That may sound hardhearted, but those of us in the family who care about him agree it's the best place he can be.
And that's because over the past several years he's ended up in the emergency room on several occasions because of heroin overdoses. And we periodically hear stories from the part of the East Valley where he runs around about different things he's involved with, a few of them involving weapons. We recently heard about him kicking in a door and holding a pistol to someone's head. Someone else tells us about a burglary. A robbery. A car theft. We also hear about him being placed on probation. About having warrants for failure to appear and wearing an ankle bracelet. The stories go on and on about him being broke, sleeping in his car, being homeless, being kicked out of family members' houses. It's a constant litany of near disasters involving him and his drug addictions.
Now I don't know how many of the stories are true and how many are false. But I do know this: when a lot of stories are circulating about anyone I know – while all of them might not be true – odds are that some of them are true. After all, none of us is so important that people are always making up negative stories about us.
But for me, the idea that he's in jail is a relief. Not that people don't get drugs in jail once in a while, but the odds are much better that he won't die of an overdose.
In my own case and in the case of many of those I know, a lot of bad things had to happen to us before we decided to change. And among those things that happened were time in jail. Loss of jobs. Homelessness. Rejection by our families. Visits to the emergency room. Health problems and so on.
My hope is that my grandson will spend a term in either jail or prison, enough time to make him realize that he needs to get help for his addiction. That might be his only chance at life.
