Inseparable Brothers Lose Their Battle - This Is Their Story
In December of 2017, I attended a double funeral.
Funerals are never easy but when you are attending one for two young boys it makes the pain excruciating double time. On December, 7 2017 Randy (age 22) and Jake (age 25) were both found by their family, in their shared room, deceased. When the boys had their door locked and didn't come out of the room for a lengthy amount of time, Tim who is their brother immediately knew something was wrong. He ran downstairs to grab his mother and father. The three of them busted down the door to the boys room and found what no family ever should. Inseparable brothers both share the time of 8:48pm on their death certificates.
These boys are my cousins and this is the story which leads to their final days...
Jake and Randy had smiles that could light up a room. They had outgoing personalities and they both were full of life. The Hicks family had just adopted a 14 year girl a few months prior the boys death. This girl had lost her mother to an overdose and her father was in prison. Jake and Randy as well as the rest of the family, welcomed her with open arms. The two young boys wanted her to feel like she was at home so Randy gave up his room so that she could have one, Jake gave up half of his room so that Randy could stay in there. Both of the boys spent a lot of time together working on music and playing the guitar. Their shared room still to this day has an entire wall lined up with their guitars. Jake and Randy barely went anywhere without the other one directly by his side.
As I grew up, every christmas we would all get together and stay at a family members house. Living a few states away made it hard to see each other as often as we would have liked and this was everyone's way to stay involved in each others life in some way. We all looked forward to this weekend trip. We would make gingerbread houses, bake cookies, make christmas crafts and do a gift exchange. Unfortunately, we stopped doing this as the kids got older. Jake and Randy are pretty close to my age but I still remember these trips and their wild personalities. These boys were the life of the party at such a young age and they made sure to carry that on as they grew older. Even as children Jake and Randy never went anywhere without one another. They took brotherhood very seriously.
Jake and Randy were both big jokesters, they would do anything to see another person smile. They were kind and compassionate, they would take the shirt off of their back for anyone in this world that needed one. They were also huge Philadelphia Eagles fan. They really kept the love to their city. When the Eagles won the superbowl, the family was positive that these boys were together having a party, wherever their souls have went too. These boys leave behind so many memories and they shared so much love while they were alive, all of which the Hicks family is tightly holding on too.
After I heard of the boys passing, I didn't know what to do or say. The pain that my heart will forever feel for this family just rips me apart. I was at a loss for words as to what to say to a mother and father who found their two young boys dead in their room. I like to try to keep the memory alive of those who pass. To honor my cousins memory, I wanted to do something really special. So with the permission from the family, I made pillows out of their shirts. Some people find this morbid, some find this comforting. For the Hicks family, the pillows are a way for them to hold on tight to these boys whenever they need a hug. I made one pillow for each boy and then a smaller pillow out of both shirts. The smaller pillow holds the card that was given out at the heartbreaking double funeral.
Where did it all go wrong?
Jake and Randy both passed away from a heroin and fentanyl overdose. With their smile and personalities that would light up the room, this family wasn't aware just how far these boys addiction had taken them. Their mother thought they were sometimes sleepy because of their prescription medication they both took. The didn't nod out frequently enough for their mother to even think it was from heroin. They didn't show any serious warning signs of being heroin addicts, they never stole from their family, their amazing personalities never changed, these boys were so different after they started their battle with addiction yet...they remained the same.
After their passing the family searched for answers , through the boys text messages they were able to see that they were given this heroin to try because it was a new batch. After the results from the medical examiner came back, the family learned that this batch of heroin was unknowingly to the boys, laced with fentanyl. The drug dealer heard that the boys had passed from an overdose on his batch, he then went to the home of the Hicks in Philadelphia, Pa and demanded the family give him money because of the trouble the boys death had caused his drug business. He was greeted by Tim and the end of a shotgun. The drug dealer has not demanded his money since then.
This is one thing Donna had to say about her boys after their death:
Today was 80 days since you two left this earth. I miss you two so much. People have gone on with their life. It doesn't seem fair. I want to scream and shake people and say my Jacob and Randy were here their lives mattered. My heart is truly shattered into a million pieces. I don't want to die but i'm definitely not afraid to be with my boys and family that are in heaven when god calls me home. If it wasn't for my other children I would have definitely given up on life. I feel like I am just existing at this point. What I am trying to say is I feel like i'm just going through the motions in what was once life. At one time I had everything and now I feel like i'm being punished for something I did. I always tried to be a good person. I just want to ask God why? Why my boys when they were both great kids kind, loving, caring, funny they had so much more life to live.. They will never get married or give me grandchildren or be uncles. I can't wait until the day I get to be with my sweet boys again. Take care of each other guys till we are all together again. I love you Jake and Randy.
Black Balloon Day
Black Balloon Day was created last year by a family who lost someone close to them due to an overdose. March 6th is the day this person passed and March 6th is now known as black balloon day. Lauren Hurley, the creator of black balloon day had a powerful message in regards to this overdose awareness day.
