Daniel and Lyssa Fassett asked not to be sent flowers when their son, Darby Ethan Lloyd, a University of Massachusetts journalism student, died of an accidental heroin overdose on May 7, 2008.

‘ ‘I like flowers. I like to see them grow,’ said Daniel Fassett, Darby’s father. ‘But we decided we’d rather do something good with the money.’

The Fassetts donated the money that would’ve gone toward flowers on the grave of their only child to the Center for Alcohol and other Drug Abuse Prevention (CADAP) at UMass. Now the Fassetts, Darby’s friends and classmates along with University Health Services (UHS) are organizing a benefit concert, to be held on Friday, May 8, to raise awareness about student stress and substance abuse, raise money for the CADAP and honor Fassett’s memory.

Called ‘Be The One: A Benefit Concert and Creative Art Project in Memory of Darby Fassett,’ the show will be held at Bowker Auditorium from 7 p.m. to midnight. It will feature area bands, as well as Daniel Fassett’s band, The Doctors of Flight, and an art project that reflects on loss caused by substance abuse.

‘ ‘I just wanted a way to get the rest of the community involved, in case they didn’t know [Darby] or haven’t experienced a loss due to drugs and alcohol,’ said Elise Forcino a UMass senior and childhood friend of Darby’s who organized the art project. ‘Drugs and alcohol do affect us in our everyday lives, whether we realize it or not, and I wanted to give people an opportunity to reflect on how it does affect them.’

Forcino, her friends and roommates and members of UHS have been tabling for the event in the Lincoln Campus Center, encouraging people to create art that reflects on abuse and prevention. She said the response has been modest, but owns that up to the reluctance of un-artistic types to create art.

‘It’s not about being artistic,’ reads the sign on the table. ‘It’s about self expression.’

The concert and art project aim to end the silence and stigmas surrounded substance abuse and prevention.

‘The number one thing is to build awareness that there are places you can go, things you can do about it,’ said Daniel Fassett. ‘It’s OK to talk about it.’

‘Breaking the silence’

Police found Darby Fassett outside his off-campus home in Hadley at 11:52 p.m. on Wednesday, May 7, 2008. Shortly after arriving at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, he was pronounced dead, from an apparent accidental overdose on heroin.

He had been there before.

‘The guy came out, and said ‘We’ve been working on him for a while. We’re sorry to say your son has passed ‘- but he was here before.’ Immediately, as if to say ‘It’s not our fault,” Daniel Fassett said.

Darby had been sent to the emergency room three months prior, in February, but his parents hadn’t yet received the bill for emergency care. Daniel Fassett said they didn’t know their son was on heroin, and were told by the University that Cooley Dickinson had not notified them about Darby’s overdose.

Daniel Fassett, himself formerly a drug counselor, said he told his son Darby that he didn’t mind if he drank or smoked marijuana, but told him to stay away from heroin.

‘I told him, ‘You don’t ride the horse ‘- the horse rides you,” he said.

Fassett said his son did ‘did such a good job of hiding it, so few people were aware he was doing this. He was still going to school, still working ‘- not the picture that immediately comes to mind when you think of the stereotypical junkie.’

He said Darby’s silence was likely an act of love.

‘Obviously Darby was trying to protect my wife and I from heroin.’ he said. ‘He thought he could handle it.’

He said the hope in raising money for the CADAP is to improve access to resources for off-campus students, because there is little communication between the University and Cooley Dickinson.

‘The second time you’re caught with an open bottle of beer, they [the University] call your parents, no matter what age you are,’ he said. ‘But Cooley Dickinson can’t notify them when ‘- at least in Darby’s case ‘- they’re paying the health care bills?’

Dr. Sally A. Lin
owski, director of health education for UHS, said that the CADAP looks not only to curb substance abuse on campus, but ‘ultimately to break the silence that surrounds it.’ The CADAP is most commonly known for its BASICS and Social Norms programs, but also hosts drop-in groups for substance abuse, as well as counseling and referrals for clean needle exchange.

She said proceeds from the concert will go specifically to their drug-related programs.

‘Of course it’d be better if nobody did drugs,’ she said. ‘But this is human nature, human beings we’re dealing with, so we aim for harm reduction.’

S.P. Sullivan can be reached at [email protected].