With Lane on his trip I had planned to get much done around here. That has not really happened. A few things have been done, but nothing that can be described as much.

Saturday Grace had suggested we have a fire at my house since her brother would be visiting. It turned out to be a cool, windy, day so she suggested we come to her house for supper instead. When I asked if I should bring anything Grace suggested a salad. She made a sweet and sour chicken, homemade bread, and carrots to go with my salad. By the time I drove to her house that evening the winds were fierce. Tumbleweeds flew across the road in herds, while dust made visibility low. We had a pleasant evening. We ate, joked, talked about movies, religion, politics, books. It was pretty great.

Sunday I was busy cleaning out the closets in my room when Anna's daughter-in-law called me. She invited me to supper that evening. She was cooking ribs. I was hesitant, because I wanted to stay on my cleaning spree, but decided to go. They are a young couple with three young children. I asked if I should bring anything. She suggested a salad. I went in to inspect the contents of my vegetable crisper and decided pasta would be a better idea. While I was making it the phone rang. It was her again. She told me she was going to the store to get bbq sauce and asked if she should buy anything else. Thinking she meant condiments I said no that should do it. After the phone call was over though I began to wonder if I had misunderstood the question. I pulled out some beans I had leftover and made baked beans. For supper that night the five of us had ribs, beans, and pasta. They had ordered a new couch, which was being delivered the next day. They had already hauled their old one off. After supper we sat on the floor and watched several episodes of Game Of Thrones-season one. It was a fun. I am hooked on the series and also reading the first book.

Monday I fried some leftover tortillas into chips and made a huge plate of nachos for myself. Work did get done. It was nice to be alone for once. Before leaving work that day a coworker of mine, Pam, asked me to stop by her house. I declined because I needed time alone. She looked sad so that evening I suggested we go out to eat either Wednesday or Thursday evening. Tuesday I had already planned to go shopping with Grace. Tuesday turned out to be a full blown dust storm. It was like something out of the thirties. Wind at fifty miles an hour filling the sky with dirt. The sun shining through the dirt was an eerie orange color. Even inside I could taste the dirt in my mouth. On my lunch break I walked the couple of blocks from the library back to work while chewing gum. By the time I arrived my gum was gritty. Grace and I decided to wait until Wednesday to shop. I finished off my nachos and did my homework in two MOOC courses I am taking.

Wednesday was shopping, Mexican food, and margaritas. Tonight dinner with Pam. We ate a fried seafood plate with fries. It was good. I prefer my seafood less fried, but it was a nice change. I was off early since I did not clean the office building today. We talked for and hour, went to eat, talked a while more, then I came home. Lane will be home in a few days and I have not washed any dishes. Hopefully I will get to them tomorrow.

Grace

"There are probably others I should add here, but I know the personal struggles these ladies have overcome and I am proud of them and thankful that they are my friends, and relatives" --Grace

 Grace tagged me in this Facebook post a few minutes ago. I instantly started to sob. Not to tear up in a 'that's so sweet' way, but to actually ball. It is simply that guilt is such a crushing emotion. It has the power to change a person. To make them ugly if they are not careful. The pain of guilt makes people lash out at others so they too feel pain. To know you will carry this guilt around for the rest of your life is daunting. I am lucky to have such a supportive group of friends and family holding me up.

I had invited Drama Queen to Jason's Memorial/birthday celebration. Part of me did not want to because she has been so hateful to the rest of us since Jason died. For years though I have been working to keep the family together, so I see no reason to stop now. Forgiveness is needed to keep a family together, even in the best of times. I never wanted us to become on of those families who fight over silly things or go years without talking to each other. I also knew she would not come, but would feel hurt if she were not invited. 

That evening as we were sitting around the campfire she started texting me. At first I answered because I thought she wanted to talk. It became apparent soon she was just being hateful again. She accused me of turning my back on her. I did not respond. She said how sad it was that Jason did not have someone in his life that was there for him when he needed her. Instead he had a mom who just sat in the house drinking tea while he died.

My sister is smart and perceptive. Instead of using her power for good she uses it to cause pain. She sees straight into a person and to their inner struggles. With this knowledge she accuses and confirms their fears.

