My Days

It's the last day of the most horrible month. I'll never like August again. It's been hard, Scott, even with all that's been happening. Everything still reminds me and I still have split seconds of feeling that life is like it was before you left us, then reality clobbers me. This has been a month filled with sorrow, tears,avoidance. But I can't escape, not even with the assignments I do for two on-line classes plus being involved in the renovations of the house. When I find myself with even ten minutes of nothing to do, I get panicky, restless and I start pacing or trying to put my mind on hold. And I still go over the thing in my mind, trying to understand.

But I'll never understand, Scott. I want to so badly but I don't think I'll ever have a clue. I think to myself, if I only understood, maybe that would make this punch in my gut ease up a little. I'm resigned to living with it the rest of my life.

I'm embarrased to let other people know how bad I still feel. I try to cover it up so as not to make them uncomfortable. I rarely share how I feel with your dad either. I just feel that everyone thinks I should be further along in the grieving process than I am. So I just go on as if my life was normal, as if I could ever be truly happy again.

Life still seems to have no purpose. We're little aunts in a huge universe,weighed down by heavy burdens, carrying them to our inevitable exit. Life is a cruel, cruel joke.

So I'll leave these pages tonight with that thought. The thought of cruelty. How cruel life is. How cruel that you took your life. How cruel that you were pushed to the point that you felt you had no other option.

Cruel, and sad. So cruel. So cruel.

August 5, 2000

this is the day

The day you were discovered, the day I called the police to check your apartment, the day I got the dreaded phone call, the day we drove up to KC (your dad, Chris, Cynthia and I), arrived after dark and didn't want to go to sleep on what we might find in your apartment so we waited until morning to go there. Today is the day I stopped being me and became a stranger to myself, the day I went into shock and never came out, the day the world stopped, the day I lost you.

I believe I lost you August 3rd. but I didn't know it until the 5th. I've been reliving those last days, Scott, going through the scenarios, wanting to be with you now in this way but wanting not to remember also. I don't feel I can hold up under the weight of the knowledge. I try to keep myself anesthetized. I walk through each day as if I am in a foreign land, as if I am someone else -- someone I read about in a newspaper or magazine, someone in a play or a novel, someone not real. The past year is a story that will end someday. It will end and I will find the person in me who died along with you a year ago. The story will end and I will go back a year and relive my life as if you were still here. And you will be here. And you will be happy in your work. You will find a wife, marry and have children. You'll buy a new car, a house. You'll become middle aged and worry about your children. You'll be the son you could have been.

Chris called this afternoon. He remembered what day it is. He thought of me, wondered how I was doing. We had a nice chat, Scott. We talked a lot about you. It was good to have contact with him on this day, this horrible horrible day.

What will the year ahead bring? I can't begin to imagine. Today I empty cabinets and drawers and shelves in the kitchen and family room to prepare for the contractor to start renovating those rooms Monday. I look forward to the new kitchen and family room but I feel sad about the old one disappearing. Last year I said goodbye to you. Today I say goodbye to my old rooms, the rooms where you spent time with us, had meals, watched TV, talked, laughed, made plans.

But you'll still be here, Scott. You will. I know you will. You've got to be. One way or another.....

August 2, 2000

counting

Scott, a year ago, this was the last full day of your life. I keep vigil. Monday I took one of your photos and a small memorial to the newspaper office to be published in the News Leader and Press tomorrow, the anniversary of your death. My way of giving you your due, of keeping you alive. I will burn candles and have fresh flowers on the mantle. I will think of you all day. I will remember. I will cry.

I have been dreading the day for such a long time. And now it is here! How could a whole year have passed? So long. Seems like such a short time. In your own consciousness, it was just yesterday. No time has passed since then for you. So many painful days and nights for me.

I had hoped by your year anniversary, I would have come to some kind of awakening. An epiphany concerning the meaning of your death, and life and death in general. But nothing profound has happened. My brain still feels boxed in by the immense blow of your suicide. And, still, I have not come to terms with it.

It seems as time goes by, I miss you more. Sometimes the ache is so deep and hollow, I wonder how I can stand it another minute. But I do. Somehow I get through the days, one day at a time. And that's all I am doing, getting through the days.

And I think of you, Scott. You are not here but you are so much in my life, so much a part of me. You could never have guessed (nor I) how much attention would be yours. I wish you were here and could know. I wish you were here.