Unspoken Goodbye

It was a cold winter day. A Saturday to be exact. Working yet again, I dropped our son off at your home for the few hours I needed help. Everything seemed normal, nothing warranting what was about to unfold into the worst nightmare of someone’s life.

After picking up our son, I drove off looking in my rear view mirror staring at you in the distance. A sinking feeling settling in my stomach, a bad feeling that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. You grew distant in the mirror. We drove off to return home, just me and our son.

What happens next is so bizarre is almost eerie....

I remember that night like it was yesterday. The scars bleed still the same. It was snowing that night, a very dark January winter night. I was on the computer, which used dial-up modem. Remember dial-up modem made ones phone line busy. Leaving my dial-up connected all the time was nothing new, everyone reached me on my cellphone. The first call came through on my landline around 10pm. My brother’s friend looking for his jacket. ( Later to find out he died two days later) He was the first phone call that broke through the dial-up modem connection. I thought to myself...odd? The second call that came through the landline and broke through the dial-up connection would forever change me and me son’s life forever.

A call at this time of the night is never good I thought. Something must be wrong, I better answer this. I quickly pick up and answer. What came next no parent is ever prepared for.

The other end of the phone call was deafening and unsettling. Screams echoed through the receiver. Then a man spoke. My son’s grandfather gravely spoke the news as I went numb, “Chris is dead” he said. I replied, “What? Your kidding right?” Solemnly he said “No, Chris shot himself in the head, he’s dead.” I can hear his mother hysterically screaming and crying in the background. All I can think of was my 7 year old son. How would I tell him? I dropped to my knees, my world stopped.

What came next was even worse than receiving this news; explaining to my son why daddy isn’t here no more. Try to explain to him so he understands. It was the hardest thing I ever did.

For months my son cried and screamed for his daddy, begging God to let daddy come home from heaven. Asking me to call God so he can talk to Daddy. Having to pick him up from school on multiple occasions as he broke down in class calling out for daddy. Sleepless nights crying for daddy. A 7 year old boy now turned into a man by selfishness of another, forced to grow up.

There is no fairness in life. No predictions of what the future may hold. The uncertainty of life’s timeline and our ignorance to appreciate every last minute, because one never knows when your minute is over.