This is what she told newscasters,
“To show them they aren’t the only people (that) lost a parent or (lost) their children. Every day this is happening. Even if one person sees a balloon and thinks ‘I could be the person that someone could be hanging the balloon out for’…in my eyes we did something right.”
Lauren had only expected around 100 people to join in on this, her daughter made a facebook event page to spread awareness and invite people to join in on releasing a black balloon. In a very short amount of time, over 20,000 people joined this group to show their support. Although Black Balloon Day is over, raising awareness every day of the week is always important.
Drug abuse and especially drug overdoses has made a drastic climb. Around 62,497 people died last year from a drug overdose. It doesn't matter at this point what our views on drug addiction really are. We can ridicule drug addicts and tell them that it is a choice and they are stupid, all that we want. Even if this is true, that does not take away from the fact that so many people are dying from something so preventable. The number of deaths are doing absolutely nothing but climbing to a higher number. Drug addiction doesn't discriminate, overdoses have affected doctors and nurses, young children and parents. It doesn't matter the race, sex, weight, height or job occupation of an individual. Raising awareness seems like the only hope we have to get a good start on fighting this epidemic. The younger children will drastically be affected by this if we don't try to change something. We can believe what we want about drug addicts but our thoughts on them wont stop the younger generations from picking up on this horrible habit if awareness and prevention doesn't get spread around the world. Sheltering your children from the world will also not stop this epidemic from affecting them.
I help admin a recovery page and I give advice and support to families , addicts and recovering addicts. I always start with the talk of prevention because that is the most important step. Talk to your children, friends and family about addiction. Let them know that they can come to you and talk to you. Support them but NEVER enable them. There is a huge difference there. It wasn't until I was faced with homelessness that I made the choice to get off drugs. My family supported me but never enabled me. They were there to give me advice and they always had an open ear. Money was never given to me and I was faced to deal with the consequences of the choices I made. Here I am today, I am able to share parts of my story, spread awareness and prevention, and give someone a shoulder to cry on when they lose someone to addiction. Regardless of how I feel about drug addiction being a choice or a disease, I will stand firm in my beliefs that the drug epidemic is out of control. I will do absolutely everything in my power to educate my daughter, educate the world and fight for a better world for her to grow up in.
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Such a disheartening read. My deepest condolences to your family.
Thank you. It is sad but needs to be shared. The family just wants the story shared so that hopefully it saves at least one life.
That's so sad and unnecessary. These are the less talked about victims of the drug war.
People hiding their drug addictions instead of getting the help that they need is a consequence of the drug being illegal. They risked jail time for simply admitting they had a problem. They risked the social stigma of being drug users. No wonder they hid it from everyone.
The drug dealer that sold fentanyl laced heroin is protected because of the secrecy. Who are his customers going to complain to? People will continue to use this same drug dealer out of desperation. Maybe they don't know someone else who sells heroin because the other dealers are all hiding from the law. It's not like they hold up signs on the street corner.
I know it goes against what we've been told but legalization or at least decriminalization of all drugs is the answer. Look at statistics in the countries that have tried this. It works. Prohibition only increases revenue for jails and law enforcement. Absolutely no good comes from it.
No government should be able to decide what a person does or doesn't put in their body and it's bad for everyone if they try.
My condolences to the friends and family of those two boys. Hopefully our society can do better and we can prevent these kinds of things from happening in the future.
This is sad... May thier souls rest in peace.
It is sad and unfortunately it is far to common these days. Thank you so much for your condolences.
Thanks for sharing.
Fentanyl and carfentanyl are so dangours.
Almost died of heroin mixed with fentanyl last year. 4 times in one week. It's so strong.
Sorry for your lost but sad to say. Thats how we all will end sooner ør later if we start using.
Will resteem your post. Very good writing.
It is dangerous. Fentanyl mixed with heroin seems to be what is causing majority of the deaths, all for the dealer to make a little extra cash. You are right, that is the price we pay to dance with devil. Thanks for the resteem and stopping by. Keep up the fight on your road to recovery. It is hard but so worth it.
Sure is. Been clean 4 years with to relapses about 6month together.
God two kids 3yo and 1.5 to and a beautiful fiancee from Chile so i have a lot of good things going on.
Om the hospital right now. First time in life to check out if i have anxiety, bi polar or adhd.
This hospital only threats addicts so they are very good. Very difficult to diagnose addicts and you need minimum 3months sober time to get here.
That's very wonderful. You do have a lot keeping you going and giving you something to look forward too. A hospital just for addicts is wonderful, is it by appointments or are you staying overnight? Hoepfully they get you the answers you're looking for.
Ove will stay every day for almost 6 weeks and also night. Can go home whoever i want because i have clean urin sanples. And today my kids are coming kontoen so gonna pmhavr alot of fun and sat-sun i saying with them in my house. So it's real good.
