Hope, then relapse
According to Chisholm, Garro Jr. had recently returned to Kingston after a stint in a rehabilitation facility. At first, Chisholm said, she was encouraged. Garro Jr., she recalls seemed to have gained some insight into his anger issues and their consequences. Any hopes that the recovery would stick, however, were dashed when he began drinking again on the day before Thanksgiving. Aware of his volatile personality when drinking, Chisholm said she decided to bar Garro from the house until he sobered up. After that, police believe, he drifted around town and may have been camping or just loitering along the disused rail line which has long been a gathering place for the city’s homeless.
Chisholm said she last Garro on Monday, Nov. 27 as he was sitting in the waiting room of HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley’s Broadway Campus emergency room. It was unclear if Garro was seeking treatment or simply staying warm in the hospital waiting room.
“I thought to myself that I should go over and talk to him, to see if he wanted to come back [to the boarding house],” recalls Chisholm. “But I could see that he was still drunk so I just walked away.”
The Rev. Dr. Renee House, pastor of Old Dutch Church, recalls her own run in with Garro — he showed up, cold and hungry, to a church event about a week before his death. She said Garro told her about his difficulties as they ate together. When she asked him about his fondest memory, he recalled the birth of his daughter and her hand gripping his finger.
“He cried as he was telling me this memory,” recalls House. “In my experience he was a very tender man.”
Anthony Garro Sr. said he’d spent the past few days learning of his son’s surprisingly rich life in Kingston, starting with a long conversation with a county medical examiner who knew Garro Jr. before his death. Other memories came from a woman who ran a homeless outreach program and credited Garro Jr. with protecting her in dicey situations and others who simply remembered his as a friend. Garro Sr. said that he was gratified to know that his son had forged a community of sorts in his adopted hometown, even as he mourned tragedy that was decades in the making.
“Anthony had this burden that he was born with and the only way you could protect him was to lock him up in a box because he just could not stop drinking,” said Garro Sr. “We’ve had a crypt for him for years. We always knew we were going to bury him, we just didn’t know when we were going to get that call.”
Sincere and warmest condolences to the family and friends of Garro, Jr.
Unfortunately, this sad story is often repeated, we know first hand.
It is the saddest, most challenging issue a parent can face with a child.
We are powerless over the genetics, and can only do our best in the here and now in a loving way, as long as fate, God, Mother nature. the Great Spirit, allows.
May he rest in peace, finally.
Love surrounds you.
Please correct this article, it identifies the area where the man was found as the “CMRR right of way”. This is incorrect. Ulster County took back this section of track to build a “linear park”.
CMRR no longer maintains this area as it is no longer in their lease. The ‘linear park’ has not been completed and the area is unmonitored.
My God, who cares? This is a story about a man passing away.
Deepest condolences to Mr. Garro’s family and friends.