Family, friends mourn Falmouth teen who overdosed
By K.C. Myers, Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass. | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
But there were no formal eulogies. The microphone was used only by the musicians. It was an extreme case of no one knew what to say.
The young people -- most of them still in high school -- could only try to support each other in their grief.
They had gathered last week for a memorial service for
If anything, the many adults in attendance could only ask questions, especially, "What can we do to protect other children?"
That was a difficult one because
She knew the warning signs and what to do about them.
Also, Sean was a responsible young man, who excelled in athletics, and wasn't a big risk-taker. Polite, helpful, is how adults described him. He did well at
"You ask him to do something, and he always did it," said
"You could give him a long leash because he was so responsible," Stigberg said.
So when Sean started trying drugs, it didn't seem like a big deal.
He started smoking marijuana at about 12, said his childhood friend,
"I didn't think what we did together would lead to shooting up," Larkin said.
Sean's mothers knew about the pot. Stigberg knew how serious drug use is at that age.
If he wanted to get a driver's license, she told him, he couldn't be smoking pot. She started to drug test him, she said.
That's why she's pretty sure when he got his license at 17, he wasn't smoking pot, much less shooting heroin, she said.
When he was 18, however, Mellman, who lives just minutes from Stigberg in
Sean had moved in with Mellman for his senior year, after living much of his life at Stigberg's house. The women had broken up after adopting Sean and Zachary, who is younger by just a few months, as infants. Sean's biological parents battled addiction, Mellman said. Although the women separated years ago, they always lived near each other to raise the children.
One morning in
There was a single needle mark.
"I drove him to school saying 'Dope is for dopes. Dope is for dopes,'" Mellman recalled.
At home, it didn't take her long to find a burnt spoon by his bedside.
The next night Stigberg confronted Sean.
"'I know you're doing something more serious, and I don't even need to know what it is,'" Stigberg told him. "'But you need help.'"
"He just broke down and cried and said he was trying to stop on his own," Stigberg recalled.
CLOSELY GUARDED SECRET
At the memorial last week, parents asked if the death of another teenager would save others from what some are calling the largest drug epidemic in American history.
Drug overdose deaths have more than doubled between 1999 and 2010, according to a 2013 analysis by the
During the same time period,
According to the most recent
In
And these aren't stereotypical junkies, Sullivan said: "Now we're getting the kid next door."
Sean's friends have grown up with this.
"
"Just because it's not blatantly obvious doesn't mean it's not here."
"I walked into a
"If you're at a party, you will be offered everything, even heroin," she continued.
"It's not even surprising anymore," said another 17-year-old who asked not to be identified. "I just found out my best friend is doing heroin. And I'm not shocked."
It's only surprising to the general public because so often it's a closely guarded secret, said
"It's unacknowledged and that's why I'm so proud of Kathy for the way she wrote the obituary,"
"I feel that Sean has passed his spirit, and I feel like how can you not tell kids that if you do drugs this is what happens. You end up dead at 19," said Mellman, who helped write the obituary. "I felt it honored him. He did heroin, but he was a good kid who loved everyone and had a lot of friends and I think it's important people know -- these aren't rotten kids."
'SEAN KNEW ALL THIS'
If only knowledge could keep you clean, said
Sean had been to treatment for six weeks in March, after what Stigberg described as a terrible episode of depression, anxiety and heroin abuse. It was actually his second treatment, but it's hard to count the first, a six-day admission to a detox hospital at
Like most in recent recovery, Sean was struggling upon his return from detox, Stigberg said.
The second treatment, nearly a year after the first, began at
At Naukeag, a psychiatrist prescribed antidepressants, and they began to help almost immediately, Stigberg said.
And for awhile afterward, Sean embraced his new lifestyle. He went to 12-step meetings, and drove other young people to meetings. That's how he met Mackenzie.
Mackenzie said she had just 30 days sober when they first started driving together. She had 119 at his memorial service, she said.
Sean had almost 60 days, after one brief relapse with alcohol, she said.
"He was beating himself up about that first relapse," she said.
"You do drugs to get out of your own skin," she said. "First you want to do it, then you have to do it. Sean knew all this, and he wanted to be clean."
But knowledge isn't all it takes, said Heavilin, now the facilitator for a weekly Mothers Helping Mothers group, to assist addicted mothers coping with perhaps the worst guilt of all.
In her years in addiction treatment, Heavilin has seen how the disease trumps all sense and logic. She knew a man who was so terrified of overdosing that he'd drive to a hospital parking lot to shoot heroin, hoping at least someone would find him before he died.
"That's what this disease is like," she said.
SMALL DECISIONS
In the final days of Sean's life, small decisions and circumstances created the worst-case scenario.
Living back with Stigberg, Sean came home on the afternoon of
He said he and Mackenzie were going to a cookout at a friend's house. He dropped her back home at about
Mackenzie said she was worried about him.
She said he had not refilled his prescription for antidepressants and he was in a lot of pain that night, Mackenzie said. Stigberg had meant to pick up the medicine herself but forgot.
And this part was hard for her to talk about.
"I feel it was my fault," she said.
She had to go out of town for two days to help her stepmother. She left
"He never did and he didn't tell his mom because he was embarrassed," Mackenzie said.
Mackenzie kept calling on the morning of
Mackenzie wanted to know if Sean had gone to work. He had a job putting up party tents for outdoor functions.
Stigberg saw his car outside and walked down to his basement bedroom. She found him on his knees, with his upper body bent forward.
Mellman insisted on going to see him.
"Now I wish I never did because the image keeps going through my mind," she said.
More than two weeks later, Sean's laundry still sat folded on his couch and desk, along with a bathing suit Stigberg just brought him.
Stigberg kept the sticky notes he left her in the morning. Usually they said, "Fed Gertie (their dog) and let her out. Working
He had apparently kept her notes, too. Hers, much more emotional, were meant to help him through his time at
And now his mother has those, too.
"Sean, I love you to the moon and back," she wrote. "I am so proud to have you as my son."
___
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