Just weeks after she lost her son to an accidental drug overdose, she stood and spoke in front of a group of students.

"When you see an 18-year-old in his football jersey, with a state (championship) medal hanging in his casket — and he's dead, I think that's the most profound thing," says Marty Cangany.

Marty lost her son, Jarrod Polston, on Sept. 11, 2010. That loss is now her mission. She's touring campuses and classrooms with a message on "Forever Choices." Her son attended Indiana University with dreams of being a doctor. He was also experimenting with drugs. Four weeks into his freshman year, he was dead.

"And I go to his grave every day and I stand there and say, 'Why?'" says Marty, shaking her head.

Her presentation is a candid conversation with students about everything — down to details on drugs, including methadone, a slow-acting pain killer that took her son's life.

"And they still don't feel anything so they take another one. By the time they feel something, it's too late," says Cangany.

The last night she saw him was the last night he was alive.

"I looked up at him and said, 'Be safe, be careful,'" she says she told her son. "He looked me straight in the eyes and said, 'Mama — I'm smart.'"

Marty Cangany will speak at 5 p.m. Thursday at the Ball State Student Center.