I deleted her texts and laid awake in bed most of the night explaining to myself that she is hurting. She never learned to deal with pain, instead she inflicts it on others. Because of this she does not have the support from friends and family that I have. She has pushed everyone away. I forgave her, but have not reached out to her since. I still need a bit more time.

*edited to add that so often ugly, broken, guilty, and confused is exactly how I feel. That is why the quote caused such violent tears.

Some nights fail to conform to the plan. Thursday night I was sitting on my couch typing on my laptop when the phone rang. It was Anna. She was in a car full of drinking women. They pulled into my drive and waited for me to run out.  I had planned to spend the evening drinking tea, getting some work finished, reading, and falling asleep by 10:30. Instead I was yelling back at Lane, who was leaving himself, that I was going with Anna and by the sound of her voice there would be alcohol involved. 

I don't believe I drank an unusually large amount of wine, but I did drink it rather quickly. Soon after midnight I was at home puking out wine. I slept really well, but was still tired as I drove to work the next morning. Thankfully the puking had stopped.  On my lunch break I took a forty-five minute nap in my car. The day was beautiful so I pulled into the park, rolled down my windows, and slept. I woke right before my alarm went off. Looking up at the wispy clouds in the blue sky I wondered if my alarm had failed to go off, surely I had been asleep for over an hour.

Lane left at 3:30 this morning to go on his senior trip. They are taking a cruise to Mexico. I am jealous. Lately I have been craving a hot beach full of sunshine. A senior trip, that means my baby will be graduating soon. I guess this will be my practice week for living alone.

I do not think Lane will move out right away, but it is reasonable to believe that someday I will be alone.  There were days, back when my house was always full of children, that the idea of living alone seemed like bliss. I have never been a mother who feared the empty nest. I love having my children with me, but I have my own projects and goals too. I was excited to see them venture out and see the world as adults.

Now, with Jason dead, it all feels different. I feel guilty when I enjoy being alone. Or if I have time and energy to get something finished. If he were alive he would still be here taking up all of my time. I would prefer that, but have no choice in the matter. Nothing is going as planned.

Memory

 For some reason the days that everybody expects to be hard for me, for instance Jason's birthday, are not as hard as the day after. I cannot explain this. I just feel worse after the big days have passed.

My biggest fear is that I will not keep Jason's memory alive. My tendency is to live in the present.
This morning, which is three months, I was thinking that someday it will be three years. Then I suppose I will not hurt as badly as I do now. Jason died three months before his twentieth birthday. I am forty. So he was one of the closest people to me for half of my life. If I live to be sixty he will only have been alive for a third of my life. Will I forget what he was like? My grandchildren will never know him. Today I ran several of the ways families try to keep the memory of their loved ones alive and they all seemed so futile. Sure a scholarship or memorial will keep his name in circulation, but he was so much more that a name.

3/11/1994

Twenty years ago today I was spending my first day with my second son. I loved it. Lee came to visit us in the hospital. He was two. He came running in the room and said 'where's my baby?' From that day forward he has filled our life. Jason is one of those people who fill a room, big laugh, big smile, big heart. Lee never played in the toilet until Jason showed him how fun it could be. He had a way of talking people into things. 

Sunday we set his memorial in the cemetery. It turned out better than I expected. Lane had been skeptical about the steel idea. On Sunday he told me he loved it. He was happy that there was not anything else like it. It is original, like Jason.

Saturday morning I went shopping for a few things I needed for Jason's memorial service on Sunday. I had decided I wanted to paint a red heart to mark the spot where his ashes were held in his memorial. I had made this plan a few days before, but the reality had not hit me. Suddenly I realized I was going to get up Sunday morning, take my son's ashes, pour them into his memorial, close it, and paint on a heart. I pictured my family standing back a few paces while I solemnly painted a heart. We would all be tearing up a bit. They would put their arms around my shoulders as we walked away.
I started crying while shopping thinking about it. Suddenly this whole plan for a memorial/birthday service seemed like a bad idea. It was going to be too hard. I was not ready.

The reality of it was a little different. We, Rolando, Jason's dad, Lee, Lane, & Chico (Rolando & Miss Universe's son) were all out at the cemetery. The service was set for one. It was 11:30. We were setting the memorial in place. We poured in the ashes. It didn't go as smoothly as we imagined. Chunks of bone plugged up the funnel. Afterwards I wiped the off the dust left over. Over my shoulder Lane said, "All those years cleaning up after Jason. Now your cleaning up Jason."

