On Grief and Mourning part #3

The Last year of Juan's life was pretty good with he and I...we went to movies, several lunches and Dinners, to the mall in Golden or to a coffee shop to spend time together and just hang out...

Juan was beginning to use the public transportation system in Denver, he was learning the Bus routes and the light rail schedule.
Jefferson County, Colo. social services through the school district was teaching him some life skills and how to work a job.

 Juan had a small job at Planet Fitness, and R.E.I., and later a job at the YMCA where he was learning how to work with little kids...

Juan however still struggled with any authority, he many times refused to take direction or any instruction from his work superiors or managers or his mother and I...This is actually a fairly typical trait of those with Fetal Alcohol syndrome...

We had some great talks Juan and I the last year of his life...he wanted to know a lot about the Bible, about Jesus and God. He was thirsty for the knowledge of God. So when together we would discuss everything from Eschatology (theology of the End of Days) to what Jesus meant in a lot of his sayings.

Juan would ask me a lot of questions about what the bible meant and he had his own ideas of what it meant. I would try to direct him to stick with what the Bible actually says and not to try to make up his own Theology, but stick to scripture to form his ideas about God and Jesus...

When I had a music gig in Denver at a corporate event, Jazz club or Funk R and B club, a
showcase event at a theater or ministry type event, I would always try and stop to see Juan first and grab some dinner even if it was fast food, or sometimes I'd bring some food down with me and we'd eat it at the house before I had to go to a gig. These are the times I remember where Juan and I really had some good times and laughs...

Juan had a truly great sense of humor and loved to laugh and was ready with a new Joke to tell me when we would have some hang time...

This is the end of part three on grieving and Mourning.

On Grief and Mourning part two...

The morning of Sunday October 14th 2018, My ex wife's brother in law called me and told me to
sit down because he had some bad news...

"Dave, I hate to tell you this, but Juan is gone, he's dead, he passed away last night"

I was shocked, and was angry also and began asking questions about what happened. Why was my ex brother in law telling me my son died? I was just lashing out that my son was dead...
And I couldn't get down there at that time. I lived about 70 miles away from Golden and Juan's body had already been taken away.

I was literally in shock...

My ex brother in Law to his credit calmed me down and took some anger from me that wasn't really pointed at him, but just anger...lashing out that my son was no more. My ex wife could not talk to me on the phone as she too was in complete shock because she found Juan in his bed not realizing he was gone.

Tears started flowing down my face and the awful, dreadful reality was hitting me, I wouldn't see my 20 year old son again this side of Heaven.

I mention Heaven because Juan was raised as a Christian boy and young man.
We had taken Juan and my older son Cole to all of the Churches where I played music at as a regular church musician in the Denver area since they were little boys.

Every Sunday I would get up to play music at church after playing late Saturday night gigs all over Colorado for private parties, or weddings, or Bar Mitzvahs, or corporate gigs from Aspen to Vail to Colorado Springs or every hotel in Denver that had a ballroom.

I did this as hopefully an example to my kids to try and raise them as Christians, as believers in Jesus Christ and so they could hear the Word of God preached every week while I was playing Music...

Both of my sons were baptized at the evangelical church I played at for 12 years on the same day at a large baptismal event.

 I made videos of both of them being baptized and making professions of faith in Jesus along with about 100 other kids and adults...


Juan's memorial service had to be delayed several days because his older sister Jazzy could not get to Denver until her classes at Auburn were finished so she could graduate.

I had decided not to play music at Juan's Funeral. I was just not feeling it at all... but as the week wore on I was inspired to go ahead and play the song "People Need the Lord" from my first C.D. at the memorial and It was a good thing. I think it's helping me heal faster...

I was experiencing and still am experiencing a lot of guilt also, which I'm told is also normal and part
of the grieving process....
I was not there when My son died, and I couldn't get down there before his body was taken from my exes house.

Juan and I had numerous disagreements since he was a child, about everything from him not wanting to leave after school program and go home, to when he was younger and we would be at Target or Wal-Mart where he'd insist on playing game demos for a half hour, then an hour later and I had to struggle with him to get him out of the store.

I know, every parent is thinking "Well, we've all had to do that" but I doubt if you had to try and pull your son up off the floor in the middle of Target or Wal-Mart while he was screaming "He's hurting me!, He's hurting me! Help! Help!" and everyone is looking at you like you're a terrible parent...

As I've stated before Juan had severe trouble trusting ANYONE in authority because of the abuse he suffered in his natural moms drug and alcohol infused home. and it manifested itself in almost every situation whether in the house or in Public places like grocery stores or even church or the charter school where both my ex and I taught at.

