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.
If you or a loved one needs any support, guidance or just wants to talk about addiction, I encourage you to please join the Road To Recovery Discord channel that 
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