Funeral Support and Organization Services

I am raising funds to help cover burial expenses and arrangements for my 23-year-old son Darren Muhammad, who died from a tragic accident on Sunday, March 13, 2022. My son was known for being creative, artistic, kind, loving, respectful, hard-working, and a funny, fly, cool, handsome gentleman. He always kept a job and was always complimented for his great work ethic at such a young age, and after work came home to work on his craft of art. He wrote stories published in a book for his 18th birthday entitled "Unfinished Stories," By the age of 20, he created his music studio "Back Street Entertainment". His goal was to be a music artist and filmmaker following the model of Will Smith and Ice Cube. He wrote several plays and films but wanted first to produce and market his music. He went to New York Academy film school and was the youngest African American in the school and lived in Brooklyn Heights for over a year. His ultimate goal was to live in California and make it big as a film producer named "Da Casso, " a blend of Leonardi Da Vinci and PiCasso, his two favorite artists.

My son was a creator of many things and many firsts and was definitely beyond his time; he loved life, loved God, and loved making people smile. As a community activist, my son has been with me through Stop the Violence Meetings and events, SNUG events, Juneteenth and Kwanzaa celebrations, MVP meetings and events, and of course, anything Buffalo Bills-related that had big screens like Zone One.

He loved lavished things and worked extremely hard to get them, sometimes too hard; He was a perfectionist with really high goals. At times he would get overwhelmed, frustrated and sometimes depressed. In the past month, my son suddenly said he didn't feel like himself and felt "bad energy" was on him. He felt like his mind was racing and was experiencing anxiety. We prayed, talked, and eventually went to the hospital for help, where he was admitted to CPAP. While there and upon his release, he was prescribed to take escitalopram and olanzapine together, commonly known as Lexapro and Zyprexa. If taken together or improperly can have very deadly side effects, which caused an adverse reaction in my son, leading to his unexpected death.

I'm devastated and never would imagine something like this happening to me, being that I have spent so much of my life helping and serving others, especially with their trauma. Even though his death was an accident, I know he would want me to be strong and not let his death be in vain. After posting about his use of anti-depressants, so many people have expressed to me how they are going through the same thing with their child but don't want to tell anyone. So many of our youth in their twenties are experiencing all kinds of "bottled up" trauma and cope by taking medications, alcohol, smoking or drugs. When they want to express themselves, most adults don't understand or are too busy to listen.

During these past 30 days, my son said the best thing that was helping him was having someone to talk to and knowing that he was loved. He told me I should be a therapist because he felt like that worked best for him and not the medication. With that being said, I want to do what my son did best. That would be making words more meaningful and using his nickname to start an organization to help others experiencing anxiety and trauma by connecting them to effective therapy.

I already have a non-profit named GLU, which stands for God Loves You and does random acts of kindness to show people they are loved, but I'm going to amend the name to CASSO GLU, with CASSO meaning Coping Away Stressful Situations Openly. CASSO will help support and pay for therapeutic services for young people in their twenties to prevent them from having to depend on anti-depressant pills which I feel are deadly. We must be transparent and tell our stories to heal each other!!! Take away the guilt and shame of what has happened to traumatize us and realize that we ALL ARE IN THIS TOGETHER and help each other as a village does. I know I will have my moments of sorrow from the loss of my son, but I refuse to wallow in grief and emotion and stop at life, he wouldn't want that, and by the grace of GOD and his strength in me, I can use my loss as a tool to help others get through life and live.