Walking up to my front door, I noticed he had emptied the back end of his truck on our front porch and it was a jumble of plastic tubs and electrical cords neatly tied and stacked. Odd. Not normal. When did He do that?
I went straight to the kitchen to check on the BBQ in my crock pot and to finish dinner. There was such an overwhelming feeling of apprehension, I didn’t trust myself to stay composed. I went to my bedroom to wait for him to come back.
A few years earlier, we were driving from state to state after having been around his family for a few days. One of his teenage nephews had been tragically killed outside the United States a few years earlier and his sister was so broken. That boy’s death was one of the worst things I had ever heard of happening and none of us thought she would ever recover.
On the way home, with our three babies in the back of our conversion van, he turned the radio up and turned to me saying, “If you ever think I’m not okay, you need to tell me so I can go to the doctor. “I glanced up, confused. He clarified, “If you think I’m starting to lose it mentally, you need to make sure I get medical help.”
We were both silent for a moment. He said, ”I mean with (his sister) struggling so much, and my dad’s family history, you need to tell me if I ever need to see a doctor. I don’t want to be like that.” I nodded. I turned my head toward the window watching the trees turn into swampy bayous and contemplated how I would ever be able to make that work.
I felt disconnected. Confused. Lead legged. I have no idea how long I stood in my bedroom looking at that screen on my phone. Forever? Maybe a few seconds? I was overwhelmed with so many thoughts but mostly they revolved around the kids. How do you tell your kids their dad is committing suicide this very moment?
Maybe I’d tell them he died in a car accident? Maybe I’d just tell them He ran off and wasn’t coming back? Anything would be better than knowing your dad couldn’t think enough of you to stick around. Right?