End of blog two "On Grief and Mourning" blog three coming..

On Grief and Mourning

I lost my 20 year old son Juan on October 14 of this year (2018)

Juan passed away in his sleep from "Natural Causes" according to the coroners autopsy, but stated his Fetal Alcohol Syndrome had a lot to do with his death. Juan had an unusually small Main artery coming from his heart that was extremely narrow. The coroner told us he died from either a Seizure (not likely) or a Heart Arrhythmia episode. I believe it's the latter because Juan never had a seizure in the entire 16 years we had him.

My ex wife checked on Juan at 10 pm, and according to the coroner he was gone by midnight Oct. 14


We adopted Juan in 2003 at the Age of five from Adams County (Colorado) social services. He was then in a Foster care home with 10 other kids in Aurora, Co. One couple had taken on both Juan and his sister but brought Juan back while keeping his sister. They probably saw how hard it was going to be raising Juan so they brought him back to Adams County S.S.

I remember being in adoption court and being asked if I took Juan legally as my adopted child, to which I said yes, and they asked the same of my then wife.
I'm not going to lie and say I had no reservations about adopting Juan because I had many reservations…
We already had one child with Autism, and were about to bring another child with a radically different disability...I had serious reservations and knew it was gong to be very difficult raising Juan...

So, we took on Juan knowing he had several disabilities. Meeting with the social workers several times before hand we knew Juan had fetal alcohol syndrome, being addicted to both alcohol and cocaine at birth, which has a profound effect on the child's body, brain, nervous system and can effect everything from the heart to organs and spine as well as feet, hands, head shape, eyes, and the rest of the body.

Because of all of this, kids with fetal alcohol syndrome can have motor skills difficulty, balance problems, problems running or even walking, and that only covers the physical aspects...

Mentally and emotionally fetal alcohol syndrome effects IQ, moods which can swing wildly from seeming calm and normal to loud defiant screaming, seizures, problems with authority, problems with making friends, problems with social interactions...And, Juan had nearly all of this except the seizures. Of course NONE of this was Juan's fault, he was born with an addiction to alcohol and cocaine from his mothers addictions...

Juan's mother drank alcohol and did drugs (Cocaine) while pregnant which is just about the worst thing a mother can do to her unborn child....If a mother really wants to screw up her babys life... drink and take drugs while pregnant....

I asked Adams County social services if Juan had attachment disorder as well and they told me point blank "No"
I found out later that was a lie...Juan did have attachment disorder as I read it in the paperwork...

Its not like my family wasn't used to dealing with types of disorders and quirks because our older natural born son has Aspergers syndrome or HFA a completely different type of autistic spectrum disorder...Now 25 and married to his College sweetheart, with a 4 year degree from Colo. Christian Univ. my older son Cole is doing extremely well...

So our new adventure with Juan began and what an adventure it was...
From a house used to arranging everything around an autistic spectrum disorder, to a house where now one child had to be put in the background a bit so that another child with a much more serious and much more dibillitating disability demanded a lot of the focus.

Im not going to lie and sugar coat what adopting a child out of the foster care system entails....it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life without a doubt....adoption particularly adoption of foster care and or disabled kids is NOT for the squeamish, weak, or timid.....

Our home dynamics changed immediately, and dramatically,
from a usually pretty quiet home arranged for autism, to now a home that had to instantly transform into a dual disability home for autism as well as a child that had radically wild mood swings, quick behavior changes, oppositional defiant disorder, anger issues, violent outbursts, as well as times of sweet calmness, joy and many tender moments....but it was all very, very unpredictable.


Juan was a lively little boy and brought a ton of "Spice" into our house....spicy eggs, spicy chips, spicy burritos, spicy egg burritos spicy quesadillas, spicy hot Cheetos, you name it, whatever Juan ate it had to be HOT....

We weren't used to this of course catering to a diet for an autism spectrum child which is the exact OPPOSITE of spicy...white foods, spaghetti no sauce, pizza but only cheese pizza, white bread, Cheerios no milk...chicken nuggets no sauce, no red meat...you get the idea....

Juans spice included everything else we did also....he wasn't afraid of much as a little boy, we took him and our older son to Bass Pro shops and Juan immediately wanted to climb the rock wall which he did almost all the way to the top.

At the Colorado rennaissance festival Juan wanted to ride the Camel so we let him. I didn't want to ride a smelly camel but he did...

