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I do not own this story i found it
Well it's been some time since my last story. This is something that is with a heavy heart I impart to you my faithful readers. It's long just like the rest of the GranJoann writing, but please bear with me. I've been devastated by evtnts before but never ss bad as this. My facebook friends already know what happened, at least part of it.

It seems like a bathroom is getting to be the most dangerous place in the house. I seem to also hear all the bad news in the bathroom.

Let me start by saying that this summer I met my fourteen-year-old grandson for the first time since he was a baby. His mother and my son, although still married, had been apart for 12 years. They got back together in July of this year. The last time I had seen my grandson was when he was barely starting to crawl. My son's wife and her baby boy lived with us for a few months and then went back to her mom in Tennessee. I tried to keep in contact, but since his parents seperated there was little I could do. A lot of families have this happen. Grandparents have little luck getting visitation rights. Had I known what was going to happen I would have moved Heaven and Earth to get to see my grandson. Time was not on my side.

My son had spent several years in prison and during that time, he had written to my daughter-in-law, his wife. They decided to give their marriage another try once he got out. So the three of them came here to Texas in July 2011.

I was so thrilled to see my sweet, sweet grandson again after so many years. He was a teenager already. I had been talking to him on Facebook for a while and when he finally got here we became inseperable. He was my little shadow. He wanted to stay all night with me the very first day. My son was living in our old house and we were lucky enough thst school was out for summer and we could have our grandson all day every day until school started.

The problem was his parents couldn't find jobs here. So sfter Thanksgiving they all moved back to her parents in Tennessee. We made plans for the coming summer to go to Disneyland. I was so sad they left.

I last spoke to my Gradson on Christmas Day. He called to thank me for his present, a new Kindle Fire and a hundred dollar Amazon gift card to buy apps with. I did not know that would be the fimal time I would hear his excited voice.

On the 17th of January, my neighbor across the street from my old house, (where my grandson lived while here), called and said she thought something was wrong with my grandson because he was outside just sitting on a concrete mail box holder looking sad.

We explained that he wasn't living there any more. That he had gone back to Tennessee. She swore she saw him.

Then on Friday Jan 20th there was a voice mail on my husband 's cell phone. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when he came in and said "I think you better call Gena, there's a voicemail that says Little Phillip passed away." Little Phillip was my grandson. I told my husband it must be a joke and he told me, "I don't think she would joke about something like that." I asked my husband, "Are you sure it's her? Are you sure she said that?" He held out his cell phone and played the message. Yes that was what she said.

I shakily got my own cell phone and there was a message on mine, too. So I pressed return call. What she told me broke my heart into a million pieces. She told me it was true. My sweet grandson who told everyone they were beautiful was gone. "What happened?" I sobbed.

Her next words cut into me like a razor sharp knife. Stabbing straight into my heart. "He hung himself."

"Why? Oh, Why? " I wanted to throw up. I wanted to throw my phone. My heart was banging against my ribs so hard, I thought it would come out of my body. My mind reeled with shock. I felt like I would pass out. I could barely force the words from my lips. Tears coursing down my face. Tears I still find falling from my eyes at odd moments. How did it happen. "Why, why, why?"

She said she and my son, Phillip Sr. had gone to the store and tried to find Little Phillip to see if he wanted to go, too. They figured he had just went walking like he did sometimes. They live way out in the country, so he had a lot of space to roam.

They had barely gotten to the store when her step-father called her cell phone and told her to get back to the house real quick. He did not tell her on the phone what had happened. She got there just in time to see him being loaded up in the ambulance to go to the hospital, where he was pronounced DOA. Dead on Arrival. She said she held onto his hand, but he was long gone by the time he got to the hospital.

What caused a fourteen-year-old boy to end his own life? He had already told his parents he was being harassed at school. Harassed wasn't the word his friends used. Bullied is what they said. Full blown bullying by a football playing jock. Why? Because my grandson, who admitted to me that summer, was gay. He told me he had always felt he should have been born as a girl. My daughter (his Aunt) had asked him on facebook if he was gay and he denied it. But after we told him we didn't care, that we loved him unconditionally, he finally told me. He seemed so happy to finally be able to be himself. We had a wonderful summer. Playing on the wii. Cooking, watching reality tv, my husband even took him to Six Flags.

Then his other grandma came from Tennessee and picked him up and they went to the Grand Canyon. He came back so excited. He went white water rafting, and of course fell in the water. He went bungee jumping. And his favorite part of the trip? The hotel had free coffee 24 hours a day. He loved his coffee.

