Total Views : 90
Since : 6/2/2024 - 7:27 AM

Total Comments : 0

More Angel Features

Coming Soon!

Submitted by: Debbie Evans

My son Jamie was 16 when he was walking home from a shopping center. He cut through the woods as he always did and was followed by a guy. He pulled a gun on Jamie and asked for his drugs and money. Jamie didn’t do drugs then and he threw his wallet onto the ground. He asked Jamie what was in his bag and Jamie told him a mouse. He had gone to the pet store to get a mouse for his pet snake.

That made the guy angry and he shot Jamie in the neck. It nicked his jugular went down his chest nicked his lung and out his back. When the guy bent over to pick up the wallet, Jamie grabbed his neck and ran. He made it back to the shopping center and collapsed in the parking lot in front of the sports bar where he worked. He told me all he could think about was "I don’t want to die" They took him by helicopter to Fairfax Hospital. He almost died during surgery. His heart stopped three times, but he fought to live.

After being in the hospital for a month he became addicted to drugs. We had no idea until he was deep into his addiction. We were just happy he was alive and came home to us.

If you don’t know anything about addiction or drugs you don’t realize it. He was able to hide his addiction from us until he was deep into his addiction. He was in and out of jail and rehab from then on. I put him in the only rehab I could afford three times and it was the only one I could afford. It was a 30 day program and not long enough for heroin addiction.I wish the hospital would have warned us about the possibility of addiction.

Jamie was happy and always surrounded by friends but he struggled with his addiction the rest of his life not to mention PTSD and anxiety issues. The day he died he was texted by an old friend to come to D.C. his guy had it. I assume he meant heroin. Jamie had been doing really well. He had just gotten a new job as an electrician and you could see a difference in him. But he went to D.C. and picked up his friend and he ended up dying from fentanyl poisoning.

There was no investigation, no case. The detective called us and said it doesn’t look good but your son was a drug addict and he did it to himself. His friend was long gone and according to the detective he had cleaned out the truck before calling 911. They left his phone in his truck, didn’t bother to look at it. They didn’t care. Just another drug addict. We went to the hospital and it was during Covid so it was quite the ordeal to finally get to see him.

I was a mess. I was hugging, kissing, and pushing on Jamie begging him to wake up. The doctor and nurses said he was brain dead and I screamed at them, said they were wrong and they were lying. I can’t describe the horrible feeling of not being able to do anything to bring my son back to me.

Jamie had a donor card and ended up saving two people’s lives. I just never thought I would lose Jamie. I never gave up on him and he was so loved by so many people. We had to wait until August to have a Celebration of Life because of Covid and so many people came. Everyone who knew Jamie loved him. All his friends he referred to as his brothers. He was Uncle James to all his friends’s children. He was a big Washington Capital’s fan so he rests in a Capital’s Urn now. He was very intelligent, my tech guy, so good with computers. Always fixed his friends’s computers. He was good at chess, video games, and Dek hockey.

I miss him more with each and every day. I started drawing him in Heaven with Jesus, and surrounded by all his new Angel friends. I see it as honoring him and it helps me get through each day. I would trade my life for his if I could. He will always be my beautiful son. I needed him as much as he needed me. Thank you for letting me share his story. Four years later and I still hear from his friends. He was so loved.