Warning to the Youth

I would like to transcribe below an article of an anonymous author that I presented at the Super Good Will Radio Network, and which had great repercussion:

Drugs: a letter from son to father.

Here is a farewell letter from a 19-year-old boy. This is a true case, which occurred in a São Paulo hospital, in Brazil.

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"‘I think that in this world nobody has tried to describe his own cemetery. I don’t know how my father is going to take this, but I need all my strength while there is still time. I’m sorry, my father, I think this is the last conversation I will have with you, I’m really very sorry... You know, dad, it is time for you to know the truth you never suspected. I’ll be brief and clear, quite objective.

"‘Drugs have killed me. I met my murderer at the age of 15. It’s horrible, isn’t it, dad? Do you know how I met such a misfortune? Through an elegantly dressed citizen really very elegant and smooth-talking, who introduced me to my future murderer: drugs.

"‘I tried to refuse, I really did, but the citizen shook my pride, saying I wasn’t a man. I don’t have to say anything else, do I, dad? I entered the world of drugs.

"‘At first it was dreamland, then torture, darkness, I couldn’t do anything without drugs. Then came the lack of air, fear, hallucinations, and soon afterwards the euphoria of the needle again, I felt I was better than other people and drugs, my inseparable friend, kept smiling and smiling.

"‘You know, dad, when one begins, one finds everything ridiculous and very funny. I even found GOD ridiculous. Today in my hospital bed, I recognize that GOD is more important than anything in the world. And that without His help I wouldn’t be writing this letter. Dad, I’m only 19, and I know I don’t have the slightest chance of living. It is too late for me, but I have one last request to make you, my father: show this letter to all young people you know. Tell them that at the door of every school, of every course, any place, there is always an elegantly-dressed and smooth-talking man who will show them the murderous and destructive future of their lives and lead them to madness and death, like he did to me. Please do this, dad, before it is too late for them.

"‘Forgive me, dad... I have already suffered too much. Forgive me also for making you suffer for my madness.

"‘Farewell, my father’.

"Some time after writing this letter, the young man died.”

This is why we fraternally warn: Let us take good care of our young people, as done by the Legion of Good Will, since none of us is interested to have, in future, a homeland of drugged, drunken and frustrated people. We really desire to have a generation, a civilization of honoured, good-aimed and Peace, Truth and Justice loving men, women, youth and children. This is why the Legion of Good Will tirelessly works for. Youth is the future. But not a distant future — it is the future in the present: let’s trust in it.

Jean Carlos

  

José de Paiva Netto is a writer, journalist, radio broadcaster, composer, and poet. He is the President of the Legion of Good Will (LGW), effective member of the Brazilian Press Association (ABI) and of the Brazilian International Press Association (ABI-Inter). Affiliated to the National Federation of Journalists (FENAJ), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the Union of Professional Journalists of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the Union of Writers of Rio de Janeiro, the Union of Radio Broadcasters of Rio de Janeiro, and the Brazilian Union of Composers (UBC). He is also a member of the Academy of Letters of Central Brazil. He is an author of international reference in the concept and defense of the cause of Ecumenical Citizenship and Spirituality which, according to him, constitute “the cradle of the most generous values that are born of the Soul, the dwelling of the emotions and of the reasoning enlightened by intuition, the atmosphere that embraces everything that transcends the ordinary field of matter and comes from the elevated human sensitivity, such as Truth, Justice, Mercy, Ethics, Honesty, Generosity, and Fraternal Love.”