Opioid Crisis Fridays: True Stories from Missouri. Taylor Everitt, 24

by Judy L. Thomas and Laura Bauer Died: October 28, 2020 Fentanyl has killed more than 850 in KC area. fter a critical crash, he suffered from leg pain. And bought a pill Becca Everitt had come home late from work the night before her son died. At the time, Taylor — who she called Tay — began searching through the couch, lifting up cushions like he was searching for something. “I’m looking for a pain pill I got,” he told her. “When the cold weather comes, my legs ache really bad.” Nearly a year before, on Nov. 11, 2019, Taylor was hit by a car while crossing a road late at night near Zona Rosa. He couldn’t get a ride and needed to take some medicine over to the mom of his young son because she had a severe toothache. The injury that night was so bad, with his shin shattered, that doctors implanted two metal rods in his leg. At times, the pain still got to him. “Where did you get the pill?” his older brother asked him that night. Taylor had said he got it from a friend and added: “I know what I’m doing.” “What did I tell you about getting pills from friends?” his brother said. “They can kill you.” By the following night, October 28, Taylor was found dead, slumped over in his bed with his cellphone still in his hand. His family had seen him that morning and he had the day off from Wendy’s where he was a cook. At some point that morning, Everitt said her son must have taken a pain pill that unbeknownst to him was fentanyl. Taylor was the second youngest of six kids and a “mama’s boy,” Everitt said. The mother and son shared a saying — “You got me and I got you.” And she knew that his whole world was his son, who was 3 when his dad died. “Everything was Avery,” Everitt said. “They were inseparable. … I wish I could explain in better words how much this man loved his son.” She remembers the time when her son and grandson stayed up all night playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The next morning she reminded Tay that he needed his sleep before going to work. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” he told her. The day after Taylor died, Avery came home after being with his mom and ran upstairs to the room he and his dad shared. He hollered out “Daddy,” excited to see him. Eventually, family members told Avery that his daddy took “bad medicine” and he was “now in heaven.” Watching her grandson miss her son has been heartbreaking, Everitt said. “He said once that ‘my dad took a blue pill. If we give him a green pill he would come alive again.” Before his funeral service, Everitt spent time with her son. “I rubbed his face and was loving on him,” she said. “And I told him, ‘I will do whatever it takes to spread the word, so this doesn’t happen to anyone else.’” Educating people about the dangers of fentanyl is also one more thing she can do for her son. Her way of saying, “I got you.” #VintageDava, #Awareness, #OpioidCrisis, #OpioidEpidemic, #OpioidCrisisFridays, #Controversy, #DrugOverdose, #Drugs, Fentanyl, #Missouri, #LivesDestroyed, #PurduePharma, #Scandal, #Tragedy Citation Resources Follow Me at: https://vintagedava.blogspot.com/ https://www.tumblr.com/blog/vintagedava www.vintagedava.com https://www.facebook.com/VintageDava/ https://www.instagram.com/vintagedava/ https://www.threads.net/@vintagedava https://twitter.com/davagirl