If there’s one thing I have learned since losing my son Alex, it’s that there are no perfect parents.
We make the best, most loving decisions we can with what we know in the moment.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, life seems determined to break our hearts.
I moved my family out of NY to protect my son
I had Alex when I was 31 years old. He was a beautiful boy with copper-blonde hair and deep, sparkling green eyes.
A wisp as a child, Alex searched for fairies in the yard and loved to read books in my lap, his tiny hand warm in mine. He lived for soccer, Star Wars, and digging in dirt.
Looking back, I think I sensed his fragility and that he wouldn’t be here for long.
I was a journalist in Albany, New York, at the height of my career, balancing an investigative, law, and court beat with marriage and two young kids. Alex’s sister Tori came along when he was 5.
Alex did well until late middle school, when bullies began harassing him at school and on the bus, pushing him, refusing him a bus seat, and throwing things at him. We took the proper steps: calling the kids’ parents, taking the school to task to put a stop to it, and going back again and again.
However, the bullying continued. The bus would calm down. Then a gym class ramped up. It was relentless. Until the day Alex told us he couldn’t take any more, and he wished he could die.
I could have simply moved him to a different school and stayed in New York, but I was worn down from trying to stop the bullying and had had enough. I wanted to move back home to Massachusetts to be with my dying mother, and since that option also offered a reprieve for Alex, that’s what we did.
We sold our house, said our goodbyes, and began a fresh start in Massachusetts. Leaving everything we knew — the home we’d built, our friends, and careers — was painful, but worth it.
Little did I know, I’d lose Alex 14 years later, near the same town I’d tried to protect him from.
Alex had a hard life
Years passed after our move to Massachusetts. We made new friends, rediscovered old ones, and got good jobs.
Alex finished high school, enlisted in the Army, and was assigned to Fort Drum in Watertown, NY, just hours from our old place.
He served two tours in Afghanistan, was decorated, and made us so proud. It had a price, though.
He received massive injuries from raids, developed Sarcoidosis of the lungs from the burn pits (areas where waste is burned at military bases), and medically retired on full disability at 26. He came home damaged, a different person, and inadequately prepared for civilian life.
We loved having Alex home, but the transition was hard. He held a few jobs over the next few years and moved out on his own. However, his lung disease progressed rapidly, and soon, work was impossible. His depression deepened.
By this time, I was divorced, and he had moved in with Tori and me so we could help him.
Alex was shot and killed in upstate New York
Shortly before his death in 2021, Alex, then 29, was accepted into a two-week veterans’ inpatient program at a Boston hospital to explore health solutions. Finally, we’d get some answers.
However, hope was short-lived. The stay was canceled at the last minute due to missing paperwork that Veterans Affairs had not submitted on his behalf. Alex was crushed after waiting so long for assistance. He just could not catch a break.
So, he decided to go visit his dad and some friends near our old upstate NY neighborhood for the weekend. He was killed the next day in a mass shooting outside an Albany bar.
The irony was devastating. I moved our family away from a threat to Alex’s life in NY, only to lose him there anyway. I will never forget the 2 a.m. call from the Albany Police that took part of me, too.
Do I regret our move?
I regret being forced to leave the lives we loved because of merciless bullying and the suffering it caused.
I regret being robbed of the innocence and happiness we had before this complete and devastating circle of sadness.
However, I am also grateful that by moving from the threat, we had another 14 years together as a family, never knowing that our son would leave as he did.
Gaining more time with this amazing human in our lives, in either place, was a precious gift I could never regret.
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