I opened the paint and started making a heart. It was looking kind of rough. Everybody was looking over my shoulder making jokes about how bad my heart making skills were. I was laughing so hard it made painting even more difficult. Rolando said he would tell people we had one of the children paint it.

The ceremony went well. Afterwards we had a cookout in my yard. The friends and family all came. We had a bonfire and made smores. It was a lovely day. A nice birthday celebration.

 

Warm and fuzzy, that is how I feel tonight. It has nothing to do with the comfy sweater, warm quilt, or ginger peach tea either. Lane wanted me to wake him up at 7:30 so he could go out. I woke him up, but we started talking and he forgot to leave. We sat in the living room and talked for over an hour. It was one of those fast moving conversations that covered several topics. I really do have the best kids. Not only have they been easy kids to raise. They are all interesting people in their own right.
Jason never seemed to need much sleep as a teenager. Many weekend or summer nights he would come home from hanging out with his friends, see my light on and come in to talk. He could talk for hours. I tried not to let him catch me checking the clock. I would be silently calculating how few hours of sleep I was going to get before work. Usually when the number became less than four I would start trying to wind down the conversation. I loved it though. All through the next day I would have this warm, fuzzy feeling soaked into me. It is a feeling that can only come from spending time with a person you love.

Selfishness

Grief is a selfish emotion. Selfishness has always been one of my biggest flaws. One I work on continually, but it is always still there. A month ago I decided to write Jason a letter to read during his interment ceremony. The ceremony is Sunday, we had to change it due to weather, and I have not been able to write a word. The problem is that I want it to be a letter in celebration of his life. One day, a good day, I was able to write it out in my head. Unfortunately I was working and did not get it down on paper. Since then when I try to write it is all about me, my grief.  Grief is a selfish emotion I have taken Jason's death and made it all about me.

On bad days I imagine going to the hospital in Amarillo, or to Area Mental Health in Garden City. I try to fool myself into believing I just want to go so I can relive days I spent with Jason. It does not work though. I know what I really want to do is to ask the people who turned my son away if they remember him. I want to tell them he is dead. Show them a picture of him in his coffin. Why? Where does this come from? I am hurt. My soul has been hurt and I want to lash out in anger and hurt their souls too. This is wrong. There is already so much hurt and anger in the world. I do not want to add to it.

I found myself saying the oddest thing today. Thank God no one heard. It would have been difficult to explain. "I'm excited for Saturday" came out of my mouth in a truly anticipatory tone. Tuesday is Jason's twentieth birthday. To commemorate we are placing his memorial in the cemetery. Afterward there will be a cookout and campfire. We are planning to do it on Saturday so everybody can make it. Hopefully, there will be these things. The temperature is to climb all week then drop down to fifty on Saturday. Regardless of the weather we have been putting much time and energy into planning the whole ceremony. The headstone is almost finished. It is looking even better than I expected.

So yes, I am getting excited. I like to plan events, have people over, eat, laugh, and drink. More than that it feels like I am doing something for Jason again. Lee is coming home, hopefully. I need to write Jason a letter. I am hoping to write something I can read without too much crying to start us off. Today I wondered if I should find a paragraph to read also. There is so much to do, and yet here I sit.

Part of my excitement probably stems from being able to plan a party without guilt. Although I am an introvert, I am a social person. I like having my friends and family surrounding me. So often I plan parties, or they happen spontaneously. Since Jason died I feel guilty for every moment I spent with my friends during his last few months. To plan a party now that he is dead usually makes me nauseas with guilt.

I realize that my guilt is about me. It will not bring him back. I can mourn forever and he is not less dead.  The thing is I liked being me. I was optimistic and fun. There was hope inside of me. I smiled a lot. Now I am different. I know I will never be the same. I grew up, was disillusioned in one instant. However, I want to get some of myself back. That is what Jason would want too. He loved me.

Healing

Over the last week I have came here several times to write, but nothing seems right. What more can I say about Jason's death? I am still sad, but that is a given. Yet nothing else seems important enough to talk about. I still think about him all the time. I keep reminding myself that I have two living children who need my energy too.

