of his life.

This is the last photo I have of Henry and me together, at our house. He was eating supper with us that night. It was taken February 22.

During that seven month period after he left treatment, I spoke to him almost every day, even though he was not living at home. I never, ever cut ties with my son or abandoned him in any way. I never gave up. Neither did the rest of his family. Many people, including parents of his friends and his aunt and uncles and adult cousins reached out to Henry on a constant basis during these months, attempting to overpower his addiction through the sheer force of love and determination. It wasn’t enough, even though he loved us in return, and continued to tell us so.

He spent Christmas Eve with us at home, but it was clear to our whole family that night that he was suffering some kind of drug withdrawal because he hadn’t wanted to show up high around his younger siblings and cousins. Throughout the spring, he and I would have lunch together, and twice we went walking together at Lakeshore Park, just to talk.

Here he is on Christmas Eve, helping his little cousin NC play with a top, as 7 year old cousin M looks on.

In March, Henry admitted to me that he had for the first time begun shooting up the opiate pain pills to which he was addicted. He was spiraling to a very dark place, very fast. Things escalated quickly in those last two or three months. During this final period, he was arrested for the first time ever – for possession. I prayed he would be forced to stay in jail and go to treatment, but only 3 days after his arrest, he was released because he was a first time, nonviolent offender, and jail is crowded.

In March, he asked if he could try living with us again. I told him and his girlfriend, a lovely teenage girl from a very nice family who also had a terrible addiction to opiates, that they could live with us – in separate rooms – as long as they both went to daily 12 step meetings, took drug screens weekly, and either got jobs or enrolled in school. They agreed. 24 hours later, he told me they were leaving that day to go to Bell Buckle to stay with my family for a while to see if they could kick the drugs more easily if they got out of Knoxville. I told them that they could not run away from their addiction, but the two of them left anyway. They spent several weeks in Bell Buckle, where they went through physical opiate withdrawal and according to Henry, really intended to try to quit. But soon enough, he was back in Knoxville, spending the next few weeks drifting around within the underbelly of our small city, doing whatever it took to get high. In the last weeks before he was rushed to the ER with the brain injury from which he would die 5 weeks later, he was essentially a member of the city’s homeless population. He wore the same clothes each day and was often dirty. He sometimes hung around outside the homeless shelters near downtown, and he told me that at least once, he ate a meal at one of the shelters.

In the final months of Henry’s life, opiates were his drug of choice – he was physically addicted and shooting up by this time – but he used other drugs when he couldn’t find what his body craved so desperately. It became increasingly obvious to me that Henry, who was described in the media after his death as “a man” and “an adult,” but who was actually just a boy – a senior in high school – was clearly being taken advantage of by much older adults who preyed on the fact that he was a very sick teenage child who trusted people easily and was extremely vulnerable due to his addiction.

On April 26th, I couldn’t get him on the phone and he didn’t respond to text messages. I tried to track him down through friends of his, but wasn’t able to. Sometime that afternoon, he texted me, saying simply “Mom, I’m having a really rough day.”

The next time I saw Henry was the following day, when I rushed to UT just after noon and encountered the terrible sight of my son, comatose, on a respirator, his face badly bruised and blood running from his ears as doctors worked frantically to save his life.

Henry Louis Granju October 7, 1991 – May 31, 2010
My Beautiful Boy

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Henry with his little sister C and his cousin NC.