Joel died today of a drug overdose. Or, to be politically correct, from “substance abuse”. How can you remain “politically correct” over the death of a twenty-six-year-old due to horrendous choices? Joel was Filipino, a close friend of our son Chris, and was known to us since childhood. Joel left behind a four-year-old daughter by his fiancée.
Like all human beings culled in their prime, I could pretend how wonderful he was, how smart he was and what a bright future lay ahead of him. In my anger, my thoughts turn from a sweet, respectful, softly spoken teen to a walking zombie one minute, a raging bull the next.
You could tell from his behaviour whether he was holding off on drugs—he would be sullen and glazed-eyed—but when on drugs a bouncing personality full of overwhelming mirth. When recovering from temporary withdrawal hands shaking, shouting, cursing at a voice within him, his stare pierced through you. All this obtained from a freely available float of drugs in a university, where the faculty closed its eyes, denied, and never intervened. Publicity would ruin business.
How does a kid brought up in a circle of loving parents within a close network of kin, who lodges at home while attending university, come to this end?
As bystanders, attending all family gatherings—Filipinos seem to have these affairs weekly—my family could see the creeping change in Joel soon after he left high school. Our son Chris stuck with him to the end. No other ‘good’ friends did.
You could ask for no greater love than from a Filipina mother toward her brood. Perhaps that love killed. No matter how often my wife talked to her, bringing home what Chris passed on to us about Joel, his mum refused to listen. Through all Joel’s life, she poured love on top of love onto him like syrup over a pancake. Joel absorbed it all, abusing that love by manipulation, charm and lying to get his way. When eventually those tactics wore thin, he would use violence—either toward her or smashing things in the house to intimidate.
His mother’s course was always to appease. To preserve peace in the home. To resort to prayers. In the end, what did all this achieve? An early funeral with all its hysteria.
What would any of us have done in the circumstance? Lay down strict rules? Summon the police and have him taken away? Put him in rehab? Refuse to pay his tuition until he overcame his habit? Force him to leave university and its pernicious influence? We could all speculate.
Love kills. The more unconditional, the more destructive.
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