Father who lost two sons to drugs to share his story
By Stacie N. Galang
The Salem News, 10/07/06
At 6 feet, 260 pounds, Charles Rosa looks like a professional wrestler capable of crushing an opponent with a single blow.
But this tough-guy father with the Popeye physique can hardly hold back tears as he talks about the overdose deaths of his two oldest sons, Dominic and Vincent.
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Chuck Rosa at jujitsu |
Tomorrow afternoon, the former Peabody resident will be one of seven speakers at a community candlelight vigil to raise awareness about drug abuse. Dominic and Vincent's father will briefly share his tragic story and its lessons. And he will urge parents and young people to inform themselves about opiates so they won't follow its path of death and destruction.
The father of six will talk about the limits of his own strength, about how it was not enough to save his two oldest boys. He will share the story of Vincent, who on Oct. 29, 2003, took a fatal dose of morphine from pain medication patches he had cut open and eaten. And he will talk about fun-loving Dominic, who battled a heroin addiction and overdosed a third and last time on Nov. 26, 2004, the day after Thanksgiving.
"I know I can handle the physical stuff," Charles Rosa said. "But it's tough every day. It's a test of faith."
For his sons - as for himself - life was either all or nothing. The boys, avid hockey players, started with drinking and marijuana before they began dabbling in the harder stuff.
"Thank God I'm afraid of needles," Rosa said. "I don't know where I'd be if I even started that."
He believes his sons would still be around if he had only been better educated about the reality of drugs and their uglier manifestation - addiction.
"I blame myself," he said.
'An exercise in futility'
Not a day goes by without the Rosa family being reminded of the loss of their oldest two boys. If it's not a birthday, it's a holiday.
"It's always something," Charles Rosa said. "It's Father's Day. It's Mother's Day ... It kills me."
Charles and his children's mother, Mary, have four remaining children - Charles, 20, Teresa, 19, and twin boys, Francis and Lucas, 10. Charles and Mary Rosa both came from large families and have dozens of nieces and nephews.
Despite his sons' deaths, Charles Rosa worries that their cousins haven't heeded the warnings. As much as he tries to steer them clear of drugs, some don't listen.
"I don't know whether to hug them
or knock their teeth out."
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He even made double-sided memorial cards with his sons' names on them exhorting them never to take drugs. Rosa asks his nieces and nephews to put the cards on their mirrors so they can read them every day.
But he feels deeply disrespected.
"I don't know whether to hug them or knock their teeth out," he said. "I feel like it's an exercise in futility. I just hope it's a deterrent."
And there are days when the simple things trip the family up. Rosa said his son Lucas had a school assignment to draw a picture of his family. He couldn't decide how to represent Dominic and Vincent. Should he keep them out of the picture or draw them with angel wings?
"I don't know how to answer these questions," Rosa said. "It's very hard. I just have to believe that they're in a better place."
Getting out of Peabody
About two years ago, Charles Rosa decided to get out of Peabody before it was too late. He was concerned his next son might also be lured into ever-present drug scene.
The two went to the family's vacation home in Seabrook, N.H., before leaving briefly to take the younger Charles to a rehabilitation clinic in California. The rest of the family moved to Seabrook in March 2005.
The older Charles Rosa knows he is no saint. The former wire factory worker, once overwhelmed with anger about his oldest sons' deaths, said he wanted to track down the dealers.
"One of the reasons I left Peabody was I was starting to take things into my own hands," he said.
Now, the elder Rosa, 46, is reinventing himself as a program director for Seacoast Youth Services, a nonprofit organization devoted to keeping kids away from drugs.
"I just think it's what God wanted me to do," he said. "I was given an opportunity."
"I know I can get kids into cooking and martial arts rather than drugs."
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He's helping to run many of the after-school programs with two of his favorite pastimes, cooking and martial arts. Rosa said he hopes the classes empower the kids who come through the Seacoast's doors.
"I know I can get kids into cooking and martial arts rather than drugs," he said.
He also partners with mental health professionals to teach kids about the dangers of drugs for the youth services' eight-week drug and counseling program.
Rosa tells the kids that even the best drug clinic couldn't turn around his drug-addicted son Dominic. He reads letters and poems written by his dead sons' cousins and grandmother about how much they miss the boys.
He pleads with parents to keep their children away from drugs, even seemingly innocuous ones. He said parents can downplay the risks, knowing they had smoked pot in their youth, too.
"Don't you get it? It's different now," Rosa said, clapping his hands loudly. "It's literally life and death."
And once a kid crosses over to drug use, it's a battle to come back, he tells them.
"There's no magic bullet," he said. "If anybody tells you they have an answer, they're lying."
The move to Seabrook has helped Rosa and his grieving family.
His son Charles is now a culinary student at Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island. His daughter Teresa, an honor student who graduated from Essex Aggie, never touched drugs, he said. If it weren't for her, and her excellence in academics, Charles Rosa said he would have lost faith in himself as a parent.
As for his youngest children, they're bouncing back after their brothers' deaths.
"My twins are really happy," he said. "They wake up singing in the morning."
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