Shattered Lives by Karen Ventimiglia I remember October 8th, 1977 like it was yesterday. That was the day my first born child, my son Gino was came into the world. From the moment I knew I was pregnant with him I loved him with all of my heart. The moment Gino was born, a connection, a special bond between the two of us was there. As a child Gino was very sickly and I was the over protective Mom who didnt' let him leave my side. He was quiet and sweet and so very smart. Him and I were the best of friends. When his sister Liz was born they had each other. We lived on a very small dead end street and being overprotective I didn't let the two of them out of my sight. As a result they played with each other. The three of us had each other. We spent summer days in the back yard and in the pool. We spent week ends camping as a family. I couldn't of been happier if I'd of won the lottery. As Gino and his sister grew up we had two more children, another boy and then another girl. Gino started high school and I was busy with the younger ones in pre-school. Not once was Gino any kind of problem. He was such a good son, I had no complaints what so ever. One afternoon a week before Gino was about to get out of school for the summer ( junior year), I got a call from the EP cops telling me Gino was smoking pot behind a church at lunch time and was at the police station. I thought, they have to have the wrong kid, not Gino. Not that I was niave, it's just he gave me absolutely NO reason to even think he smoked pot. I didn't make much of the pot incident, after all, everyone tries pot right?? I swear from that point on it was one thing after another with Gino. He had the worst driving record and was forever being arrested for unpaid tickets, fines and not showing up for court. That following winter Gino jumped over a wall at a concert and smashed his heel bone and had to have surgery to repair it. I think that is where his love of opiate's started, with the pain meds he had while recouperating. Gino finished out the rest of his senior year partying with a new group of friends and I wasn't happy about it. Following graduation Gino received a full paid scholorship to Wayne State University for academic's. I was so proud of him. I will never forget the first day he went to college. Gino started college and my little one started preschool at the same time. What could be better then that. My house was filled with so much commotion and craziness and I loved it all. Little by little with Gino going to Wayne State he wasn't the same person. I was getting calls from professors telling me they didn't know why Gino even bothered to sign up for there class, he never even showed up. He would have every excuse in the world why he couldn't get to class and why he cut classes, etc. He was spending more and more time at raves and online looking for raves to go to in other cities. Although I pleaded with him about Ecstasy, he swore to me he wasn't using it. He would go from one dead end job to another making enough money to party on the weekends. Around this time he got a job at a place near our house called "Star Corporation." That is where he was introduced to Heroin. I kept telling him he needed to get out of those small shops he was working in, I knew they were filled with drugs. I kept on him about going back to shcool and the more time that went by the more afraid I was that he would never go back. He needed to go to school, he was so smart and was wasting his intelligence. He told me once, "It's too late for me, I screwed up and there is NO way I'm going to be able to make everything all right again." I told Gino its never too late in life for anything. To show him how right I was I enrolled in school myself. I went for a year and a half and Gino was so proud of me. Just before Gino died he got a grant to go back to school, The judge put him on an electronic tether a few weeks later and suspended his license indefinitely, so once again, he couldn't go to school. In the late fall of 2001 Joe and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. We went on a trip together and when we got back we could see Gino wasn't well. He had been on some kind of strung out drug trip and we were so stupid, we knew Gino partied but we had NO idea he had a drug addiction. He came to us and told us he was addicted to Heroin and wanted to go to rehab. HEROIN???? No one does Herion, Only street people do Herion, NOT MY SON. Gino found a place in rehab in the spring of 2002. I sobbed when he walked out the door with his stuff. I was looking at someone else's son, not mine. I couldn't see him for the first week because he was in Detox but my mind was on him morning, noon and night. I was filled with so much hope. The first visiting day after Detox I saw clear eyes for the first time in a long, long time. I was so happy and thought our life was going to be like the lifetime movies. Kid goes to rehab, comes home, the addiction is cured and they all live happily ever after. The problem was, it wasn't like that. It was one catastrophe after another as I watched my son try and stay sober. He attempted suicide a few months before he died but was found by a person who called EMS. He was then placed in a mental ward at the hospital for a week until they could find him a bed at a half way house. From there he went to jail, back home and finally, three weeks before Gino died, he went to court on a probation violation. His PO (parole officer), who hated Gino recommended 9 months in county jail. We had a sweet talking attorney and Gino got 9 months probation on a electronic tether. I was so happy he wasnt going to jail but I soon realized that I was physically in jail in my home and I was the warden. Gino reported to his Probation Officer once a week. The Guy kept telling Gino he 'wanted his ASS BADLY' and he would be waiting for the time Gino would fuck up. When Gino told me that I couldn't believe it. I told Gino he better stay sober and not slip because he would go directly to jail if he failed any drug tests. Three days before Gino died he relapsed. I caught him smoking crack at 4:00 in the morning in our garage with a friend. Again, I couldn't believe it. I wanted so badly to call his probation officer and have him picked up but I didn't want my son to go to jail with that bastard. I was so upset with Gino. Here he was on a electronic tether from the courts, had to do a drug test once a week and was smoking crack?? I didn't know then how strong an addiction really is and couldn't understand. I told him I hated him and told him if he didn't go back to jail he was going to go to rehab or he couldn't live here. The next few days little was said between Gino and I. The night before he died he was sitting in the dark in a room all by himself. He was crying. He wouldn't tell me why but I knew why. He felt so awful, knew he screwed up and didn't know how to go about fixing it all. I never saw anyone that down before. He came upstairs and the last few hours we spent with him alive we watched 'Forensic Files.' He was so smart, he could of been in forensic medicine or been anything he wanted if he didn't choose the drugs. He said he was going to fix things, He's wasn't going to live like this anymore. The next day, instead of going to his probation meeting he skipped it and was found dead all alone in a hotel room by himself. 12 empty packets of Heroin, several syringe needles scattered around and 77.00 dollars was all they found. The police were called in and they called the morgue to come get Gino's body.   I wish I could say it ends there but it doesn't. What happened next is what happens all the time in America, He was taken to the morgue where his body lay for 9 days; until a funeral home called to ask us what we wanted done with our sons body. At that point we didn't even know he had died. Can you imagine the shock??   For 9 days while he lay in a stainless steel drawer, I paced the floor. Gino's Dad spent hours out looking for him in every pawn shop, crack house and abadoned building in Detroit. They treated him like 'just another Junkie.' Well Dammit, this Junkie had a family. A family that loved him with all of their hearts. A family who prayed every night that Gino would get well again. Its been almost four years since that awful day in October of 2002. It's been a hell of a road, a journey I would never wish on anyone. I have spent the last 3 yreas mentoring addicts, educating myself on addiction and learning every thing there is to learn about Heroin.   In the future I would like to get into Methadone Advocacy work. I made a promise the day I buried my son that his life and death would not be in vain. Written By: Karen Ventimiglia aka Lovingmom2433 Mother to ~Gino Ventimiglia~ 10-8-77~10-23-2002