Andrew knew...

One of my daughters recently began reading from Andrew's sporadic journal and notepads in which he jotted down thoughts in random fashion. One statement gave her some peace. He said his sisters helped build up his confidence. But in another paragraph he wrote his thoughts on the medication "Resperdol" or something like that. I think that is what he was prescribed at the mental health hospital. He had read up on the side effects, which were substantial. He didn't want to take it.

I guess it's one thing when a person is mentally disabled and doesn't really know what is going on, but that wasn't the case here--he did his own research. He could tell you all the reasons why he was or was not going to do something.

Andrew was fully aware that he was struggling and worked his own program: he exercised every day, ate fresh veggies with lots of beans and brown rice and whole grains and lean meat, and cut down on his vices. He quit smoking, a habit he had taken up either during his senior year or after high school, and limited drinking alcohol. I think he realized it was bad to drink hard liquor, but for a while whiskey had been his companion. But the effects it had on him were ugly. When I saw him, he would drink O'Douls, if he wanted beer, or just water.

He read a lot, and a lot of variety. He had history books, the bible, cookbooks, sports books, materials on gardening, car repair, and more in his room. He really studied the biblical passages and decided to fast for Lent this year. He quit eating meat for the duration of Lent. He went through a self-imposed cleanse and was the picture of physical health.

We hadn't been attending church services for many years, although I raised the kids in the Catholic faith. I wasn't sure why he decided to fast for Lent, but he was going all out, doing it for days at a time in the old-fashioned style...not just skipping meat on Fridays, but fasting. Now we wonder if he had been preparing to leave this earth for several months prior.

He ate some barbecued tri-tip on Easter Sunday. I talked to him on Monday evening and asked him about it. Had he enjoyed it? Yes, he assured me. His dad's barbecue was always delicious.

He had called me that night about 6:05 p.m. when I was getting ready for work. I didn't see the call until I was at my work station about 7:00 p.m. I saw I had a message and listened to it. He wanted to talk to me, he said. I called him back right away. When I asked him what he wanted to talk to me about, he seemed to hesitate.

"Nothing. No reason."

I sensed he had simply changed his mind. So I talked to him for a bit, drawing him out and sharing with him, gently. A little bell was going off in my head, but it was faint and I didn't really know what to make of it. I told Andrew I loved him and hung up. That was the last time we talked.

Andrew's essay: "Why I Love Sports Writing"

Andrew wrote this essay for the Knight-Ridder scholarship application. When I read it, I can hear his voice, feeling his enthusiasm, and sense his humility. It is him...the Andrew we all love and miss so very much. I am so proud to share it with you.

--Kathleen

Why I Love Sports Writing

By Andrew Ramos

Ever since I was a little kid, I would wake up in the morning and wait eagerly for the Tribune to get to my house. When the newspaper would finally arrive, I would run out into the cold morning fog, grab the paper and run back into the house. I would tear the sports section out of the middle of the paper, and I would give the rest of the paper to my mom so she could read the daily news. I used to and still do love any opportunity I get to read all about the magical sports hero’s of the world. When I first started writing for the school newspaper in my junior year of high school, I was amazed to find that I had a knack for writing the paper’s sports articles. I like to say my writing ability should be credited to osmosis because of the fact that I’ve read so much sports material.

I have always been among the top writers in my class, routinely getting the highest grades on all of my essays and reports. When I started writing for the school newspaper, I found that I was not only adequate at covering and writing sports articles, but also that I enjoyed the whole process more than anything I had ever done in school. My mom writes for the local Atascadero News, and every now and then Editor Lon Allan asks me to go out and do little “Street Scenes” for the paper.

I have written two stories for the former Atascadero Gazette and I was going to start covering more sports to help them out, but nothing worked out when the paper condensed to two papers instead of five.

