The Roller Coaster Ride Of Best Friends

In 1973 the Albero Family moved to Bowie, Maryland. Mom and Dad has just been divorced and we chose to leave California and come back east to be with Family.

For those of you who know Bowie, we moved into a rental home on Whitehall Drive, (the Whitehall section of Bowie). Bowie was a really cool place. Not perfect but it was a newer community with lots of kids everywhere you turned.

It didn't take but a few minutes after the moving van arrived, people started coming out of their homes to meet their new neighbors. It's funny how life works. Those very same people that came to meet us that very first day are still a HUGE part of my life today.

Bowie was the kind of Town where no one was rich, they were all on their way to becoming something though. In the Albero home, we wondered just how we could be so fortunate to be able to rent such a nice home and survive. Survival meant we had to help support Mom, so at a very young age, (especially my older Brothers) we had to go to school full time and then work full time. Bowie had one of the first early release programs in school where they allowed you to go off to work in high school after 4th period, (if your grades and credits were in order).

Not to be long winded but it wouldn't be fair to my eldest Brother if I didn't share the following. My eldest Brother not only got straight A's his entire life in school, he was accepted into the Coast Guard Academy in 1976. Mind you, the entire time we moved and lived in Bowie, my Brother busted his tail to keep his grades up as well as delivering Mom a weekly paycheck. None of us ever asked Mom for a penny of the money we earned, it was just a way of life. It was our way of staying off welfare and any government assistance.

During that time I quickly met several new friends, especially on that very first move in day. To this day, with the exception of only ONE of those old Best Friends, we have stayed in constant contact, supported each other in good and bad times and I guess you might say we've adjusted in many ways throughout the years.

Since everyone in Bowie pretty much knew the Albero Family, you know, the kids that many times showed up at school in the same clothes we wore the day before, broke, but always well behaved kids, there was a kind of respect everyone had towards my Mother. They knew we all worked after school and over time people stopped picking on us because we were so different.

One Family who lived only 5 houses away was another divorced Mother with two Daughters who were the same age I was. Mom was Sandy Allen and the Daughters were Lynn and Teresa/Terry. Well, Terry and Lynn became some of my very best friends. My God, we had such great times growing up but more importantly, (to me anyway) their Mom Sandy was always so cool to me. Sandy knew how broke we were so she'd call in the afternoon and ask if I was home. Can you come over and cut the grass Joe, she'd ask. Can you come by and plant a shrub for me, paint a door. You name it, she always had something for me to do and I kind of became the handyman of their home. Sandy got the Washington Post, (something we couldn't afford) and she'd ask me to read the Sports Section. It was her way to get me to read on a regular basis, something I always hated in school.

As we grew up from 1973 to 1979, we experienced our first separation as Terry headed off to William & Mary College. Terry had grades like my older Brother and we just knew she'd become a Doctor, Lawyer, whatever she wanted she could have it. I traveled to Williamsburg fairly often to visit Terry and a few other friends fortunate enough to also attend that College.

Unfortunately, after a few trips there, Terry started experimenting with drugs. First came pot, then coke and who knows what else. After college Terry married another great friend of mine when we were kids and together they had a baby boy who is now an adult. Kenny & Terry divorced after a few years as her drug habit got worse. Over the next several years Terry got married a couple more times, divorced, all the while having children along the way.

About 10 years ago I got another call telling me Terry was now in Jail. In and out of rehab numerous times, Sandy, (Terry's Mother) gave her unconditional love to Terry, took her in, got her clean and after a year or so she'd be back into drugs. Never in my wildest dreams did anyone ever think such a wonderful young lady with such wonderful parents would ever fall into such a life. Terry had lost all of her children and was left with mainly mailing them a letter.

What I'd like to share here is that I too had been exposed with "opportunity." Terry's friends always offered me free drugs and I always refused. No one seemed to think that pot would lead to anything else, except me. I watched most of my young friends start off with pot and ultimately ended up living off their parents and never really making anything of their lives.

If only they could have seen how GOOD we actually had it. If only they could have seen Joe Albero with absolutely nothing, work hard all your life and make something of it. So why have I dragged all of you through this entire story so far.

Today, this morning, I received a call letting me know my very dear and one of my oldest friends, my Sister, died. The drugs took their toll on her life and she is now drug free and gone at 49 years old. What a way to get off such an addiction, eh? First Mom, then little Sarah, then Dawn Mitchell and now Terry Allen. It's been quite a roller coaster ride, especially these past few months.

I spoke to Sandy this morning and they haven't even come close to any kind of arrangements. We are only on this earth but of a blink of an eye, as Mom said just before she passed. Make something of it people. Drugs will kill you. Drugs will take over and control your lives. Drugs will hurt everyone around you, especially those who love you the most.

Terry leaves behind many people who loved her but most of all she leaves behind innocent children, her own children, who never really got to know their Mom and what she was capable of. We only have so much time on this earth to teach what we know is right. If you even suspect your child is experimenting with drugs, know that YOU will probably do EVERYTHING in your powers to save their life. Know that you will drain every single penny you have worked for and earned just to try and help that child get clean again. More importantly, know the odds of your child surviving is as slow, hard and long as someone fighting cancer for a good 20+ years and ultimately dying.

R.I.P. my old friend.