By then I was numb; the first bomb that had dropped in my life was like Hiroshima. It was the tragic death of a little boy named Daniel in my pool. We were celebrating my son Brandon’s fifth birthday, and it happened in the summer of 2001. The other two were soon to follow. That fall my dad passed away, and the Twin Towers fell, our country went to war. All of it was tragic, but the worst happened first: that beautiful little four-year-old boy dying at my house. It’s still very hard for me to even think about, and sometimes it’s impossible for me to even look at that side of the pool. I’m in the pool almost every day because I love the water, so he’s never far from my thoughts. It never gets any easier and it probably never will.

It was the first birthday party I’d thrown for the either of the boys after Pamela and I divorced—it was my first effort as a single dad. The day was June 5, 2001. I’d planned a small get-together: my nanny, Melissa, handed out the invitations at school. People started showing up at about noon, and we had between thirty and forty people there, including kids and adults.

Gerald, the man who had seen me through all the changes I’d lived through since going to jail, was with me that day, helping out. We made all the preparations and once the party was under way, he relaxed by the pool with me and talked to me about life in the wise way that he does, teaching me to open my mind like no one I’ve ever met.

To get a picture of what happened that afternoon, I need to tell you about my pool. It really is amazing. It’s more like a natural lake or pond than anything else. There is beautiful beige slate stone around the deck, and the bottom is easy on your feet and looks like tan and black sand. It winds around to the left and, like the rest of my yard, there are trees and plants all around it. It has a beach entrance so when you wade into it, it’s like walking into a peaceful ocean: It’s very shallow and slowly gets deeper.

That afternoon Gerald and I are sitting at the table by the pool under the sun, taking everything in. People are here and there, and everyone is having a great time. All of a sudden we hear this woman scream, “Oh my God!” Gerald and I jump up and run to the beach entrance where a woman is pulling a boy out of the water. I see what is happening so I run to call 911. A friend of mine runs over and helps pull the boy out. He gets him on the deck and starts pumping his chest. As I tell the 911 operator what is happening, I’m watching Daniel throw up all over the place.

Daniel had been tearing it up all day, floating around the pool with his big water wings on. I’d seen him having a blast: squirting everyone with his squirt gun, swimming, splashing, and doing all the things a four-year-old loves to do.

I watch in disbelief as Daniel is pulled from the water and laid on the deck. I’m relaying instructions to the adults caring for him, shouting to them how to administer CPR. Everyone is hysterical. I’m yelling, “Fuck! Listen to me! They’re telling me what to do!” I give the phone to Renee, a woman whose son goes to my son’s school, and tell her to give 911 the address because I don’t want to be on the phone—I want to go over and help.

Time stopped for me. It seemed like half an hour, but the paramedics probably showed up ten minutes later. There is a circle around Daniel and we are pumping his chest and calling his name, hoping he’ll start breathing again, but he’s still completely unconscious. All the other kids don’t understand what is happening. I tell Melissa to take my boys inside because I don’t want them to see this. The ambulance shows up and the EMTs bring out an oxygen tank and start pumping Daniel’s chest, hoping to revive him. They know that time is of the essence so they load him onto a gurney and transport him to the nearest emergency room.

Daniel’s parents weren’t there at all that day: They’d sent him to the party with his nanny, a German guy named Christian. I’d met Christian for the first time that day, when he came up to me halfway through the party to tell me that he was going to the Wango Tango festival, a concert held each year in downtown L.A. He pointed out a woman across the pool and informed me that she would be responsible for Daniel for the rest of the day and that she’d also drive him home. I say, “Okay, as long as someone is watching him, that’s cool.” I recognized the woman he had pointed out, so I didn’t worry. I thought she was a teacher’s aide at our kids’ school. All the kids at the party had a nanny or parent to watch them, I made sure of that.

As Daniel is being pulled out of the water I look for the woman who is supposed to be covering for Christian and she is nowhere to be found. As I’m on the phone with 911, I shout for her, over and over. I found out later that while Daniel was drowning she was taking her dog for a walk in my front yard. I fucking lost it—this is not happening. She’s supposed to be watching him, he’s in the pool, and she’s walking her dog?

When she comes back to the pool and sees the paramedics she says, “Oh my God! Am I in trouble?” Fuck yeah, you are. After that she just turns and runs out of there with her dog. I point at her, shouting, “You were supposed to fucking watch him! Where the fuck have you been!”

Daniel’s parents show up as he is laid on the gurney, and of course they lose their fucking minds. His father screams, “What the fuck happened?” The police are there by then and they have to restrain him. Daniel’s mother is crying, doubled over, hysterical. I can’t even imagine showing up to a party and seeing one of my boys lying there with paramedics all around him. I pray that I never do.

I have no idea how to approach them. I want to comfort them in any way I can. I want to tell them what happened. They are so hysterical—and I don’t blame them. Daniel’s father is so enraged and out of control that I know he won’t hear me if I try to talk to him. I know that if I were in his shoes, I would be acting exactly the same way. He wanted answers—NOW.

