Keizertimes., November 13, 2015, Image 12

PAGE A12, KEIZERTIMES, NOVEMBER 13, 2015
PLAYOFF,
HEROIN,
continued from Page A11 continued from Page A1
Van Cleave unleashed a
long bomb two plays later in-
tended for senior Matt Agui-
lar. Aguilar was under cover by
a Ram defender and stepped
back behind him to get the
catch at the 30-yard line and
ran for a touchdown. The
score closed the gap to 35-14.
After trading punts, Van
Cleave came up with his sec-
ond interception of the night,
but Central Catholic got the
ball back on an interception of
its own.
The half ended as Van
Cleave made his third inter-
ception in the Celtic end zone.
The Rams scored again,
and for their fi nal time, on
their fi rst play after the sec-
ond-half kickoff, expanding
the lead to 42-14.
The Celtics suffered anoth-
er setback three drives later.
After converting on fourth-
and-one with LaCroix Hill
taking the snap and driving
to reset the chains, McNary
pushed all the way to Central
Catholic’s 23-yard line. Facing
third-and-12, Van Cleave es-
caped a pair of tackles on the
scramble before launching the
ball to Aguilar at the four-yard
line. Aguilar got the grab, but
offsetting penalites forced the
down to be replayed.
Another rushing attack by
Van Cleave set the Celtics up
at the 12-yard line, but a hold-
ing penalty sent the team back
to the 28-yard line. A last ditch
attempt at conversion was in-
tercepted at the Ram 5-yard
line.
The Rams’ return posses-
sion sputtered thanks, in large
part, to a sack by Kolby Barker
that left the Portland team at
fourth-and-24.
McNary struck for the fi nal
score of the game on its next
drive. Sparks put the Celtics
on the Rams’ 19-yard line on
the fi rst play. He helped move
the ball to fourth-and-one
giving Hill another chance to
convert and reset the downs
at Central Catholic’s six-yard
line.
Van Cleave put the ball into
the end zone with fourth-
and-inches to go.
she was clean. She was mother
of the year material. But with
heroin, you can’t feel. That’s not
the answer, waiting for a heroin
addict to say, ‘I’m ready.’”
Even as her daughter strug-
gled with various drug addic-
tions for years, Sue kept the
lines of communication open.
In last week’s story, Young
pointed to that as a key.
“The biggest thing is be
involved,” Young said. “Users
are distancing themselves with
the drug. When you see them
spending time alone, bring
them into the family unit again,
especially with juveniles. They
are using that as a replacement
for something lacking, which is
often family. You have to make
sure you’re all together men-
tally.”
Sue had the same approach.
“Building trust and respect
early on is a huge thing,” she
said. “Peggy could talk to me
about anything. Making sure
the kids feel respected so that
they don’t feel they’re being
judged, that’s a big thing in our
house. I don’t agree with the
notion about not being your
kid’s friend. You need to treat
them with respect, like any oth-
er human being. That worked
with my other four kids. They
can tell me anything. It worked.
The drill sergeant thing just
breeds hiding and lying. Then
the parents are the opposition.”
Sue knows Peggy smoked
weed in high school and then
moved on to meth before turn-
ing to heroin. But in the midst
of that, mom was there.
“I made her talk to me ev-
ery day,” Sue said. “Through
all of this, I always made sure
she stayed connected. I listened
without judgement. When she
did meth, I called the police
and she was in jail for a month.
I made her tell me what was
happening, not that it was okay,
but I made sure she stayed con-
nected to me. I listened because
I needed to know and I needed
her to know she could talk to
me about it. There was a lot I
didn’t want to know.”
And yet, even with that
communication, even being
there for her daughter, Sue still
had to deal with the pain of
losing her daughter to drugs. In
some ways, it made her ques-
tion the approach.
“That’s what I felt was right,
but it didn’t change anything.
The outcome was still the
same,” Sue said quietly. “Of
course you want to be there for
your kid and not be judgmen-
tal. It’s not because she was a
bad person. She didn’t grow up
on the streets or in a bad situ-
ation. She was raised in a sub-
urban upper class home. In the
end, heroin is such a bad drug,
there’s nothing that my being
there could change. She was
locked in.”
Though she isn’t certain,
Sue believes her daughter’s fi rst
experience with drugs fueled a
habit that caused escalating de-
struction.
“The ritual of escaping, that
opens the door to all the rest of
it,” she said. “Then your mind
is open to the next thing. You
give yourself permission to do
the next thing. There’s nobody
who did heroin who didn’t do
weed fi rst.
“The solution is keeping
people from doing it the fi rst
time,” Sue added. “Once you’ve
done it the fi rst time, it’s too
late. It’s supposed to be the best
high ever. I don’t want to know.