I guess the best way to sum up why I want to pursue a career in journalism is that it is the profession, out of all professions I’ve heard of, that I feel would give me the most enjoyable life I could possibly have. Sports writing is one of my two passions, while the other is simply playing the sports that I love to write and read about. I hope and dream that someday I’ll be a professional baseball player, but this year in football I broke my hand in the third game of the year against Righetti, and it was kind of a wake-up call for me that, “Hey, its very likely you are not going to be a professional athlete.” But it gets better.

I came back for the last two games of the season to play against our arch rivals, the Paso Robles Bearcats, and I played my butt off in what was to be a 35-0 loss. Before the game, my coaches were secretly in doubt of my ability to come back from my injury, of my ability But after the game, my head coach commended me in front of the whole team and all of the coaches for playing so tough and never giving up, for trying to provide any spark I could, but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. I was consoled by the fact that I would get to play at least one CIF football game, and I wanted nothing more than to win that game and three more games after it to capture the championship.

We had to travel down to Inglewood to play an undefeated football team, the Inglewood Sentinels, a team who had just been trampling opponents all year long and had twice scored 76 points in a single football game. I let my team know I expected nothing less than everything it had, and even if we did lose, we would lose as warriors. We went into the game 3-8, and I can see how some players would want to just pack it in and go home. But not me.

Inglewood had two offensive lineman that were 6 feet, 7 inches tall and 325 pounds. The rest of their line wasn’t far behind those two in size and the team had four running backs (including the quarterback) who had NFL type speed. All of my team wanted to sit around and just let ourselves be beat before we ever set foot on the field, but a few of my fellow seniors and myself got our team ready to play and we voiced our expectations.

The first half of the football game was beautiful. We held their offense to 8 measly points and our own non-existent offense somehow managed 7 points of their own. I had 8 first half tackles myself and I was playing the game of my life. There’s just something about adrenaline and I was so woozy at the end of the first half that when I was checking the scoreboard for down-and-distance on their last first-half drive, I could no longer see the lights of the scoreboard. They were just a big blurry, jumbled mess of lights and all of my energy and adrenaline left me to do nothing but give the absolute best I had.

At halftime, my whole team just acted like they were kind of shocked that we were doing as well as we were, but I tried to rally them, to make them believe that we were good enough to win the ballgame, and I feel that we were on the way to a victory. And then, when I jogged out onto the field to start the second half the scoreboard was easily observed again and I was no longer woozy from the blows my head had absorbed. I was ready to play.

We kicked off to Inglewood to start the half, so I went out on defense after I kicked off. Then, Inglewood ran a sweep to the weak side, my side of the formation, and I sprinted up and attacked the pulling lineman. One of the Sentinel’s halfbacks apparently didn’t want to block me on that play, so he dove at my feet and grabbed my left ankle. Well, I was running at full speed, so with my left leg being held, I was falling forward and my right leg was way out in front of me. One of Inglewood’s lineman hit me right as I planted my right foot, and his weight plus my weight, including both of our momentum’s, proceeded to snap my right fibula near my ankle.

The Sentinels broke loose for a 65-yard touchdown on the very next play and my team ended up losing 35-21. I rode the bus home because I hoped that maybe I just had a bad ankle sprain, but the next day X-rays revealed a break that ended up requiring seven screws and a metal plate. I’m still on the road to recovery right now, but I hope I’ll be able to play in the high school baseball season later on in the school year.

Now, I know that whoever is reading this is probably very mad that it is so long, but I just wanted to include this story to represent my love for sports and my zest for writing about them. For the past four years of my life, my life has been all about playing as many sports as I could and doing as well as I possibly could have in school, so I feel that leaving this information about myself out of this essay would have been cheating myself.

If I was asked what my career goals were, I would say winning the World Series with a California team and then going into journalism after that. But I now realize that you can’t control everything that happens to you, so you have to be prepared for the worst should it decide to start following you around.

My goal in journalism is just to keep working and writing for whomever will hire me and then my ultimate goal is to one day write for Sports Illustrated or ESPN: The Magazine. I get my Sports Illustrated magazines on Thursday’s and barring an overload of homework, I have usually read them cover to cover by the time Monday rolls around.

