Aftermath

It was September, summer vacation was coming to a close and I was going to be a freshman in high school.

Late one fateful night, the doorbell rang. I and my younger brother, thirteen and nine at the time, woke my mother from her slumber on the couch. My mother greeted what we soon realized to be a pair of plainclothes police officers. I assumed detectives. She stepped out onto the front porch with them and closed the door.

Seconds later, my brother and I heard a blood-curdling scream. When I opened the door to check on Mom, she had collapsed to the floor of the porch and was sobbing. It was something surreal in itself. I’d never seen her broken like this before. I didn’t know what was going on.

She gathered herself as much as she could and rose to her feet. She told us we had to go. We were going to Nana’s and the police were giving us a ride. In her devastation, she didn’t mention why. We weren’t going to press her.

The three of us loaded into the back of the police car without question or hesitation. I was behind the driver’s seat; Mom was opposite with my brother in between. She made a phone call. I’m not certain anymore who she called first, but it was on this phone call that we overheard the news of our uncle’s suicide.

My brother looked at me and I at him. First, our eyes locked in confusion. In the next instance, emotion took us just as it had taken my mother on the porch. He and I began to cry and wrapped our arms tight around one another. It wasn’t until recently that she realized this and apologized. We cried like that for the rest of the twenty-minute drive.

When we arrived at Nana’s house it was understood that Mom would have to break the news. We entered the front door and ventured down the hall to the living room. Nana too had fallen asleep on the couch that night. My mother, not realizing the detective had entered right behind her, woke Nana.

Before Nana’s eyes were fully open, she’d turned ghost-white. She jumped up from the couch in a panic. All it took was Mom saying his name. Nana was shaken as I’d never seen. This became a theme as more and more mourners joined us at the house.

You would think that the sight of your mother and her mother crumpled together and bawling would be the worst, but it wasn’t. The worst was my uncle’s best friend. My uncle was twenty-two at the time and I believe they were the same age. He had come to the house after he noticed all the lights on, the driveway full, and cars even parked in the street. He had a beer in his hand because he thought he was missing a party.

When the smile left his face and he too fell into a blubbering mess like the rest of us, that was the most shaking. He and my uncle were about nine years older than me and were the coolest. They taught all the neighborhood kids everything we needed to know, like music, football, games, etc. I had never seen his face without that smile before. It started all over for us when he started crying.

The whole family gathered at Nana’s house. People were there every day with food. We are an Italian family and the homemade food brought to the house was perfect. Yet, much of it went uneaten. Over the next few days, I observed as the family planned the funeral in the kitchen. The obituary and the eulogy were the cause of some debate.

Then, there was the reading of the note. He had left a suicide note, like most others. He gave us his reasons, his apologies, his love, etc. To think your life and all your relationships could be summed up in a note, a one-page masterpiece that will help everyone understand. It only left me confused and disappointed.

The majority of the week is a bit of a blur of faces and emotions. The house was quiet only late at night. The first time I could be alone was one of those perfect fall evenings. I sat on the back patio by myself and I looked up at the moon. I talked to my uncle up there. I told him I would miss him, that I loved him, but I was angry at the same time. Living up to the tough-guy façade, otherwise, this was one of the only times I cried heavily after the first night.

The next morning, I felt different. Sad, angry still, but relieved. Instead of staying a sobbing survivor, I stepped up my game. Our immediate family at the time was Nana, Mom, her boyfriend, my two aunts, myself, my little brother, and my four-year-old cousin. I felt it became my duty to fill my uncle’s role. I did everything I could for everybody for the rest of the time until the services.

Those were amongst the hardest days of my life. I had to watch as my family grieved. I grieved too, but it was time to say goodbye. It was surreal to see him that way. His youth was jarring. The look of a person in a casket, of course, is jarring enough, but it was different to see such a smooth, unwrinkled face. Time had not yet weathered him as it has me now.

After the services were over it was time to go back to our lives, somehow. The schoolyear had started without me. I had a pile of things to catch up on. I got to introduce myself to a dozen different classrooms that had already done that on the first day. I had to catch up with friends who did or didn’t know where I had been and why. As a freshman in high school, I tried to be nonchalant about it. My uncle killed himself at twenty-two, no big deal.

Until one day in keyboarding, when it just hit me. Sitting at a computer in a room full of other students who are having a normal class, the whole thing just resurfaced. My eyes watered abruptly, my hands shook and I had to go. The kid who sat next to me knew me, but barely. As class ended and everyone’s eyes started to unglue from their screens, he saw me starting to break. On top of how bad this already was, I thought “Oh great, now he’s going to blow up my spot and it gets worse.”