Juan's fetal alcohol syndrome affected his brain but not certain parts of it like some FAS kids, he played chess with me at about nine and beat me once and I wasn't trying to lose, not sure if he was the next Bobby Fisher or I was just a really bad chess player...

Juan was good at math which is odd for a kid with FAS, he was very good with numbers...

Unfortunately where Juan's FAS really showed itself was in his interactions with others, with us as his parents and his older brother, but also nearly everyone one else he came in contact with.
 Juan definitely had oppositional defiant disorder as well as Bipolar disorder. Juan had extreme difficulty with any authority from teachers, to us his parents, to older kids when trying to play, to his older brother or cousins...Juan distrusted ANY authority, and I can't blame him as his first five years of life was living in a house where the parent was his older sister, and the drug and alcohol addicted parent wasn't present even when present.

In fact Juan's older sister was the ONLY person I think he actually really trusted...when together they were not just like a brother and sister but almost like a child with a parent. Juan's older sister basically raised him and took care of his needs as the mother cared very little for him and treated him badly....his sister probably saved his life early on...Jazzlyn, Juan's sister btw is extremely intelligent and has a 4 year degree from Auburn University. She was also the valedictorian of her H.S. graduation...

Because of that Juan's behavior around adults was, " I'm not trusting you, in Juan's mind grown ups like you have shown me they're not trustworthy, so that's how I'm going to treat you, like somebody I can't trust"

End of Blog one on Grief and Mourning...Continuing

Is Trump the Antichrist? or is....

Some Presidents since Ronald Reagan have been called the Antichrist, both Democrat and Republican....I've witnessed recently left wing Christians calling Trump the Anti Christ...which is weird because frankly I believe Obama is a type of Anti Christ...the difference between the two is stark...So let's take a look at the two Presidents and what they actually believe, but more importantly what they DO.

Obama is pro abortion, so much so that he actually stated once if his daughter got pregnant he "Didn't want to punish her with a Baby" Did you get that?

Obama believes a Baby is "Punishment" in his own words...

http://www.lifenews.com/2008/03/31/nat-3827/

The Bible that Obama claims to believe in expressly states that those tiny little lives are made in God's Image, and that God knows them before THEY ARE EVEN BORN. He believes they are PUNISHMENT.

In the Old Testament the Israelites began a horrific practice of sacrificing their OWN CHILDREN to the false god Molech, the way they would do this is the baby or child would be put in a brass Idol called Molech and they would then heat up the Idol until the baby or child was unbelievably burned to death in a ghastly sacrifice...A Saline abortion today which is still used in some circumstances literally burns the baby to death in the Mothers womb not too much different than what the Ancient Israelites practiced.Jeremiah 32:35, Ezekiel 20:26

Trump has been VERY pro life...he helped the little sisters of the poor in their court case against Obamacare that was forcing them to dole out abortion pills AGAINST THEIR CONSCIENCE AND WILL. Trump appointed Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court proving his commitment to the pro life side...Exodus 20:13, Proverbs 6:16-19, Psalm 139:13-16

Obama enacted the Transgender bathroom edict allowing grown men in dresses and lipstick to enter girls public bathrooms WHILE LITTLE GIRLS ARE IN THEM. That is an Abomination to God Almighty.

Trump rescinded that godless perverted law immediately. Deuteronomy 22:5, Deuteronomy 23:1, Romans 1:24-32

Obama switched from pro traditional marriage to pro homosexual marriage by the time he was in his second term...What an amazing turnaround and change of heart...it's like he never believed in 2,000 year old traditional marriage to begin with...Which is what GOD believes in.

Trump is Pro traditional marriage. Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Romans 1:26-27, Jude 1:7

Obama denigrated and even bad mouthed cops AT THE FUNERAL OF FIVE MURDERED COPS in Dallas.

He doesn't really believe in Law and order, and he proved it over and over again by encouraging illegal immigrants to come and cross our border encouraging LAWLESSNESS.

Trump believes strongly in enforcing American laws. a nation is not a nation if it does not enforce it's laws, and that is what Trump believes...it's also BIBLICAL. Romans 13:1-5, Titus 3:1, 1 Peter 2:13-17

Trump helped bring home Christians held in North Korea...

Obama watched Navy seals an an American Ambassador DIE in Benghazi NEEDLESSLY.

The difference between Obama and Trump is so stark that those who cannot or will not see that because of political affiliation is one of the mysteries I am unable to answer...

I can only believe it is caused by what 2 Thessalonians 2:11 says...

"Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false,"