My life was changed in an instant. In one moment I was looking at my troubled son wondering what more I could do for him. In the next moment I had noticed the rope. My stomach dropped and my world was changed. My main goal in life had been to have children and give them the best childhood possible. While I was doing it I thought I was doing a good job. Some people have even heard me say that I had accomplished my one goal in life; now I needed to set another one. I was so confidant that I had succeeded and would succeed in the rest of my life too.  Now every day I wake up and know that all I am going to do is try to make it through this day.

However, I also do more every day. There is the Music Of The Beatles class that I am enjoying. I have went out a couple of times. It hasn't always went well, but I will still go again. I am becoming efficient at work again. For months I have felt slow and plodding, but now I am starting to do my job well again. All of this makes me feel guilty, but not as bad as it used to.  Some days I still feel like it would be easier to just give up, but I know I will not. I am starting to eat healthier again. I make plans to start doing yoga again. It does not go far though. On days when I do not particularly want to be alive there seems to be no reason to forgo the greasy cheeseburger and malt. I am in a sort of wetlands of grief. There is not any dry land, yet there is not really a noticeable body of water either.

My last night out

Lane is home. I hear his pickup pulling into the yard. Lately we feel like less of a family. We are still close, very close, we talk a lot. However, a family has always been more than two people. It has been for us anyway. We are a family that loves to eat, talk, and drink together. suddenly we are two people who love each other, but two people with separate friends.
 I went to the bar tonight with Diva. I do not go out much anymore because there is a high chance for awkwardness. It seemed safe tonight. We went to the bar and sat with friends. There was a man there who did not know me. He kept winking at me. Since I am not good at meeting new people right now I just smiled, but tried not to encourage him. Then a woman who used to live near me came in. She has a special needs son who had been in Jason's class. All of the parents of special needs children love Jason. Simply because he loved their children. He would throw the kickball into the outfield as their children ran the bases. He was more empathetic than most people. He made sure their children felt like one of the crowd. She found me in the bar and hugged me and balled. It was not quiet crying, it was wailing. I tried to hold it together, but soon I was crying too.

Diva and I went to another bar. We sat with some people I know vaguely from work. One of the men asked me my last name. Then the name of my ex. "Jason" he asked. No, that was my son. I responded. "Is he?" Yes. I said.

Choosing to die

Today, since I have a day off, I have spent the morning watching documentaries on Terry Pratchett. Knowing he has Alzheimer breaks my heart. To think of somebody with an obvious love of life, people, thoughts, and memories slowly losing his ability to think clearly and communicate is like a woodpecker losing his beak.

I was struck with so many emotions as I watched Choosing To Die. Of course I thought of Jason dying alone while staring at a wall. Of course if he had to die I would have preferred it to be beside a fire. He could have been smoking a cigarette while I held his other hand.  Mostly though I was not only thinking of him. I was thinking of Terry wishing to die in the English sunshine. I was thinking of myself and how I would choose to go, if I had to choose.  I was thinking of Mr. Smedley who had to leave his wife too soon simply because he could not die in his own country. It was obvious he would rather have waited a few years, and died at home after drinking a glass of wine from his own cellar. 

I think I too would like to die in the sunshine. The Kansas sun has a certain feel to it that I love. I enjoy the dry heat we have here. A glass of wine in hand, sitting watching the birds fly from tree to tree, admiring the way the green looks against the blue sky. My family sitting around me making jokes. What music I wonder, maybe Nirvana. Of course the day would be so lovely I would probably wait to watch the sunset too. My family would jokingly tell me to get on with it because they have shit to do. Obviously I am not ready to go now, but you cannot help to think about it while watching the documentary.

Terry Pratchett: Choosing To Die (2011) - Full Documentary

Attitude

It has been two months since I found Jason. The guilt is getting easier to carry. I know it will always be with me. I am getting used to it hanging around my neck on a chain. Sometimes when I lie down at night the weight of it will make it hard for me to breath. Two months since I failed as a mother. It is not that I failed in that one instant. It is that as his mother it was my job to give him what he needed to live.  I did not do that, not because I did not want to, but because I did not know how. Ironically I did not spend all day thinking about Jason today. The thoughts were always there, but at times they were a in the back of my mind.

