Through a Dad's Tears

    Who is Barry Pierce?
    Those in Collegiate’s boys basketball program know him as a dedicated Cub coach, a role he’s played for the past five years.
    Those on our physical plant staff know him as a transportation specialist who assists with the care of our vehicles and serves as a bus driver for both short and long hauls.
    Those who coach and who wear the Green and Gold know him as a supportive colleague and friend who always has a kind word to say in both victory and defeat.
    Pierce’s life in recent months has involved far more than coaching, driving, fleet maintenance, or even hitting the golf course on weekends.
    Indeed, he’s seeking purpose and direction as he recovers, one small, tentative step at a time, from a parent’s worst nightmare.
    You see, at 9 p.m. on Sunday, July 28, 2013, his 21-year-old son Travis died of a heroin overdose.
    In the months since, Pierce has made it his sacred calling to do all within his power to ensure that the same fate does not befall any other young person or any other family.
    Travis’s death came after several years of drug abuse, therapy, rehabilitation, incarceration, good faith efforts to get clean and sober, promises, and more promises.
    It came when he appeared to have turned the corner.
    It occurred in the upstairs bathroom of Pierce’s house.
    Pierce was first on the scene.
    The moment is ingrained in his consciousness. 
    Now and forever.

    This is his story. 

    Travis’s drug use started in 8th grade with marijuana.  His personality was that he had to do everything to the extreme. 
From there, it escalated to pills:  oxycodone, the opiates.  At 18, he was arrested for prescription drug fraud.  He had five felony counts on his record.  Didn’t do any jail time.  Just probation. 
    He wanted to get out of the drug world desperately. Two weeks into his senior year in high school, he told me he needed to drop out and get his GED. I said, “Why?  You have decent grades.”
    He said, “As soon as I walk in the doors in the morning, it hits me in the face.  People are coming to me and asking me where I can get this or that. Or help me get this. Or I’ve got this. Can you help me sell it? I can’t handle it anymore.” So we went that morning and withdrew.
    Travis was borderline genius.  It was three months before we could get his scheduled GED exam.  The week before, I said, “You might want to pick up a book.  It’s been a couple of months.”   He said, ”I think I’ll be OK.”
    Perfect score on all four categories.

    Unfortunately, Travis’s problems persisted.

    Travis was a kid that once he got to the height of the pills, he had to go to the next level.  That’s where cocaine, mushrooms, ecstasy came in.
When he got bored, he started with heroin.   That, from what I understand, is the most euphoric drug there is.  He did cocaine and heroin so much that he had basically no veins left in his arms.

    Rehab at an out-of-town facility provided a glimmer of hope.

    He did it long enough where the withdrawals stopped.  Then in a matter of weeks, the cycle started over.  The doctor told him if he ever shot up (heroin) again, he’d die. Travis said, “I don’t want that.  I want to get clean.”

    After overdosing in the summer of 2012, Travis was incarcerated for six months. Then he went to live with Pierce and his wife Carrie, who is Travis’s stepmother.

    Instead of doing more jail time, he was put in a very strict program (in Henrico County) called Drug Court. You’re drug-tested four times a week.  You attend meetings four days a week.  You have a curfew.  You have to have a landline.  They call you every night at 10 o’clock.  Travis was clean and sober for nine months. He was happy and funny and a joy to be around.
    Travis’s decision making was questionable at best, but nobody could ever question that he had a heart of gold.

    While Pierce never condoned his son’s activities, he never stopped loving him.

    I educated myself as I went along.  I talked to him every day. I said, “I’m in the room next door.  Text me.  Knock on the door.  Let’s talk it through.  Call the Drug Court counselors.  That’s what they’re there for.” 
    To this day, I’ll never know where the urge came from that night. The police officers told us that the heroin now is so pure and
dangerous that something has to be done.   It has to stop.  Unfortunately, it took him. I never saw it coming.

    Pierce spoke eloquently at his son’s funeral, which several of his Collegiate colleagues attended.

    I felt that it was important for everyone just to get the feeling through my voice and words how incredibly close we were and how devastated we were. 
Travis and I shared so many things.  We both hated cold weather.  We loved our dogs.  We watched North Carolina basketball on the sofa together whenever they played.  Cussed and fussed at the TV.  We loved to grill.  We loved white flashy tennis shoes.  I coached him in soccer and basketball in youth leagues.  Travis played with such a passion.  He was a coach’s dream.

    In the aftermath, Pierce has spoken publicly of his family’s struggle. He’d like to do more.  Articulating his feelings hasn’t been easy, but it’s been essential to his personal recovery and his abiding desire to save other families from the heartbreak that his has undergone.

    There’s nothing that I haven’t seen or been through.  I’ve made it my duty in life to do what I can to help with this war against drugs.
I’ve spoken to the Drug Court – about 70 people in it. I printed a card with my phone number and email.  I told them my phone is always on.  If I can stop one person from putting a pill down his throat or a needle in his arm, what better way to keep my son’s legacy alive?
    I’d like to speak, actually, to classes and sports teams. I’d tell them, “Look, we’re all so lucky to have the privilege of this close family here. Very soon, you’re going to college, a whole new environment and new set of friends.  Just be aware.  Don’t let anyone talk you into doing something you don’t want to do.”
    If I were ever to write a book – believe me, I could – it would be called, Through a Dad’s Tears.

    Pierce is philosophical when he reflects upon the challenges that his family has faced and continues to face. Still, his pain is palpable, his emotions close to the surface.

    I told Travis when he first started getting involved in the drug world that I would never turn my back on him, that I would be by his side all the way through. That last night, as they were carrying him out on the gurney, I had my hand on his leg.  I told him, “I promised you, Son, that I would never, never turn my back on you and that I’d always be here with you.  I’m here now.”
    That’s the way we parted.
                 -- Weldon Bradshaw

  (Barry Pierce can be reached at btpierce15@yahoo.com or 804.437.2541)