Wow. You have to have three months clean to even get in to rehab?? That seems a bit backward lol. Although I'm guessing that's obviosly probably more like an "outpatient" type-treatment at that point... You must go somewhere else for detox, right?
Yes thats right. But they help people that dont manager to stay 3 months off. The have detox in the second Floor here so it's aall good.
Before in Norway you har to wait 1-6month for detox. Then go home and apply for rehab and wait maybe 3-12months. But they stopped doing that now for obvious reasons
That's a pretty big story you shared there, and you told it in such manner that I fully empathize with the loss of two great guys. I pray that soon and very soon the families unite once more to share the things they missed. My bigger take away is the need to push the message of drug abuse and what it has stolen from humanity. And this piece didn't fail at that intention. Great work you are doing. I must commend it. I just resteemed this to help give it some awareness. Cheers.
I wish the family would get together again soon. Sadly, these days it seems we only do this when there is a death. I'm not really sure where to go with this war on drugs. Obviously the government and law enforcement can't help.
That is a beautiful sentence and you are so right. Thank you so much for the resteem, you have no idea how much it means. I've been working really hard to help the family get the boys story out to the world. Unfortunately, people seem to listen better when a death is involved. The fact that two boys died at the same exact time, myself and their immediate family want this to be an eye opener. This can happen to anybody, they were given a very small amount of heroin to try. I've heard people say weight matters to the amount you would have to take, as you can see that isn't true. It's just heartbreaking and not even because they are family. We have managed to get the boys story in the Philly newspaper and their mother recently wrote a letter to Trump. Not sure what that will do but parents who have lost children to an overdose have made it a point to mail him a letter. The only thing that I can do is continue to raise awareness and prevention tips. Some people don't listen because drug abuse doesn't affect them or they think it won't but it truly can affect any family at anytime especially with the rate drug abuse is climbing.
Thanks a lot for reading the boys story, I truly appreciate it.
I'm sorry for your families loss @magicalmoonlight. This is the first time I've heard of black balloon day, I think that's a great idea.
I just heard about it recently too. It was brought to my attention by the boys mother. I think it is a good thing for people to get together and raise awareness. Thank you for the condolences.
Such a sad, yet important story. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Thank you for stopping by and reading it! It is a very important story to share with the world.
Nice story
Thank you
Tragic story that touches both on the problem of over medication and the 2nd Amendment. If their father could not bear arms and protect himself and his family, where would they be now?
That is true, I never thought of it that way. That person very well could have busted in the house had he not seen a gun.
Amazing amazing story @magicalmoonlight. Congratulations on this story getting curied. Very well deserving. Maybe some help from beyond? I have an interesting story about that, I will have to share it with you some time. Long overdue success for someone that is very new to the platform. I say that because the writing in all phases IS THAT GOOD. Keep up the great work, touching story, makes me think of that heartwrenching song "black balloon" by the goo goo dolls.
Thank you! That really means a lot to me. I wasn't expecting that to happen at all. I've been helping their mom get the boys story out and I literally cried when I seen that the post had some views. To just help one person addicted or support one family going through it, is all we want. My cousin has started talking to kids in schools about this story. I'm not going to lie and say I wasn't happy about the Upvotes but I honestly just wanted this to be seen. Whenever you write about your story don't forget to let me know. I haven't heard that song but now I feel the need to listen to it!
Oh wow totally. My story is fairly simple really but it really floored me. On my birthday, Jan 10,2018 I was on steemit for like three weeks at the time. Still grinding my teeth, figuring things out. I put a stupid post commenting on the price of steem, nothing out of the ordinary, absolutely nothing eye catching at all about it. My posts would very rarely get an upvote of more 5 cents, if at all. Well on that day, (could all be coincidence but there were quite a few linked) I was on here, going through stuff, did the post and talked to people for like an hour. The moving part of this was that my grandmother, my last living grandparent had passed away back in October and things really were a blur at the time. She lived a great long life passing just before her 87th birthday. Well since us kids had reached 18 she was (very) kind to send all her grandkids a card and a check for $125.00 and a phone call. So keeping that in mind, on that day I am looking at my post at 1pm, the time I usually go to get my mail all the sudden I see my account is voted way up. It's at like $25 or something like that. When I noticed it I was thinking (not even considering this at the moment) wow what a windfall, that's really lucky. The total usd value of the post at the time I checked it (steemdollars on the post times steemdollar price on the market) equaled $125 and a few cents. Which is funny, because at Christmas this past year she did something comical emptying her purse and including extra bits of change with gifts. So yeah that was a little hair razing. Could it be I was super sensitive to this happening and looking for number correlations to it, possible. But it still gives me chills thinking about it.
Wow, that is really neat! I'm a big believer in receiving signs and I would say that definitely is a sign. Its funny how certain things in life can happen like that to where it just doesn't seem like its only a coincidence. Thank you for sharing. I love stories like that.