Every one of the sports I have played involved the whole team being committed to a common goal and we have usually done very well. I feel that my leadership skills, derived from and kindled through my involvement in sports, will be an asset for any company that I will ever work for.

How I got the news...

I had just gotten off the night shift at 7 a.m. and was in bed, sleeping hard, when I heard the doorbell ring. No way was I getting up for some salesman or religious peddler! I was so exhausted.

Suddenly there was banging on my bedroom window, and I screamed! My mind was too fuzzy to think, but was someone breaking in? No, they were calling my name: "Open the door. It's the Sheriff's Department." Huh? What did I do? Am I in trouble at work?
When I got to the door and opened it, there was a Deputy Sheriff and also someone else I knew...Melody, a sister of my ex-sister-in-law.

"You need to call Bill right away," she advised. "It's about Andrew." I flashed back to when Andrew was 2 years old and she had been there in our lives...trying to get him to talk. The Deputy said something about "so sorry" but I wasn't sure about what. I just knew, when they say that, it's serious.

I think when I called Bill I got ahold of Jayne, my daughter. She talked in a very controlled, but tight voice as she filled me in. Andrew was at the hospital on life-support machines. Hurry, but don't be reckless, she cautioned.

I sat down at the dining room table and sobbed. Taylor held me. I called Lee to come home. I didn't want to drive myself the 40 miles to the hospital. When Lee got home, we went together.
I listened to the message Bill had left me just minutes after he'd found Andrew lying on the floor. I tried to prepare my self for what I would see, what was to come...Oh God, how will we cope with this?

Survivor therapy

Several people suggested I go to grief therapy following my son's death from suicide. Hospice offers group and individual therapy, so I called and scheduled a session six weeks or so ago. My fiancee, Lee and his son Taylor and I have attended three sessions so far, and I am hoping to bring Bill, my ex, and my daughters Jayne and Rebecca to future sessions. I had one scheduled for last Monday and Bill and Jayne were planning to go, then the therapist had to go out of town unexpectedly, so I will have to try again. It's so hard to get everyone's schedules together, but they won't go on their own. It's like trying to get someone to AA: the window of opportunity is very small and you have to get to a meeting when they are in the mood, or it closes. But I will keep going, join the group if I can, and lead by example...it's the only way I can help my family. It has already helped Lee and Taylor. I think it has helped me some...

Mostly my therapy has been in reaching out to friends and acquaintances through Facebook. I have shared with some old friends and they have shared back. Private emails, instant messages, daily posts and threads all help. Even the silly games provide a good distraction. I am doing more things with friends than I used to. I hiked today with my sister-in-law. I've gone to the gym with a co-worker. I had lunch and browsed fabric stores and art galleries with a friend. At my son's memorial service I promised so many people we would get together for lunch and so forth, and I am slowly following through.

It's comforting to know that Andrew shared so many of the activities I am doing now...he loved to hike around the trails in SLO county. He and my daughters lived in Los Osos for a year together and he explored the nearby state parks that I am frequenting. He enjoyed art, and he even bought some fabric for me as a Christmas present one year...I used some of it for some quilt blocks. He cooked, and I bought him some cookbooks. I am trying to grow tomatoes, while Jaynie has been keeping Andrews tomatoes and zucchini and the rest of his plants alive for the past 4 months.

Andrew was a worker, so when I am doing a chore or cooking or recreating, it is impossible to do so without some memory of him. I try to honor his memory in performing each task.
I am so glad that his life was full of good things...his mental illness hadn't destroyed his basic lifestyle. In my work I see people who live on the streets like animals. They are lost souls. At least Andrew had a roof over his head, his own room, a job to do and people around him who loved him. He had his father, his sisters, his cousins and me. He also had a huge extended family who all looked upon him as a favorite son.

