By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

It's been four years since her son died, but Kay still blames herself for what happened. There's no reasoning with her, no talking her out of her pain.

"I enabled him," she says. "I'm the one that added fuel to the fire."

Kay and her husband, Dan, are in their 60s. Both are retired from the state Department of Education; she worked in a school health room, he was an administrator. They married at 21 and had four children. Their three younger kids are teachers. They never dreamed their firstborn, Junior, could become addicted to drugs.

"I'd hear the kids in school talk about batu," Kay says, "but I was so naive."

Junior was an adult when all of this happened. He was married and had a good paying job. He bought a big house in Mililani and had a baby boy he adored. It's because of Junior's son that Kay and Dan don't want to use their real names. They don't care if anyone knows who they are, but they don't want to hurt the child, who has already had so much pain in his life.

They found out about the crystal meth from Junior's wife. It was a year after Dan suffered a stroke that forced him to retire. The family was already in turmoil over Dan's debilitation. Junior's addiction was another big brick on an already heavy load for Kay to carry.

Kay did what she thought best: She paid for Junior's drug treatment. When he got kicked out of one program, she paid for another. And so it went, through program after program. Whenever Junior asked for money, Kay would oblige. "I knew it was for drugs," she says, "but I just didn't want him stealing.

"I was so consumed with him. For years. Everything I did, he was always on my mind. I'd be driving to work, listening to the radio, and I'd hear about a robbery and I'd think, 'Oh, God, don't let that be my son.' "

Kay has a stack of check receipts, well over a hundred slips of paper, held together by a rubber band. Each is a copy of a check she gave to Junior. At the top is a scrap of paper from an adding machine with the total amount of money she gave her son. "I could have bought a car," she says.

"Every time he called, I went running to the credit union," Kay says.

"Of course, this was all behind Dan's back. If he hadn't had the stroke, I couldn't have enabled my son. I wouldn't have been able to get the money."

Dan didn't know about the money, but his son's behavior was obvious. "One day, he came to the house and tried to push me down," Dan says. After that, Dan got a restraining order against Junior. Kay refused to cut Junior off.

"I thought Dan was so uncaring," Kay says. "But he was right. I was wrong."

Kay held on to the belief that she could help Junior. After all, she and her husband had helped so many students during their years in the public schools. Surely they could help their son.

So she left checks for Junior in the mailbox and sometimes in the freezer. "Can you imagine," Kay asks, "the freezer?"

After Junior started showing up at the school where Kay worked, she rethought her decision and got a restraining order. Still, Junior violated that order the next day. He came to the school. "I gave him money just to get rid of him," Kay says. "There were students present."

When he violated the restraining order again, Kay called the police. It was a turning point for her.

"I had him arrested. I had him handcuffed right in front of me. It was so painful."

She wrote a letter to the judge and went to court to plead for jail time for her son. At this point, Junior had lost his job and his house, even though Kay paid his mortgage for months, and his wife had divorced him. He was living in his truck, but even that broke down. Kay thought that at least in prison, he'd be fed.

Junior called from jail. He asked for $20 and for his mother to come to pick up his belongings. Kay obliged. "That walk from the parking lot to the office of OCCC," she says, "that was the longest walk in my life. To see my son in prison."

It was while he was incarcerated that Junior was diagnosed with cancer. He had surgery to remove his stomach. As he recovered in the hospital, he was shackled to the bed. Doctors told him he had a year to live and that the cancer was not a result of drug use. After serving the rest of his six-month sentence, Junior went home with Kay and Dan. He was thin, weak, a shell of his former self, but he was no longer on crystal meth.

"That's when I got my son back," Kay says. But she didn't have him back for long. Junior died at home in his bed. Only Kay was at home with him in the end. "He wanted so much to live," Kay says. "I thought he'd have more time." Junior was 39 years old.

Kay and Dan are left with questions and regrets. They don't know what led their son to drugs. They don't know what they could have done to stop him. Kay believes, though, that she prolonged her son's addiction, that her actions got him deeper into drug use.

"I was just so addicted to him. I just hope and pray others won't do what I did to enable their loved ones. I just couldn't let him go."

In truth, she still can't. Junior wasn't buried. After the memorial service, Kay took his ashes home. "When I die, he'll be buried with me," she says. "That way, he won't be alone." Kay pulls out a little blue satin pouch from her pocket. "This is my son," she says. Some of his ashes are inside. "I carry him wherever I go."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-8172.