I feel helpless, so I go inside to make sure that my sons are okay. The boys don’t really understand what is going on at all. To them, this is Brandon’s birthday party and all they want to know is when they can go back in the pool. They had seen a little bit of what had happened, and they ask me what is wrong with Daniel. It takes all I’m made of to hold it together. I tell them that Daniel swallowed too much water and that he’ll be okay after he goes to the doctor. I want to believe what I’m saying too.

I talk to the sheriff for a long time, walking him around the yard and the pool, answering all his questions. I don’t hear one word he says to me because all I’m waiting for is the phone to ring, hoping the voice on the other end will tell me that Daniel is okay.

My assistant, Viggy, went to the hospital with Daniel’s family to help out if he could, while I looked after the boys and spoke to the police. Half an hour after they left, I hear the phone ring and I run to answer it. Everything goes into slow motion as I hear Viggy on the other end. I ask, “Is Daniel okay?” He is quiet for a moment and he doesn’t have to say anything. I know what’s coming next. “He didn’t make it, bro.”

I hang up the phone, I sit down, and I cry. My nanny is with my boys and I hope that they don’t come looking for me. I pace around the room like a zombie, contemplating so many things that I hope no one ever has to handle: How can I tell my sons that their friend died in their pool? How can I even try to express my deepest sympathies to Daniel’s parents?

I go to my bedroom and write Daniel’s parents a letter. This is the letter no one ever wants to write. I’m a parent, so I can imagine what they are going through. Still, I really have no idea—imagination is one thing, reality is another. After I get through it, I fax it to them right away. I got no response. I understood. Later, I heard through friends of theirs that to them my letter looked like something that a publicist wrote, and that broke my heart. I really, really, really wish they had been there that day.

For an entire week afterwards, I stay locked in my room. I’m scared to come out, I don’t eat, I don’t do anything. All I do is watch the satellite transmitters rising up on the trucks in front of my house. I sit in bed watching the news feeds live from my street and listen to the helicopters buzzing above my house. I feel as if I’m being hunted down like a fugitive: My room shakes every time they pass overhead to snap another picture of my pool. All I can think about is that none of this can really be happening. I had spent the last three years doing my best to clean up the mess in my life and I had made myself a better person. I felt that all I had done, in one instant, because of one unfortunate accident, was meaningless.

My phone wouldn’t stop ringing, everyone from my mom to friends I’d lost contact with were calling me. It was nice to hear all of them saying such wonderful things like, “We’re so sorry, Tommy. Just know that it wasn’t your fault and that we’re here for you.” I’m glad to hear all those voices, but I can’t talk to anyone. I’m so sad that I could only leave my room to go to the kitchen to try to eat something every few days.

I don’t know for sure, but I heard that the woman who pulled Daniel out sold her story to The National Enquirer for $10,000. Fuckin’ bitch. When I hear this I call her and ask her if it is true. No return call—of course; she had already bailed. A friend of mine who knew her said that as soon as she got the money, she ran out of town. I read The National Enquirer story eventually. It’s all about how she was in the pool and how she reached over and grabbed Daniel. The tabloids deal in the lowest common denominator—everyone knows that. Selling them a story about a crazy night out on the town is one thing. I couldn’t believe that anyone would go so low to make money off a little boy’s death. I was so disgusted with humans. Fucking disgusted.

I knew that I would never get over Daniel’s death, but I was desperate to find some way to learn how to live with it. I wanted to restore some kind of balance to my house and to my soul. I spoke to Gerald a lot to figure out what I should do. He found a woman from the Chumash Indian tribe who came and performed a ceremony at the pool.

She had never been to the house before and had no idea where the accident had happened. Amazingly, it didn’t matter. When she walks through the gate into the yard, she pauses for a moment, looks around, says nothing, and walks to the exact spot where Daniel was lying as we tried to save his life. She has a bag, and when she kneels down, she pulls out feathers, pouches of herbs, redwood bark—all the tools for her ritual. She burns things in a bowl, she chants, she moves, and she waves her hands in the air while she sings in her native tongue. I wish I spoke her language, because I want to know all those powerful words she said that day. I had drained the pool and refilled it, and she blesses the new water. I know that no matter what she did or what anyone does, nothing will erase the memory, but I feel that she can help us heal. I wanted my kids to understand what had happened so I had them with me while she did her ritual. It helped all of us to say goodbye and send Daniel all our love.

A few months later, it happens. Boom —lawsuit. I knew it was coming. Daniel’s parents sue me. I think, “Fuck, this is it. I’m going down.” I know that my entire history will be used against me and taken out of context. Every single surface judgment that anyone has ever made about me will be exaggerated. I am the perfect guy to place the blame on: the irresponsible, tattooed rock star with a history of bad behavior.

During the case, some members of the jury were older folks, and I kept looking at them thinking about all the tabloid headlines they’d probably seen about me. All I could do was tell the truth, be myself, and pray that they’d hear me, look past what they’d read, and recognize all the cheap tricks the other side’s lawyers used to paint their portrait of me. Thank you, all of you, for doing so. After months of wrangling and another Bible-thick pile of legal documents, they decide that I’m not responsible for Daniel’s death. Standing there, hearing that decision that day, I’m relieved but I’m not happy, because there is no victory in this situation. How can anyone win when Daniel is dead?