Fighting for Henry

Henry, younger

Katie Granju continues to fight for answers to what happened to her beloved son Henry, who died of injuries sustained in a brutal beating coupled with a drug overdose in late May. I continue to be haunted by this story, in part because I realize Katie could be any one of us caught up in a nightmare of unimaginable proportions. Katie's story makes me pray, because I too have teenagers, including a son born just 3 days before Henry. This week my husband and I delivered him to college. How different the story could be, and how deeply grateful I am that there were no tragedies greater than a broken cell phone. I believe that if certain things had been different, Katie, too, might have seen her son, an addict, turn the corner and fulfill the promise of the good loving man she knew he could become.

1. If someone had called the police after her son was beaten, instead of offering him another dose of lethal opiates, Henry might have been here.

2. Henry lay for most of a day and night, battered, overdosed and nearly lifeless in a house with two unrelated adults. If one of them had had the presence of mind to call 911 hours earlier, Henry might have been here.

3. Henry tried to call his mother before going to that fateful drug buy in a Knoxville parking lot. The call never came through. If he had reached his mother, might Henry have been here?

So many painful what ifs. But Henry is not here. And now Katie fights for answers that will give meaning to the pain she is going through. She believes that Henry's story can yet heal us. Take a moment to visit Katie's blog today. She asks some hard, disturbing questions.

http://mamapundit.com/2010/08/something-i-find-difficult-to-understand/