Miracle Jacob VanPelt

(1974 - 1999)

       He was my friend.  We'd known each other as kids, grew up together in the same county.  As teens we spiked our hair together, shared poetry, wrote letters when one was away, and smoked Camels.  As new adults in our early 20s we sang a lot together.  We swam in creeks, drove around on dirt roads, and even worked together.  And we did drugs together, a lot.  In 1997 I quit using, but he did not.  In 1999 he died by himself in Mexico.  I miss him so much.  And what will stay with me forever is going to his mother's house when we all got the news, and seeing her sitting on the floor in a pile of his childhood pictures, holding to her chest and rocking a ghost baby.  She'd lost her beautiful boy, and she knew it.  I was so mad at him for a while after.  But now I just miss him, and wonder why so many who die from heroin are such sweet, wonderful, and often amazingly beautiful souls.  Bless them, and all their families.