If only things were different, Krista Bertschi, of Coram, would be getting ready for her son Anthony’s 23rd birthday on Sept. 21. Like any loving mom, she’d be buying gifts, planning a party or preparing to bake his favorite cake. But instead, on Saturday, she bought a bouquet of sunflowers and brought them to her beloved boy at the cemetery where he is buried.

Bertschi’s son, Anthony Mazzella, died on Jan. 22, 2017 of a fentanyl overdose. He was just 21 years old.

September, once a month for celebrations, is now a minefield of pain for Bertschi, a nursing assistant, and her family. Her youngest son, Jameson, will turn nine this September— he was born 14 years and one day apart from his older brother Anthony. But where there were once joyful cakes and shared parties, now the memories haunt.

Bertschi, her daughter Alexis, 20, husband Mike, and Anthony’s dad Louis Mazzella and stepmother Madel and stepsister Dani are left with questions, so many questions — about how a young man, who’d survived addiction and brought his life back on track, his future bright, could have gotten ahold of fentanyl, the deadly drug that left him lifeless on a cold January morning.

To that end, Bertschi is striving to raise awareness about the ease with which anyone can go online and order fentanyl from China and have it delivered right through the mail.

Fentanyl, according to the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, is a “powerful synthetic opioid analgesic that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent.” Fentanyl, often used for surgery, is typically used to treat patients with severe pain or to manage pain after surgery, or to treat patients with chronic pain.

Bertschi is also speaking out to shatter the stigma of addiction. “That’s the biggest thing,” she said. “If people can see that I’m a normal mom, someone they can relate to. My son came from a nice home, with parents that loved him. We did everything we could and it still didn’t matter — because he was taken from us.”

Many parents are ashamed to discuss addiction, because of the stigma, the belief some harbor that “maybe we, as parents, did something wrong, or that there was something wrong with their child,” she said.

It doesn’t matter how beautiful a home, what opportunities abound, where a child was educated — addiction cuts a wide swath of despair across all demographics, Bertschi said.

Her story echoes with the devastating agony shared by so many parents shattered by the bitter blow of addiction, by a postal system they say allows drugs to be delivered to their doors, by what they deem a crippled insurance program that sends kids out of treatment before they are ready — by a society that places a stigma on addicts trying to begin again.

Growing up, Bertschi said, her son was outgoing and strong. “We used to joke and say he was like Bam Bam from The Flintstones, he was so strong,” she said. “He loved to wrestle and play sports; he was on the football team and, since he was little, always had tons of friends.”

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Although she and his dad divorced, Bertschi said the children were surrounded by love and support from all sides.

However, she said, her son was still the “life of the party, always laughing, always surrounded by friends.”

Until middle school, when one day, Bertschi got a call from her son’s coach, saying he hadn’t been showing up for wrestling practice and he wouldn’t be able to keep him on the team.

Although the idea that he might be smoking marijuana came to mind, Bertschi said she realized kids all make stupid mistakes at times. “I also thought that maybe he was growing out of the things that he used to love, like wrestling. I would drive around to see where he was, but you can’t be with them 24/7. You hope they are making good decisions.”

Then, in 11th grade, Bertschi said she noticed a complete change in her son’s behavior. “He was just more angry, not talking to me — and when he was talking to me, he was lying about where he was, what he was doing; he just started to get gradually worse. Then I found out he was taking pills, Roxys,” she said.

His family sought treatment and he was admitted to his first stint in rehab during his senior year of high school. “His teachers loved him, and they wanted him to graduate, so they would send me work to bring to him. He ended up graduating on time and his teachers were so proud,” she said.

Insurance, however, only allowed for her son to be at the rehab facility for detox and then only allowed for outpatient care — an option, Bertschi said, that wasn’t working. “He was meeting more people there and making connections,” she said. “It would get better for awhile, then it would get worse again.”

During the horrific roller coaster of her boy’s addiction, Bertschi said she found a savior and friend in a social worker who helped to find Anthony a treatment center in Florida.

“No one in our family had ever gone through this, and I was sending my son to another state — but I trusted that Anthony would be safe with him,” Bertschi said.

