Rosemary's Blog

    Twenty years- how is it possible that I am still alive and breathing twenty years after my sons Drew and Jeremiah left to attend the Guns N’ Roses concert in Indianapolis back on July 22, 1992?  I will never forget the last time I saw them as they came to my drugstore the morning of July 22nd.  They were as excited as I had ever seen them.  They came for money for the trip…surprise!  I went out with them as they got in Drew’s red Miata, top down to head to Indianapolis.  They looked radiant!  They both had their baseball caps on backwards.  They had their cell phone and directions to the Canterbury Hotel in Indy very close to the concert arena.  I was as excited as they were for their adventure.  Little did I suspect that they were prepraring for the biggest adventure of any life – life after death.

     These past twenty years have been a journey for me, for Luther and for Jordan.  We have cried a million tears for those two boys who died the morning of July 23rd on the way home from that concert.  We have done everything in our power to keep their memory alive.  We have lived every day in this painful physical plane with the knowledge that they had gone on before us. 

    Tonight, I sit here in Lexington, Kentucky reliving the hours leading up to the morning of July 23 rd when the Beattyville Chief of Police came into my drugstore and said the two words that would change my life forever, “Drew’s dead.”  My heart still cannot believe that both Drew and Jeremiah died that beautiful July morning twenty years ago.  There has not been a single day in these past twenty years that I have not missed them with every fiber in my body.  They were a part of me, a part of my physical and spiritual self that is now missing.  I know deep in my soul that this will always be true. 

     I had a call yesterday from John Caffery, Jeremiah’s best friend.  He may never know what his phone call meant to Luther and me.  We were in the car driving back to KY from Hilton Head.  He wanted us to know that he had not forgotten Jeremiah.  He said he knew Jeremiah was “always around me.”  John and Jeremiah were as close as any brothers could ever be.  Jeremiah’s death has affected John in ways that not even I can fully understand.  Bless him for remembering us at this difficult time.

     For those of you who know me, you know I am rarely at a loss for words.  Well, tonight is one of those rare occasions.  I am emotionally drained after tweny years of being without Drew and Jeremiah.  I will never understand on this earth why I am still living after two bouts with cancer while my teenage sons are now dead twenty years.  How does that make sense?  How does a tragedy like the Batman theatre massacre that took place two nights ago in Aurora, Colorado happen? How in the world can one young man kill 12 people and injure 58 so close to the same area where our dear friends Joe and Ann Kechter lost their son Matthew in the Columbine school massacre?  What has our world come to?  Twelve families are facing the same terror we faced twenty years ago tonight.  What a senseless tragedy.

     It is now 11:45PM.  I may cry myself to sleep tonight.  I’ve been surrounded by yellow butterflies all day today.  The boys are telling me they are OK.  Boys, it is your Mom that is still not OK.  I miss you.

Love,

Mom