Instead I was thinking about what type of person I want to be. My supervisor at work can be a mean, petty person. Having worked for her for seven years I am used to it. I see her treat others in a backhanded, deceitful manner on a daily basis. Usually I can be philosophical about it and remind myself of all the good traits she has. She can be a kind, caring person if you are on her good side. As far as bosses go I could do worse. Just so you do not think I am exaggerating I looked back and I am the only employee who has lasted more than 2 years underneath her. The rest have found different jobs and contact me regularly to make sure I am doing ok.

Yesterday though I was fed up. Monday morning started off badly because I refused to laugh at her 'global warming' jokes. I do not get paid enough for that. She pointed out how bad the Olympics were going in Russia. Somehow she tied this to Russia being a communist state and pointed out that it baffled her that everyone in this country wanted to be socialist now. I could have argued about what is and what is not socialism, but I did not see the point. She went on to say that in socialism the rich have everything and the poor just keep getting poorer. I calmly pointed out that all countries and most systems have this problem. It is happening here as we speak. Another coworker took up that line of conversation and we talked about history for several minutes as we worked. All the while our boss muttered opinions in such a low voice we could not hear what she was saying, but could tell she was disagreeing. I was tempted to say that if my arguments would not hold water in a conversation I would make sure nobody could hear them either. Since I still have a leave slip waiting for her signature I bit my tongue. She spent most of the day being hateful to me. I ignored her, and by the end of the day she was happy with me again.

 Yesterday she was nice, but continued a trend she has been trying lately. She does part of my work, has other contract workers volunteer to do my work, sends me home early, and finishes my work. She has explained that it is because I cannot have overtime. If it were saving the company money to limit my hours I would not be angry. It really is not about the money. It is the fact that she gets six to nine hours of overtime a week doing my job. Since she makes more than I do this is costing the company more money. Last time we were shorthanded we split the overtime so neither of us would get burned out and could still have a life.

Having a head cold did not help my attitude. I was tired, cranky, congested, and wondering why I had not called in sick. In the 11 years I have worked at this job I have only called in sick three or four times. I just go to work no matter what. As I walked out the door I decided I was calling in sick the next morning. She could either scramble to replace me or do it all herself. I also considered calling the union or several other backhanded options.

This morning though I decided to go to work. Not just go, but to enjoy myself, smile, get along with my boss, and be positive. If I were to do anything spiteful just to pay her back I would be learning from her example and becoming like her. I like being me. I am not spiteful or backhanded. Despite the occasional temptation. I should be myself and encourage her to follow my example. I did just that and had a nice day. Nice girls do win. She told me today she had gotten approval to give me overtime until we hired another employee.

The thought of Jason was always in the back of my mind. I could see him all day hanging in my peripheral vision. Every since Saturday I have been watching him play basketball in my mind. That was much better. Tomorrow I hope I see him smiling at me. I love him and hope he is proud of me. He is one of the kindest people I have ever met. He should be happy knowing I smiled instead of scowled all day.

Soon after Jason's death I realized I was suffering from ptsd. The first time I noticed it was a couple days after his death. I was coming home for the night. For the first week I spent most of my days at Miss Universe's house. At night I would come home to sleep. I noticed that when I came home I would pause before opening a door, or get tense as I turned a corner. I asked myself what was wrong? Was I afraid of the dark? I realized right away what it was. I was afraid of finding something horrifying.

The hesitation around every corner went away quickly, especially since I refused to sleep away from my home. What has stuck around is social anxiety. Being in a room full of people, especially a room full of people that do not know my situation makes my skin crawl. It is hard to describe. I feel the need to explain to everyone why I am not myself. I realize that these people do not know my son. Some how that makes it worse. I want to run away, maybe scrub myself with brillo pads in the shower.

Last night I agreed to go to a bar with a friend. We agreed that the moment I felt like it we would leave. At first my skin crawled. I started to scratch everywhere. After two tequila sunrises I felt ok. I switched to Blue Moons. The night went well. We came home at two this morning. At six I had to get up for work.

After work I cooked Lane lunch and took a nap. He played in Tribune in the evening and Diva and I were driving up to watch. After the game we went to a gastropub to eat. If you are surprised to hear that there is a gastropub in Tribune do not feel bad I was too. The food was delicious. We tried a couple of new beers and still made it home by ten thirty. Crossing a time zone was helpful.