So when they told me he had went in the bathroom and used the belt from his grandma's robe to hang himself, I could not believe it. Why didn't he text me? During the summer when he was here, he told me he had considered suicide and asked me if depression ran in our family. I told him yes and that if he ever needed to talk, if it was easier, to just text me when he felt sad, or lonely. He didn 't. He didn't text anyone. What happpened at school that Friday was that one of his tormentors told him to go home and hang himself and no one would care if he didn't come to school on Monday. My grandson then told one of his friends not to be surprised if he did not come to school Monday.

And he didn 't go to school that Monday or any other day. Within a few hours of what the bully said, my sweet loving, grandson was gone.

He had told his parents that kids at school were picking on him and they had talked to the principal. But of course she went on television and said she had not heard snything about him being bullied. He was being mistreated because he was openly gay. He finally felt secure enough to be honest with his friends. Why did the staff at the school ignore the harassment and bullying? Because that would mean they ignored a hate crime.

So we laid our grandson to rest on the 23rd of January, just 23 days into 2012, and just 75 days after his fourteenth birthday.
So they held a memorial on Saturday at the park. Then on Sunday there was the visitation at the funeral home. Monday was the funeral, by 5:00 p.m. he was buried, but not forgotten.

On Monday night his parents went to the school for a meeting with the principal, who had a hard time explaining why she chose not to intervene in such a volatile situation. Other kids told of how they even told the school counselors what was going on. Grasping at straws, the proncipal said maybe he was posessed, after all he drew a pentagram in Art class. He must have been posessed. Because he drew a pentagram? My son bought a star of David necklace when he was a teen, did that make him Jewish?

So who did my neighbor see outside the house where he was last so happy? My religious Aunt says it was his Angel going back to a good place. A place he felt at peace. She said his little soul was already leaving his body. I guess that must have been when he decided he couldn't stand to remain on this earth any more. I just talked to the neighbor this morning and she said the same thing as my Aunt. That it was his little Angel coming to say goodbye. She said he sat there for about an hour. She called a neighbor on the other side of her to ask if she thought it was him before calling us. She thought maybe he ran away. She described his clothes to me today. And she had gotten on facebook and made sure. There was no doubt. Two people saw him. She said he was sitting with his knees drawn up with his arms around his legs. She described hiis hoodie jacket.

Also while he was here for the summer he loved walking my dog. He missed his pets he had left behind in Tennessee with his other Grandparents. A weird thing happened the other day, my front and back doors are slways double locked. The doorknob lock and deadbolts on each door. So i'm in the laundry room downstairs when I hear a clickety sound on the wood floor in the living room. I go to see and I find the dog is inside the house and the back door is wide open. We don't keep the dog in the house, she's a huge black lab.

I leave you all with two pieces of advice- let your family know you love them, unconditionally, and be there for them. If they mention being depressed or suicidal, pay sttention. He left a note in his trash can that said, "Please Help Me Mom."

The scond bit of sdvice if you know someone is bullying someone, do something about it. You can make a difference, if you see someone being treated badly at school, at work, at home, any place. Speak up. Stand up. Stop the bullying. Stop the hate. Accept that we are all different and deserve to be ourselves without someone judging us by their own standards. We all have our own shortcomings, but please be aware of what you say and do. Life is short.

RIP Phillip Parker Jr 1997-2012
Until we meet again, I love you with all my heart.

I agree with you in that suicide is selfish and not the right way, i have considered the thought but all my friends and family, i could never leave them after all theyve done for me
While my girlfriend(whom i love with all my heart) has done some *ahem* not good things and considered it i always tell her that its not fair to me of she dies. I go to counceling and i have been bullied since kindergarden...i know whats its like because in 8th grade when i came out everyone called me a lesbian freak and treated me weird in the locker room. Im bisexual not lesbian but boys have always treated me badly and i was once emotionally abused by a boy i trusted, id rather be plain lesbian but i do like boys...just not the right ones

Yeah same here i try to block it out because i am mentally unstable and do break down easily

I was told, in THIRD GRADE, by this snobby girly that i didnt have any friends and that i was ugly because i wore glasses and had very curly crazy hair, and that if i died nobody would care about me or show up to my funeral. Now you must understand what that does to an elementary kid. I was forced to go to the school councelor once a week because i would lash out on this girl when she made fun of me...they thought i was the problem...

I have a friend who is openly gay and he flunked twicex one year due to bullying and one year due to a homophobic teacher. When i hear these stories i just get so frustrated and rant "WHY JOIN AN OPEN SCHOOL SYSTEM WHEN YOU DONT ACCEPT ALL KIDS?" i just wanna scream at teachers and authorities, its unfair to those confident to be open about their sexuality...i was kicked off my friends bus for saying i have a girlfriend, it hurt and my (ex) friend who also takes that bus started rumors of me being lesbian and a weirdo, first im bisexual, second i thought she was my friend but i guess she couldnt deal with that fact...oh well and so long