November 23, 2016
THE POLK COUNTY PULSE
25
I REMEMBER EDDIE (or TEEN LIVES MATTER) It has been many years now, but I remember it almost as if it had happened yesterday. Eddie was 19 years old when he took a .22 rifle, held it to his head, and pulled the trigger. The emotions still run deep when I allow myself to think about it. I always wonder if there had been something that I could have done that would have changed it for Eddie. Did I care for him enough? Did I let him know that I cared? I will never know the the answer to these questions, but there are some things that I do know, things that were forever impressed in my life on that afternoon when the phone range and the voice at the other end said “Brother Gene! Come quick! Eddie shot himself.” Eddie Serrano was a tall, skinny kid who just did not fit in anywhere. He was not an athlete, not particularly good-looking, and the girls just did not give him a second look. He was not an out-going kid and had very few friends. And while it is true that many young people have these same kinds of problems and do not shoot themselves, one did and that was too many. Nobody ever said that suicide was a good answer, but it does happen...all too often with young people. Eddie was a product of a single parent home, and a very strong and domineering mother who never really understood her son. Eddie gave up. Every time he attempted to make a decision relating to himself she would intervene and shut that particular door. The final straw came when this 19 year old young man attempted to make the decision to join the Marines. Somehow she shut the door on that quickly. At that point Eddie simply felt totally defeated and gave up on ever having any control over his own life. Eddie had threatened to kill himself. It may not have been serious in the beginning, but it became so. His mother told her doctor of Eddie’s threats and the good doctor decided that Eddie was bluffing, and told her to call his bluff. “If this is what you want, then go ahead.” She did and He did. When I arrived at the house Eddie was lying on the floor of his bedroom, a pool of blood under his head. He was still breathing, but barely. He died. Mother cried. Eddie left a note on a large poster board and stood it up on his dresser so that his mother could not miss seeing it. In the note he told his mother to “ask brother Gene why I have done this.” She did not ask. I learned something of huge importance for parents: this youth, this young person, was a LIFE and had all of the hopes and dreams that we ever had. This mother never understood Eddie...I am not sure that she really tried. I never knew where the father was in all of this. Eddie never mentioned him. In a culture such as ours it is entirely possible that he never knew who his father was. TEEN LIVES MATTER! Please get hold of this: God designed the family, every part of it, and when it is operated according to His design it works. God’s design gives a young person the guidance, the strength, the value system, that he/she needs in order to make life work! When a young person chooses death over life he/she did not wake up one morning and say, “I think I will kill myself today.” Someone, and perhaps many of us, have failed to do our job by the design. And sometimes the consequences stay with us all of the days of our lives. “What could I have done?” comes back to all of us who have had our lives ripped by young people who could have “made it” if we had been there for them. TEEN LIVES MATTER! I conducted Eddie’s funeral service. Many youth were present. Many years have passed. I dare say that their lives, OUR lives, were touched deeply and that the “touch” remains until this day. My name is Gene Stacks and I approve this message. PAID ADVERTISEMENT