It’s just a culture as far as escap-
ism. There’s got to be a better
way to cope with whatever it
is.”
Over time, Sue picked up on
cues that indicated when Peggy
was on heroin.
“The fi rst thing I can re-
member in fi guring out she was
doing something was that she
had no concept of time,” Sue
said, remembering one holiday
season. “She would bring the
kids over and would be four
hours late. With school, her kids
were not getting there on time.
She completely lost track of
time. A lot of naps and sleeping
are involved. They steal Q-tips
and lighters. You will see a lot of
Q-tips around your bathroom.
And there are a lot of pick
marks. It was mainly her face. If
she picked, I knew.”
There were also the eyes: di-
lated pupils meant Peggy was
on methamphetamine, while
pinpointed eyes meant an opi-
ate (heroin is an opiate).
“She wouldn’t
have put a
gun to her
head.”
— Sue
Sue, who called anti-drug
efforts like DARE (Drug Abuse
Resistance Education) “worth-
less,” said Peggy told her she got
bacteria from a dirty needle.
“She said she had a blad-
der infection that got into the
kidney and the blood stream,”
Sue said. “If she was not doing
heroin, it wouldn’t have hap-
pened.”
In Peggy’s fi nal year, she was
in and out of the hospital. A
week before Peggy’s death, Sue
discovered used needles in her
closet and realized her daughter
was using again.
“I didn’t know the infec-
tion had come back,” Sue said.
“I didn’t know she was sick
again. So a week before she
died, I kicked her out of the
house. Knowing that she would
die, she still used. It was basi-
cally suicide. It was the air she
breathed. She couldn’t kick the
habit. You just get this tunnel
vision and you don’t see any-
thing else that’s going on.”
After Peggy’s passing, the
family went to the funeral
home and got a rude surprise.
“They said they needed to
do special handling of the body
due to Hepatitis B,” Sue said.
“Never had we heard about
that. I wonder if she got that in
the last week.”
That put the exclamation
point on a sad ending, which
leaves bad memories for the
family.
“The last year of her life was
so traumatic,” Sue said. “That’s
what you’re left with, it’s just
yuck when you see someone so
unhealthy. The Peggy we knew
the last couple of years was a
train wreck.”
Peggy’s passing brought out
anger in her mom.
“I was mad at Peggy,” Sue
said. “When the doctor said
there was 0 percent chance she
would make it, I went straight
to anger. I was mad for a good
month, just fuming. That wasn’t
the Peggy I know. The Peggy I
know, I’m not mad at her.”
Sue said her daughter was an
amazing woman who was great
with crafts – when clean.
“Her kids were everything
to her,” Sue said. “She was al-
ways all about doing craft proj-
ects with them. She was very
creative and so crafty. It was
terrible to take her to a place
like Michael’s, because you
couldn’t get her out of there.
A card from her wasn’t just a
card. When she did birthday
cards, she would do 3-D pop
out things. It would be like a
cityscape. She would sit there
and make signs and cards for
other people.
“Everything she did, she
would do 110 percent,” the
mom added. “She was always
about helping everyone and
taking care of everyone else.
She was a really good person
when she was not clouded up
by her demons.”
Sue is sure the Peggy not
clouded by the demons didn’t
want a tragic ending.
“She did not want to die,”
Sue said. “She wouldn’t have
put a gun to her head.”
NEEDLE,
continued from Page A2
area,” he said.
While law enforcement can
stem, at least temporarily, the
tide of drugs available, Gray said
the real resolutions come from
seeing an addict not just as an
addict but as a person.
“Addicts are not going to go
away, they are our brothers our
sisters, our mothers, our fathers.
We can choose to ignore them
or choose to engage them,”
Gray said.
recent years to see the number
of requests for needle drop box-
es grow, even within the more
rural areas of Benton County.
“We go out and talk with
some of the local town councils
and pretty soon someone asks if
they can get a drop box in their
FLAG,
continued from Page A1
“I’d like to know how long
its been toiling in their mind?
How long had they had it?
How long did it take between
taking the fl ag and starting
to feel some remorse over it?
I want to know if they still
have any connection to Mc-
Nary? What about their guilt
prompted them to send it
back?” Jespersen said.
And he’s not giving up
hope that the former student
comes forward.
“It’s so funny to have a for-
mer student who comes up
and apologizes for the way
they acted in class, but I just
smile because they were 15 at
the time and now they’re off
making their way in the world.
I bet that this would be a simi-
lar situation,” Jespersen said.
Sam Goesch CLU, Agent
Sam Goesch Ins Agcy Inc
3975 River Road North
Keizer, OR 97303
Web: SamGoesch.com Bus: 503-393-6252
1211999
State Farm , Bloomington, IL