Keith McCarthy

Keith Bruce McCarthy

My Golden Boy

Keith was born in 1985, the first boy on my side of the family in 30 whole years. And he was all boy. A delight, a struggle, and a handful. He adored his sister born three years later and together, our life was a mass calendar of sports and activities, nonstop. Both of our children excelled as athletes and had very busy social lives. Cut to about 10th grade when drugs began to invade our home and the downside began. It would take far too much time to go into, but from age 17 to 20, our child went thru 18 rehabs, two arrests, and 90 minutes after leaving his last rehab we got a phone call to rush to a hospital where they told us he was no longer with us. The year 2006 was the beginning, really.Suburbia was in shock. Our children didn't do heroin. That's "for low class people, broken homes, children who don't eat dinner every night together." All of those stereotypes were rampant and brought me to my knees. Heroin had BECOME SUBURBIA. In shock and absolutely devastated, as we roll into 13 years already without our beautiful boy, I see the ache is far,far worse and the longing is greater. I don't much like my new life but I do it for my daughter and my husband. And I remember the child who lit up our world and wish every single day we could go back. Nibble, Nibble, Crunch...