The Florida facility helped at first; Anthony was in and out of treatment a few times, she said. “The first few times, I know he did it for me. It was killing me, destroying me, it was destroying our family. It was destroying our relationship. Everything was going downhill.”

In the beginning, when she was just a mom walking for the first time down the dark path of her son’s addiction, Bertschi said she wasn’t yet educated about the disease. “I was so angry with him then. Now I know that if he could stop, he would have.”

When he came back from his stay in Florida, her son, who loved to work out and to box, was in great physical shape. “He’d spent most of his time in the gym, working out, releasing a lot of his stress and anxiety over underlying issues,” Bertschi said.

One day, when he was back home, his dad called and told her that Anthony wasn’t feeling well; he asked her to meet him at a walk-in clinic. “When I walked in to see if he was okay, his leg was shaking. I knew he didn’t have the flu,” Bertschi said. “I said, ‘Just be honest with me. What’s going on?'”

Looking into her son’s eyes, he told her, “Mom, I’ve got to go away. I can’t live like this anymore. I hate this life.”

They had him on a plane that afternoon back to Florida.

“That time, it was for him. He asked me to go. He was 19 years old,” Bertschi said.

What followed was the miracle of the 16 months her son was clean; he followed up on his stay in Florida and sought a sober living home.

Then, when he was ready to come home, he asked for a doctor locally who could administer Vivitrol, an opioid blocker. Bertschi found a doctor but the requirement was such that her son needed to be 14 days clean before the injection; Bertschi timed his release so they could drive to the office right after he got off the plane.

When they arrived, there was a glitch; the dosage needed to be ordered through insurance. “I had a breakdown in that office. I told them, ‘If he has to leave and wait 14 days, I don’t know what will happen,'” Bertschi said.

In the end, a kind-hearted nurse realized that her son, so strong and handsome, clearly wanted badly to remain clean and sober. She allowed the Vivitrol to be administered and then said she’d seek reimbursement through the family’s insurance company. “I broke down and hugged her,” Bertschi said.

The next year was a year her family would remember forever. “It was him again. My funny Anthony, busting chops. It was my son back again,” she said.

During that year, Anthony was able to once again become close to the sister he loved, to attend his little brother’s games, to spend long hours talking with his mom.

Then, on Thanksgiving Eve, 2016, he dislocated his shoulder and went to the hospital, but refused pain medication. Questions still remain, Bertschi said, about whether he later was prescribed pain medication elsewhere.

The holidays came and went, now forever etched in Anthony’s family’s memories and hearts. “Christmas was fine. Everyone was laughing, having fun,” Bertschi said.

On Jan. 21, 2017, Anthony, whom she called “Ant,” came to her younger son’s basketball game at the school gym. “He was handsome as ever, absolutely fine. He said he was just a little tired from being up so late.”

Anthony had given Bertschi and her husband Islanders tickets as a Christmas gift. That night, she was texting him from the game, laughing, having fun as she sent him a photo of actor Kevin Connolly from “Entourage,” spotted at the same game.

“He texted me and said, ‘Mom, I’m so happy you’re having such a good time. Enjoy the game. I love you,'” Bertschi said.

Like all moms do, Bertschi told her son to be careful if he went out that night. Those were the last words she’d ever hear from her precious son.

The next morning, her phone was ringing at 7 a.m. “It was Anthony’s dad. He said he couldn’t wake up Anthony. He said, ‘Anthony’s stiff.'”

“I didn’t know what that meant. I started screaming at him, ‘What does that mean?’ For months, I’d walked down the hall by his room, praying to God I wouldn’t find him like that. But now, he was good, this wasn’t supposed to happen,” Bertschi said. “He had it beat!”

Frantic with despair, Bertschi threw herself on the floor screaming, her little boy Jameson running in to see what was wrong.

Then she raced to her car, repeating, over and over again, a mother’s mantra and fervent prayer: “I know I can wake him up. I know I can wake him up. I have to get there, fast. Get there, fast.”

