| "Parents want son's death to make a difference" |
| Reprinted from the Canton Citizen Article dated October 2, 2003 by Beth Erickson |
| You are always a joy to behold. A real charmer. Always a smile. Writing this letter as your birthday approaches helps me to keep all these memories in perspective and to look into your wonderful future. This is just the beginning, but you will always be my baby boy. I want you to know that you have given me much more than I could ever give to you and I thank you and I thank God for the chance to have and know you every day. I can't wait to hear you say "Mommy, I love you." We have so much to look forward to, my smiley boy. To Joshua, from his mother, just before his 1st birthday in October 1984 On September 19th, Nineteen year old Joshua Knochin died of a drug overdose, tragically cutting short a young life----a life full of promise when a new mother wrote her tender message of love to the child she cradled in her arms nearly 20 years ago. And although grieving the loss of their child, June Knochin and her husband Joe, want Joshua's death to serve as a wake-up call to other parents and their children ---- "so just maybe, another family will be spared this pain." They also want people to remember their son for the life he lived, rather than for the way he died. "Am I saying my son was perfect---that he didn't make mistakes? No. But there was so much about Josh that was good and kind and caring. I want people to know---to remember who he was." Joshua was born on October 28, 1983. He was his parents' first child; he later had two siblings, Jeff now 17 and Alison, now 14. As a baby, Joshua had boundless energy, coupled with an insatiable curiosity. ....Even our battle of wills as you tip the dog's water over and dump the plant's dirt on the ground for the 20th time today, I must admit I'm never bored. You are like a little wind up toy from the moment you're awake, always on the move. Breathing hard with tongue stuck out in deep concentration. You were born with a personality and mind of your own. As soon as he could walk, the Knochins' firstborn would stand at the door---eagerly watching the outside world, not wanting it to pass him by. As her little boy grew, June said she realized that he was also a very determined child. "He was always the first to do something." she said. "And wanted to learn a new activity---like soccer or golf or hockey---he just did it. And he did it well." When he attended the Kennedy School, Joshua was an A student, but his early success was tempered with the discovery that he suffered from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Throughout elementary school, despite his learning disability, Joshua excelled. It wasn't until middle school---when it was believed he no longer had a learning disabiltiy---that things began to unravel. "He started to struggle." June recalled, "and became the class clown to compensate for not doing well in school." She remembers how his failure in school was damaging to her son's self-esteem. It wasn't until years later when June discovered it was during Joshua's "frustrating middle school years" that he first experimented with drugs. Joshua was re-tested for a learning disablity in the eighth grade and went back to the resource room. He continued with and ed. plan at Canton High School, where teacher Sharon Kramberg "started a miraculous turn-around for Josh" When Kramberg left CHS, her replacement, Sharon Matthews, "helped keep him on the right path." said June. "She saw the good in him. She's the reason he graduated (CHS Class of 2002)." But it was not easy. "Josh had a very hard time in school during his freshman and sophomore years." his mother recalled. "And because of his grades, he couldn't play sports." By junior year, he had rebounded academically and was eligible to play on the CHS golf team. He co-captained the team when he was a senior. He also got his license, his first job and went to his first prom that year. "Things were good." June said. But the fact that poor grades had kept her son from playing a sport he loved brought tears to her eyes. "Golf could have made him turn away from drugs." she said. After graduation, Joshua enrolled at Massasoit Community College, pursuing a career in criminal law. "He wanted to be a counselor and help kids." said June. "He went to school with longtime friends Genna Shapiro and Krissy Lawless. They did homework together and looked out for each other. He would have done anything for his friends." Joshua completed his freshman year with exemplary grades. "He got all A's and B's." June said with pride. But it was this past summer, with a successful year of college behind him and his future looking bright, when Joshua made a choice that would ultimately take his life. In June, Joshua became ill with what his mother believed was a virus. "I took him to the doctor, who prescribed antibiotics." But he didn't get better. "He had sweats, fever, chills---every bone in his body hurt." said June. "and then he just told me. "I tried Oxycontin. I have to stop it." June remembers telling her son, "I will save you." But she also remembers Joshua's prophetic response: "This drug has killed me. I'm already dead. All I think about every second of every day is this drug." Joshua spent three days in de-tox at NORCAP Lodge, but it took a full month before he was symptom free. He attended counseling sessions with both a psychiatrist