A Whiskey Lullaby

The following months were a blur. I spent all of my days either in my bed, driving around, or out getting drunk. I completely lost myself. This is the part of my story where it gets rough. You will probably cast judgement on me or be disappointed in me. This is the way grief works. If you’re currently going through grief, you understand. The important thing is, I made it through this alive and healthy and I became a better person through this storm.

Every morning I would take my kids to daycare and go back to my parents house and just lay in bed. I ended up quitting my job because it didn’t feel right to pick up where I left off. I needed to start over. After a couple of months of laying in bed, I got the idea to start going to the gym to see if I can work out these feelings instead of laying in my bed and letting them take me further into depression. I got Codys sister, Danielle, to join me and we went to work out every morning after I dropped the kids off at daycare. It would be about noon when we got done working out and I would go home and shower and then go to Jax to start drinking. The most saddest part is that I would take my kids to a babysitter on the weekends too. I would get black out drunk every time. One time I even woke up in a strangers bed.

On the days that I wasn’t at the bar I would drive around town in my car for hours. Just crying. Driving and crying my heart out to songs that reminded me of Cody. Which was almost every song pretty much. On the nights that I wasn’t out at the bar getting drunk, I would sit in my room in the dark with a flashlight on trying to catch some kind of sign that Codys ghost was with me. I used to be afraid of the dark or of odd random sounds in the middle of the night, but now it became comforting. My mind was becoming a dark place and I could feel it. I made a shrine of giant pictures of Cody that were used at the funeral, and I spent most of my nights starring at him.

There came a time in those first five or six months that I couldn’t bear to live with the grief anymore. I dropped my kids off at daycare one morning and went back to my parents house, not to lie in bed or get ready for the gym this time. I went to my bedroom and shut the door, grabbed my computer and sat on the floor. I opened up the internet and typed in the Google search, “ways to kill yourself painlessly.” I did not want to kill myself, but I did not want to live anymore. I was desperate to leave the earth an easy way, not brutally like Cody did. I found a few options but one that stuck out the most was potassium cyanide. Supposedly after ingesting it you will die within a minute. So I began to search where I could find this potassium cyanide. It turned out that it was hard to get ahold of if you weren’t a medical professional or scientist so I was out of luck with that route. I also read that it would be the longest minute of your life because it would shut down all your organs first and you would feel that. I became frustrated at how it was becoming too complicating to take my own life.

I ended up expressing my frustrations to this guy that I had been talking to for a couple of months. It didn’t seem like this guy really cared much to what I had to say, so I felt like whatever I told him he wouldn’t even want to tell anyone else. I was wrong. This guy reached out to my sister and told her everything I had told him about trying to find a way to take myself out. So that afternoon, my dad and my sister had confronted me about my plans. They had brought to my attention the most important thing that I kept pushing aside, those other three little beating hearts, they are broken too! How could I have been so selfish to only think that I was the only one affected? These three beautiful beating hearts are hurting too and need my attention and love more than ever. I shook myself free of that suicidal thought as I stood in my kids bedroom doorway watching them play. I am so sorry I left you in the dark!

It was then I decided it is time for me and my children to get moving on with our fresh start. I found us a three bedroom apartment right down the road from the cemetery. This way we were close to Cody and could go visit his grave anytime we wanted. Which ended up being a lot more than I anticipated. I broke free from the thought of attempting suicide, but I was still drowning out my pain with alcohol every night. The difference… I would walk down the road to the cemetery and lay on Codys grave and just cry for hours in the middle of the nights. I spent a lot of lonely, agonizing nights at his grave. I was falling back further into the darkness. I fell into the thought of drugs now. I dabbled with cocaine on some nights. I didn’t get addicted or choose to start being a drug addict. I just wanted to see what exactly would make this pain go away.

While walking this lonely, tragic road, I became anti-social and went MIA a lot of the times on my family and friends. Life wasn’t exciting anymore. It was now this long stretch of days. Just days. I was diagnosed with PTSD and major depression so I was put on an anti-depressant. When they tell you not to drink on anti-depressants, there is a reason for it. I continued to get black out drunk on these anti-depressants. When I was sober, I felt numb. When I was drunk, I felt that raw grief again. Anti-depressants just don’t do their job if there is alcohol involved.

Along with every death comes some type of family drama. I had my share with plenty of drama that played a role in putting me further into the darkness. First there was the blame being placed. Codys uncle believed that my dad had killed Cody “combat style” I think is what he said. He suffers from schizophrenia so I knew not to take that to heart. Then it was Codys mom. Which I understand why she would need to investigate his death. I would probably do the same thing. It’s hard to accept that your son committed suicide especially when you didn’t see it coming. She had her doubts and thought maybe it wasn’t a suicide. So she had gone to the police department to see all the evidence the police had gathered. I had not known ANY detail about Codys death besides the hole in the middle of his forehead. I did not stick around to look around. I was only in that bedroom for a quick 3 seconds. It was too traumatic to stay in there. Though I think back, I wish I would have laid my head on his chest one more time. Maybe I could have heard his heart beat the last beat. Maybe he still could have heard me and I could have told him I do care! I heard about the details of the evidence that Codys mom collected much later on. The skin on Codys hand was peeled back, I’m guessing from the way he was holding the gun. The gun had caught his skin and ripped the skin off his thumb. He also had gunshot residue all over his hand.

Then there was this random girl. Her boyfriend worked with Cody and he had came over to my parents house one night with other co-workers of Codys to pay their condolences and drop off gifts that Codys job site wanted to give to us for Christmas. I think I had texted him thank you. I’m not sure how this all started to be honest. But his girlfriend seen the text message and assumed that I was trying to get with her man. So she gave me all kinds of hell. Saying she was going to come kick my ass. Then saying that I probably killed Cody. I had a couple of people tell me the most hurtful words I could ever hear, “No wander Cody killed himself.” One of those guys said this to me after I had too much to drink and was going into a depression episode and being dramatic I guess. His name was Robert. What a douche. He’s a bartender from Garden City. I hope he comes across this and feels like a douche for saying what he said.

I found it very helpful to spend a lot of my days searching on Pinterest for positive, empowering quotes that would help me feel better. I printed out several of these quotes and hung them all over my kitchen wall so I would be surrounded with positive sayings and reminded to keep going. To this day, I think that’s what saved me. I ended up training my own mind to think positive while doing that. I slowly started to come out of my grief shell and give some attention to my kids. Though it still wasn’t enough attention. I was still trying to keep my head above waters.

To be continued….