But when she got to Anthony’s father’s home, the area was roped off, police holding back Bertschi and her daughter. “I just wanted to hug him. I couldn’t understand what happened, why this happened. They held me back physically because they didn’t want us to see him.”

Voice breaking, she said, “I don’t understand. I would have known if he wasn’t good. What happened?”

The questions will echo forever.

The next days were a blur; she remembers little of the funeral home. In her mind, she spoke to her precious firstborn, begging for answers. “I’d say, ‘Please tell Mommy what happened. You were so good. Please, tell me what happened.'”

On the morning of the wake, a letter came from the hospital, addressed to her son, indicating that he’d left the emergency room before treatment for an overdose the Thursday night before he died.

“That told me that this demon was back,” Bertschi said.

But the addiction must have just begun to ensnare her boy, because none of his friends had known he’d relapsed and he wasn’t showing any signs of addiction, such as hair that went untrimmed; detectives found no drugs in his room — despite the fact that an autopsy indicated he died of a fentanyl overdose.

The questions torment: Where had he gone that fateful night? Who was he with? And why hadn’t he reached out to tell his mom he was in trouble? Bertschi runs the questions through her mind, a loop of pain and loss.

“He told me everything. He wasn’t afraid to tell me anything. But it was just as though something came over him that Saturday night,” she said. Because he’d been clean for so long, the drug’s impact was deadly, she said.

The days after were a blanket of agony.

“For awhile after, I couldn’t function. My daughter said, ‘Mom, I can’t be around you. All you do is cry.’ At that point I knew I needed help,” Bertschi said.

And so, she took steps toward living her life, dedicated to creating positive change in memory of her son: Bertschi just added her son’s name to the legacy tree at a ceremony held by the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. And she’s found support groups where there was comfort in speaking to other parents who’d lost their children to overdoses.

“I needed to go to a place where there was no judgment,” she said. “Where people know the life I lived, when he was in active addiction. Going to support groups saved my life. Seeing moms, just like me, the class moms, active in their kids’ sports. Moms who loved their kids. Everyone had a similar story.”

Now, she is determined to share her story, to stamp out the stigma and put a face on the reality of fentanyl and drug addiction. “Every day, I wake up and say, ‘God, please, just get me through the day. I have to keep going. He would want me to do that.'”

Listening to Eminem, whose music both she had her son loved — singing along together, “he would crack up, that I knew all the words” — today, she still listens to those songs. “I imagine he is singing them with me,” she said.

Bertschi has a message to share: “It could be anybody’s child. You could be in a wealthy home, an average income home, or a lower class home — addiction does not discriminate.” Celebrities with all the opportunities in the world overdose, she said.

Change is critical, Bertschi said. “This is coming through our post office and it’s killing our children. I’m going to do whatever I can do to in Anthony’s name, and in memory of his beautiful face, to keep going and save another mom from ever having to walk a day in my shoes. This is just like a nightmare, every day of my life. You just fight through it because you don’t have another choice. I can’t even put into words, the pain.”

The loss has torn the hearts of every member of the family who loves him. Her little boy Jameson, Bertschi said, just started fourth grade and said he’s so happy, because it was the same teacher and classroom his big brother Anthony once had. “He sleeps with Anthony’s watch under his pillow. Every night we kiss it and send the kisses up to heaven,” Bertschi said.

Despite the heartache, so many friends and loved ones have surrounded her family with support and love, going on awareness walks and offering compassion. “We are surrounded by love and support,” Bertschi said.

Bertschi find some solace in their last text — in the words “I love you” that they got to share. “A lot of moms never get that chance, to say ‘I love you’ before they get that call.”

Her voice filled with tears and loss, Bertschi speaks from her heart, sharing what she’d say to her smiling, beautiful son if she could just speak to him one more time: “If love could have saved him, he would have lived forever,” she said. “If there were any way I could have fixed this problem, I would have given anything, anything in the world to make him better — so that he’d never have to leave me. I would do anything in this world, in a heartbeat, just to feel his arms around me, telling me that he loves me, one more time.”

Photos courtesy Krista Bertschi.