A week before Cory died, he told me that he was going to help one of his friends move to Arkansas. I didn't want him to go, but he was 18 and I couldn't stop him. The friend that he was going with had a bad reputation where we live and I knew that nothing good was going to come from this trip. On Oct. 18th, Cory called me to tell me that he loved me and that he would be home that following week. On Oct 19th we received a call that Cory had died. According to his friend, they had not done anything the night before. We received a phone call two weeks later by someone that kept in touch with Cory's friend to tell us that someone put methadone in Cory's drink for a joke. They did not mean for him to die. The sheriff’s office would not do anything until the autopsy results came back; that took 5 months and everyone had changed their stories by that time.

We miss Cory and I still cry everyday. I may not always have been proud of his choices, but I never stopped being proud to be his mother. As I reflect on Cory's life, I realize that I received a lot of things from Cory that I never expected and I expected a lot of things that I never received. Cory taught me the true meaning of unconditional love and true sacrifice. He is and always will be loved and our family will be complete again one day beyond the gates of heaven.