We couldn't save Andrew from himself, but we loved him and tried to reassure him every day. He scared us...we all knew he was a danger to himself. It's just that we thought we could talk to him and straighten him out, but it only helped temporarily. He needed medication and professional therapy, and I couldn't make him get it. In that, I failed, and I have a lot of remorse in that failing.

Therapy didn't have a chance to work...

My son Andrew committed suicide on April 14, 2009, six years after his first major psychotic break. His father found him at home, lying on the floor. At first he thought Andrew was sleeping. Andrew had suffocated himself while his father was in taking a shower. He had just finished breakfast. It was two days after Easter, and Andrew had fasted and given up meat for Lent. When I wrote the following essay, I had just gone back to work after being off for two weeks to plan and hold his memorial services and take care of matters with the family. I knew I would be writing about this and sharing with others about my wonderful, inspirational son, Andrew. What level of sharing remains to be seen. Now four months has already passed and life has resumed in its familiar fashion. Most people think that I am doing okay. I am, but Andrew is constantly in my thoughts. We all miss him...

April 30, 2009 -- I always dreamed of writing the Great American Novel…but recently I read in “People Magazine” that my idea has been done by Jeffrey Zaslow with “The Girls from Ames”. Seems his non-fiction book is about some girlfriends who grew up in a small town and then all went their separate ways, but kept in touch from time to time as they go through life’s joys and agonies. They are all very different, yet very connected to each other.

Really, that was always my idea…to write a semi-fictional tale using my real-life friends from high school as character models, and explore our stories of marriages, births, divorces, illnesses, deaths, successes and failures. Relate how our lives had taken different paths, yet we shared common feelings and experiences. A few of us are still married, some are divorced, single parents, in a new relationship, have become grandparents, stepparents, or are childless. One went to Hollywood and is now a successful choreographer-director, never married. Another manages a lucrative title insurance company and has a beautiful home in Santa Barbara, but no children. I raised my children in the same town that I grew up in, then moved to the “big city” 20 miles away after getting divorced and started a new job and a new life. Many of my friends have made and lost small fortunes and started over. We’ve lost parents, brothers and sisters, and a few children. I started to outline the characters for my novel a long while ago after I attended a Writer’s Conference at the local community college. That was back in the early ‘90’s, and then I got sidetracked with life…my three children, my husband, extended family, work and the rest…so my novel went on the backburner.

Fast-forward 19 years and here I am, two weeks after the suicide-death of my beloved 26 year-old son and four days after his memorial service in which I was reunited with all my old girlfriends, trembling at the thought of resuming life-as-usual. They all called, emailed, sent flowers and cards and attended the service. There were so many people there that I only had a few moments to greet each person and didn’t even have a conversation with most of them…but they were there, and we were flooded with memories of the times when our paths had crossed over the years…memories of weddings, baby showers, our children playing sports, attending school together, sharing birthday parties and that great big graduation shindig that we parents had planned and prepared for three years leading up to the event.

I remember thinking as I greeted each person and group in the reception line following the memorial service that this was like my life, or Andrew’s, passing before me. His first grade teacher was there, his youth coaches, high school coaches, our neighbors, old friends, new friends from work, former employers, our huge extended family, ex-inlaws, people from church, school, and Andrew’s friends or their parents.

Even my friends that didn’t have any children still ached for my loss in the same way those with children felt it. They had nieces and nephews who had known Andrew. At this point in our lives, several close friends of mine had lost a loved one and we had grieved that person together. It was a familiar drill. We suffered through divorce one by one, and then celebrated new relationships. Some had battled cancer and as 49-year-olds, we were all experiencing pre-menopause, high cholesterol and weight gain. I had led the way by having a mild heart-attack at age 47.

My friends’ brought their families to the memorial: not just husbands and children, but their brothers, sisters, parents…whole families were there to grieve with my family. We pulled together, my ex-husband, my two daughters, my nephews that lived like Andrew’s brothers with him, my fiancée and his son, my former mother-in-law, our brothers and sisters, the cousins—everyone came together to honor my son and celebrate his accomplishments in life. A couple of my nieces had taken over the planning for the memorial service. My sister-in-law read Andrew’s obituary during the service. Our lifelong friends and the parents of Andrew’s best childhood buddy organized the potluck luncheon in the park. Everyone came together to support us. They all loved my son.