The food at Elliot's was great. As we were pulling back into town another friend sent me a text asking if I wanted to go out for her brother's birthday. I decided to go. We went to three different bars. Yes there were a few points where I was uncomfortable. I ran into several people who were friends of myself and Jason's. It was an emotional night, but I had to face the public at some point.

a better day

I really felt like I was just going to give up everything. Why bother to recycle, conserve energy, speak out against social injustice. Suddenly none of it seemed to matter anymore. I wanted to just curl up in my own life with my books let the world go on without me.

This morning I woke to find my water had frozen off. This was after I had made sure I had left it dripping in two different rooms last night. So I went out in the eight degree morning, tramped through the snow and set a couple of heaters under the house. As I walked out the door I decided that I just wanted to sell the place and get an apartment.  Then after I was finished I looked around at everything covered in the beautiful coverlet of snow and smiled at the morning.

At work a co-worker, who I really like, showed me an ad for Duck Dynasty. She wanted to know if I had watched them, because they are really funny. Many days I would have just said no, but something inside of me broke free and pointed out that I find them offensive.

Then as I continued to work alone. Not alone because nobody likes me, but because the bulk if my job is solitary. Something somebody said on FB the day before irritated me. Some people are wondering why an actor who died of a heroin overdose gets more sympathy than a dead soldier. I formed arguments on many subjects today that nobody will likely hear.

At lunch I wanted to be alone. That has become the norm for me. So I went to the park to sit in my car and look at the snow and trees. It was freezing, but I shut off my car. Not to save gas, but for the environment. I had my large coat over me, but it was still very cold. Back at work I changed out of my snow boots and into my shoes. As my feet warmed up I felt my self smile. Not quite in happiness, but in at least contentment.

My second job is cleaning an office building. As I was working today I realized that I missed the old me. I missed being cheerful, funny, and light. Now, even when I'm laughing, I feel heavy. I avoid looking people in the eye now. Probably because I do not want people to see the pain inside of me, but I am not completely sure why. I know that this amount of grief is going to permanently change me. I am just hoping it does not make me mean and bitter.

No more hope

Today it felt like all my hope and joy were gone. Getting out of bed and going to work took a great deal of force. Then once at work I just could not stop crying. I have felt the depression trying to pull me down since late last week. Having read that this was likely to happen after the death of a child I have been trying to fight it.

Saturday after work I wanted to crawl in bed and stay there all evening. Making myself shower and dress Saturday to go the movies with Diva seemed like a step in the right direction. Putting on make up and brushing my hair felt good; that has not been happening as much as it should.

Sunday I did not feel sad. It just felt like an Elton John kind of day. Lane and I spent the morning and early afternoon alone at the house. We had on the pregame crap while I cooked. We talked and laughed; it was a good morning. He left to go watch the game with his cousins. Diva was having a party. My sisters, mom and I were going. I turned on Elton John while I finished up in the kitchen. I did not want to go be with other people. Had it only been the Superbowl I might have stayed home. It was also a birthday party for Diva. My mom does not get out much either, and I knew my family would not go without me. So I went.

I drank too much. Not that it was a big problem that night. We ate, drank, talked, laughed, had fun. I just could not get to a light, fun place. I am truly a social drinker. When I drink I am cheerful, and almost impossible to anger. Since Jason's death the times I have drank with my friends have been a release. I usually feel better the next day.  Of course, these have always been times when I have been ready to come out of my shell and socialize.  Today, I just felt worse than I have in weeks.

The movie August: Osage County kept running through my mind. Something had changed inside of me. There has always been a hope and optimism inside of me. Thinking about the family in the movie just made me see that there is no escape. These things go through families and I cannot stop it. My optimism and hope were silly.

 I do not know what triggered this vein of conversation, but our being homeless several times during our childhood has been a topic of discussion lately. Until somebody said homeless the other day I had never thought of it like that. We were just between houses. People sleep in their car when they are between houses.

Sure we were between houses several times. More than once we lived in little travel trailers or campers. All seven of us kids, at the most, and our parents crammed into tiny spaces at night. In the day though we were free. We ran in parks and explored the country side. There were times when we parked be ponds or streams. We would swim all day. My mom would wash our clothes in the water. I remember carrying water for what seemed like miles to drink. These are not bad memories for me. I thought it was a glorious freedom that we had.