and a therapist, three days a week. He also began taking Prozac, anti-anxiety medication and sleeping pills---all prescribed. "He just started to seem normal this past month." said June. "But then he started school---always a hard time for Josh, because he has to face his demons, his inadequacies---and he missed a couple of his counseling appointments." In one instance, June said Joshua was sick; in the other, the doctor had a scheduling conflict. Whatever the reason, it was the longest he has gone without the counseling he so desperately needed. June remembers how on Thursday, September 18th, Joshua had asked his mother to "pick up Burger King for dinner" and how she told him she would rather cook a special dinner for him. She remembers overhearing Joshua make plans to meet someone and how he left the house for a while with two friends, but not before she questioned him----"What's going on Josh?' She remembers cooking dinner---spending hours in the kitchen, "only leaving briefly to pick up her daughter at cheerleading." And she remembers that around 7 pm two of Joshua's friends ran up the stairs from his basement bedroom screaming. "Something's wrong with Josh!" She will never forget finding her son "sitting up on his futon, blue and not breathing." She rememebers dialing 911, as she frantically breathed life into him. "When the EMT's arrived, they administered an opiate blocker." said June. "Because by then we knew that he had used a morphine patch. His body was still looking for the Oxycontin it craved." Joshua was taken by ambulance to Norwood Hospital at about 7:30---"I told him I loved him and his father and I would be right there, following the ambulance." June said Joshua was released from the hospital at about 10:30. "He came home, but decided to spend the night at a friend's house." she said. "The last time I talked to him was 12:52. He called to tell me he needed his Advair----Josh has asthma. I told him I had packed it in his bag." After a restless night spent worrying about her son, June called to check on Joshua the next morning and was told he was still sleeping when his friends left for school. She and Joe then met with Joshua's counselor to determine the best course of action for their son. When they returned home around 1 pm, they discovered it was too late; Joshua had already lost his battle with drugs. MAKING A DIFFERENCE Until a year ago---"when he started going out with his girlfriend, Genna"----June Knochin was still tucking her son into bed every night. A stay-at-home mom most of her life, June said she was also in constant communication with Joshua--"Sometimes we talked on the phone 20 times in a single day. And we never hung up without saying "I love you." We were that close." June recalled how Joshua was brutally honest---"Once, when he was in middle school, he told me he was planning to "sneak out the window tonight and go rollerblading." Acknowledging that she had first learned that Joshua used pot when he was a freshman, June said he told her a year ago that he had tried other drugs even earlier, when he was in middle school. "He told me he was sorry he had messed up---and sorry for scaring me." But being close to her son and keeping tabs on him----"I was all over him, always finding out who he was with and where he was going" ----- wasn't enough. "It's just way too easy for kids to get drugs." she said. "And it's not always from a dealer on a street corner or in a dark alley. Often it's from their parents' medicine cabinets. We think we're protected from drugs in Canton---that it's an inner city problem. It's not. It's here, and it's scary. So many kids are doing it, you would be shocked." June said the schools need to work harder to make kids aware of the "dangerousness of the drugs out there." She believes someone probably handed Joshua the Oxycontin at a party. "Once he took it, he was hooked." she said. "Josh had tremendous willpower---he was able to quit smoking---but he was no match for the Oxycontin. It's instantly addictive. It tells your body it wants more and more until it kills you. It was one battle he just couldn't win." She also blames what she feels is soceity's overall dependence on drugs. "We all take too many drugs," she said. "We're bombarded with commercials that advertise a magic pill for everything. Kids see their parents use drugs and they think it's okay." June said parents should try to "catch the problem when their kids are in the middle school. And if they go down the wrong path, don't fool yourself into thinking it's going to be easy. Pot can lead to more dangerous drugs, and no parent knows for sure if that will happen to their child." June also laments the fact that there is "no safe place for kids to go and just hang out in this town. Years ago we were raising money for a teen center---what happened to that?" Last Wednesday, June and Joe Knochin buried their oldest child in Franconia, New Hampshire. "It's a beautiful spot in the mountains where Josh spent many happy times as a little boy." June said. "Many members of the family are buried there, and I didn't want him to be alone." June said she is certain her son would want her to share his story. "Josh would want me to tell the truth." she said. "By telling the truth, maybe what happened to him will save another child's life. He wanted desperately to help other kids. Maybe he still can." |
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