Writing was a passion Andrew and I shared. I had always wanted to be a writer and landed a job with the local small-town newspaper where I got to write features and do publicity articles. One aspect of my job was writing obituaries. I have written several for various members of our families who have passed on: grandparents, my parents, two uncles. Most recently, last June, actually, I had written one for my sister-in-law, the one that had become my ex-husband’s companion after her husband died. Preparing the obituary notice was one thing I could do for them during a difficult time, and after all, I knew her as well as anyone did. So I sat down with her mother and we reminisced about her daughter. It was like old times, talking and laughing about the silly things that happened with the children and family. We all share so many of the same memories. It wasn't so difficult a thing for me to do, and it was really rather therapeutic.

I wrote Andrew’s obituary. As I typed his life story, I remember thinking that it should be a hard thing for a mother to do, but it wasn’t. It was easy to think of things to say about him, and I wouldn’t have passed on that assignment for anything. As I typed his story into the computer, I remember thinking how I was on my own with this assignment…usually Andrew had proofread my other obituaries prior to publication. Oh, the irony! So I asked Rebecca and Jayne to do the proofing...

Andrew was a gifted writer in grade school, and in high school he joined the school newspaper and began writing sports articles. He had played sports all his life. He was a star growing up in youth sports. In high school, he might not have been the most valuable player or the most talented, but he was always the team motivator. He was often selected as Most Inspirational. He wrote sports stories from a players’ point of view.

He applied for a scholarship from the county-wide newspaper and won, inspiring him to study journalism at the community college. He wrote features and sports articles there, ending up as the Sports Editor in his second year. While still attending college, he landed a job with the bigger county paper and began to really delve into the craft of writing to meet a deadline, being accurate and hooking the reader all at the same time. “A beacon of concentration in a swirl of confusion. That was Andrew,” wrote his sports editor in a note to me and the family after learning of Andrew’s death. It was a profound statement, and we used it on the funeral cards. The statement seemed perfect when paired with a painting Andrew had recently completed of a ship in the midst of a storm.

Ironically, it was his inability to focus any longer that led to Andrew’s suicide. I scooped up his notepads from his bedroom a few days after he died and skimmed over the writings. He had written about all the different thoughts that were bombarding him all the time. He tried to block them out, stay busy doing projects, push all the thoughts away, but it was too much. He tried to keep up with his dad, who typically worked seven days a week. He finally was able to outwork the old man, and after the workday, he did projects at home. He repainted his truck—twice. He built planters and did all the yardwork, constructed arbors, planted a garden. He was exhausted and wrote that he just wanted to be able to focus on one thing at a time. He wanted some peace.

My husband and I had separated following the death of his brother, Andrew’s uncle, who had died in a tragic car accident in 2000. My ex and his sister-in-law turned to each other for support and ended up together. Their relationship provided her three boys a semblance of familiarity and normalcy, in a weird way. Bill became their father-figure and Andrew became their brother. They looked up to him and adored him.

It was all sort of Jerry Springer-ish, and may have detracted from us being able to really understand what was going on with Andrew. The illness hit Andrew in his early 20's -- classic timing, I'm told. While attending college, he had begun to exhibit signs of paranoia. He was going to school fulltime and had landed this great part-time job with the newspaper. It was like a dream -- perfect steps in his plan for the future. Then, eight months or so into it, he just quit…walked away, dropped out of college mid-semester, and said he just wanted to work with his dad in the family plastering construction business. I was devastated because Andrew had seemed to be on the path to success and I didn’t want to see him go into a downward spiral. I knew he was having some emotional conflicts, but who wouldn’t given the circumstances? He was worried about me, his dad, his sisters, and his cousins. He tried to be the perfect son, and mostly he succeeded.