Instead, this unspoken hero started beatboxing. He created a distraction that got me away. I don’t know if anyone has ever done anything nicer and more selfless for me. With my head down, I made my way to the guidance counselors. Somehow, I had been lucky enough to have the same counselor from middle school. He’d transferred or been promoted. He already knew what had happened so I knew I could trust him.

I just wanted to go home. The tears were still coming as I talked to him. I was always a good student and I have never been prone to losing my calm. Still, I was here crying, pleading to just go home. Understandably, we had to call Mom first. He gets her on speaker. Quickly, she gives her approval, but he stalls the moment. “We just need to make sure David understands that this can’t become a regular thing.”

I suddenly wasn’t as sad. I wanted to kill him, instead. Of all people, me? I stood as my mother’s voice began to speak over his. “I am sure that won’t be a problem.” Without a word, I was gone from that room and the school. I thankfully didn’t take a bus or need a ride anyway. I recuperated at home but didn’t make a habit of it.

Nineteen years have gone by since then, almost the length of his whole life. Myself, my brother, and my cousin have since passed the milestone he left behind. Each of us has outlived him, but not his memory, nor the effects of his death. We all witnessed as our mothers, our grandmother, and our aunt grieved in their ways. We all endured through bearing witness to each of their responses.

Trauma struck hard in the family. Some of us escaped into our vices, others ran into isolation. That was bad, but not the worst of it. The worst is the familial fallout that has taken place over the years. I couldn’t tell you the last time all of us have been in the same place. We have had some close calls, but it always seems someone is excluded.

We take sides in things that do not need sides. Loyalty is confused for something I can’t explain. The death of my uncle left us all forever wounded. The biggest wound was letting go of him first. He had not become corrupted by the world yet. In hindsight, it is so easy to make him perfect and if we can live on without him then we can live on without each other.

I’ve lived on, but I can’t say I’ve moved on. I can’t say that because it isn’t over. The suicide that happened nineteen years ago is still rippling through the world today. Children have been born that will only know him in stories, but those are stories that we tell with our heart and those children love him as I did. Every year on that fateful day we have to be reminded of this particular story.

So far it has been nineteen years without him. Anyone who has dealt with suicide knows how much it hurts. It is the most unnatural of deaths. With any other death there is usually some outside force to blame, be it cancer, murder, an accident, or time, etc. With suicide, the only one to truly blame is the one you mourn.

This emotional conundrum cannot be summed up, not with a note, an obituary, nor even this writing. The person you become after being so close to it is hard to accept. You love someone who hurt you and hate someone who loved you. Without my uncle’s insight and guidance, I had to navigate through the turmoil of a broken family and the rest of my life.

In the early years, I emulated him as much as I could. The transition into his role in the family was a source of pride for me. I filled his place at holidays by sitting up on the stairs over the dining room. I learned to fix the easy things and could go over and help Nana with new gadgets, electronics, etc. I also tried to become the cool guy that he was. In my way, of course, but with the family, it was always a compliment when I was compared to him.

Eventually, I couldn’t see it the same way anymore. It was after the first time I thought of doing it too. I can only speak for myself, but the line gets a lot blurrier when someone you idolize takes their own life. Especially after convincing yourself to forgive them.

I had written the note. I had the knife that I’d intended to take to my wrists in my hand when my brother walked into my bedroom. I don’t know if I was going to do it or not, but I can assure you that I never will. That was destiny come calling. Maybe it was my uncle that sent him in. Who knows? What I do know is that I knew then that I could never leave him behind in this world the way my uncle had done to us.

I let him read the note. I don’t know why, but I did. He looked the same way he did when we’d overheard my mother in the back of the police car. I doubt I’ll ever forgive myself for that, but I’ll surely never forget his face. I’ve spent the rest of my life living forever. I’ve only got this one life and I’m damn sure going to make the best of it.

It was a hard lesson to learn, but life is a gift not to be squandered. You are the center of a world you may not see, but I promise you it is there. There is a web connecting each of us and through it flows all life. When a piece cuts itself out there is a hole that can never be filled again.

I know at twenty-two my uncle didn’t know truly what he was doing or the repercussions. His fiancé had died, his heart was broken, and he knew it could never be mended. It took years to forgive him. Long after I had passed his age, I forgave him for hurting my family and me. It took many trials and tribulations to get me where I’m going, but it has been a ride worth taking. It is too bad my uncle missed out on his life, but each of us must live our own lives and deal with them as best we can.