But then he had a real psychotic break. He locked into a total paranoid mentality where he thought people were coming after him and trying to kill him. He mentioned some real-life characters from junior high and high school that he had had some confrontations with, so it didn’t seem that far-fetched. But we could tell he really needed some intervention. Someone directed me to French Hospital and, once Andrew agreed to go, a mental health crisis person met with him for an evaluation. She recommended that we take him to a mental hospital in Ventura and made the arrangements. I would have to drive him there as soon as possible.

I remember going to the house and packing a backpack for Andrew. My older daughter Jayne helped me as we humored Andrew’s paranoid comments and tried to mask our sense of urgency. He was looking out his bedroom window, scanning the cars that drove by on the roadway out front. Someone was coming for him—Mexican gangsters. They were going to shoot him. He named the boy he had been in a fight with in 8^th grade. He was scared to death. We were too, but we tried to hide that from him. We were steering him down the sidewalk to the car when suddenly he turned and wanted to go back into the house to get his running shoes.

“Its okay, Andrew, your flip-flops are fine. Just please get in the car,” I pleaded.

“No, Mom, I need my shoes. If they come after me, I can’t run fast in these,” He replied. Jayne and I exchanged looks, and we dashed back into the house with Andrew to change his shoes. I didn’t breathe until I finally had him in the car and we hit the freeway for our two-plus-hour drive to Ventura.

When we arrived at the hospital, it was dark and the front doors were already locked. There was a bell with a sign saying to ring it, and I did. The person who opened the door for us was a Hispanic janitor, much to my dismay. I was afraid Andrew would make some sort of Mexican-gangster connection and refuse to enter, but miraculously he didn’t. I let out a huge sigh of relief. They would help him here, I just knew it. Some doctors would fix him and he would go back to being my wonderful son on his way to a promising career. I stayed with Andrew through the intake process, then finally it was time for me to go. They had taken his shoe laces and issued him some hospital clothing. They gave him a toothbrush. I hugged him tight and promised him everything would be okay. Trust them, I begged. They will help you. Bill had arranged for a motel room for me in Ventura, but I cancelled it and drove home that night. I cried the whole way home.

The staff told us we would need to leave Andrew there for four days. On the last day we could come for a family counseling session. We got to talk to Andrew on the phone a couple of times before we went to pick him up, and he cried. He was so scared there. People were messing with him. A hospital worker stole his toothbrush. Other patients were so weird and they drooled. No one looked normal like Andrew. "Please come pick me up," he begged us.

We drove down in separate cars on Sunday. Bill smoked and didn’t want to inconvenience me. I also suspected my sister-in-law might not appreciate us riding together. Oh, brother! When we arrived we had to hunt for a parking spot because the parking lot was full. I ended up parking on a maintenance road above the facility behind a car that displayed a license plate frame with the statement, “You’re just jealous because I can hear voices!” Fat chance! I laughed that nervous kind of laugh you do when you are just about to crack.

We went to the family session. We saw the other patients. In our meeting with the doctor, he simply said Andrew had had a psychotic episode and would need further counseling by a psychiatrist. He said he could take it on, but due to the distance, he recommended we find a doctor in our area and gave us several references.

Andrew said he never wanted to go back to that hospital. We didn’t ever want to have to take him back. It took us three months to get in to see a local doctor. In the first session, Andrew made his case for all the reasons he didn’t want to continue with therapy, and so he didn’t. Actually, I think he might have gone to one more session. The psychiatrist was, of course, intrigued with Andrew, who he said was intelligent, good looking, athletic and yet, had this one tiny thing that no one could see by looking at him that was off…fascinating! I got Andrew to go see one other psychiatrist, a woman, but after two sessions he was done. He wasn’t going where ever the counseling tried to take him. He didn’t feel safe. Back at the Portola house where he had grown up, or working with his father, that was the only time he could feel secure…not entirely, but reasonably.