Today it felt like that sense of hope and optimism had left. It was not just Jason being dead. It was him dying because he could not get help. It was Philip Seymour Hoffman dying of a drug overdose. There is a major drought in California. Suddenly it is too much.

The realness of the movie made it obvious to me that whoever had written the play it was based on had lived on the plains. Had experienced the devastation that is caused by addiction and mental illness. Had watched it eat it's way through generations. Generations. All the generations. It will not stop because I hope it will. Up until this last year, until I was forty, I have held on to a naivety that let me believe that this next generation would be better. They will not be.

I have spent my adult life believing that if I tried hard enough if I did everything right. If I loved my kids enough that they would all be better. My siblings and I have all tried to be better parents. We have tried to give our kids a better start than we had. It does not seem to matter anymore. They will still struggle with our demons, suffer, and die.   

I know my father, although a horrible person and parent, was better than his father. We have in turn all tried to be the best we can, but it did not help. I have always believed that families, like society, can improve with each generation. Suddenly my hope is gone for my family, for the world. I still believe there is more good in the world than evil, more goodness than hatefulness, but I do not believe we can over come it all anymore. Every thing is just going to end badly. I feel like I am going to spend the rest of my life watching our kids struggle. Without the optimism of a better future for them. There is no more joy. Still I will get up everyday, go to work, wash dishes, love my kids, but there will be no hope in it.

Diva called today and asked me to go to the movies with her. My first impulse was to say no. Instead I made myself shower, put on make up, and get out of the house. We went and ate too much bbq before the movie. It was one of those places where you order buckets of everything including beer. Then you wipe your hands on a roll of brown paper towels set on the table.

I picked the movie. Having narrowed it down to three it seemed like a no lose decision. The choices were August: Osage County; I, Frankenstein; or Dallas Buyers Club. I chose August: Osage County. No, I did not know the premise. I just knew it had several actors I love in it and it was supposed to be funny.

The minute Beverly disappeared my I knew what was coming and tried to prepare myself. I did enjoy the movie. It was just a little soon. I had a slight panic attack afterwards at the grocery store. Suddenly not being able to find the almond bark seemed too much stress to handle. When I was young, between 16 and 21, I used to have panic attacks when I drove. It just seemed like too much responsibility to be in control of so many lives at once. I found the best way to get better was just to drive a lot, in cities if possible. After a couple of deep breaths I was able to talk myself through it. I never thought the day when come when I would have to say "find the chocolate chip section. It will be fine"

I have made it sound like a disaster of an evening, but it was actually fun. I am glad I did not spend another evening lying in bed reading. Not that those are bad evenings either.

Here is my baby at 18.

My beautiful son a few months before his death.

More guilt

My last post did not go where I intended it to go. I was planning on only briefly mentioning my guilt over not finding the body, but that was the memory that took over. My trait, once a positive one, now one I find puzzling is what I planned to write about.

Once my guilt over not finding the body was examined over and over a much heavier guilt set in. It is one thing to let a dead person hang for too long. It is quite another to let a live person die. My son walked passed me. My son, who had already attempted suicide once, walked passed me with a determined look on his face. He was stuffing something is his pocket and said he was going out to smoke a cigarette. I was nonchalant. After thirty minutes of waiting for him I did not worry. I went to bed without finding him.

I have always been a laissez-faire parent. By nature I am an optimist and do not worry too much. My kids climbed trees, slid down the stairs, played rough, got dirty and ruined their clothes without me ever freaking out. When I had my children they were text book pregnancies. Thing always seemed to work out. When Lee had surgery for his broken wrist everything turned out like it should. Later when he had a more extensive jaw surgery he healed as expected. There seemed to be a pattern. I did not worry and when things went wrong they righted themselves or we fought our way through them.

Deep down, when Jason was sick, I do not think I ever believed he would die. I expected it to be a long hard fight, a slow recovery, but I knew we would beat this. Looking back I seem so naïve, so stupid. I let my son die, because I believed he was getting better. I thought we were on our way.

There were things in Jason's life that I was watching closely because they were the only way I knew to measure how he was doing. One of the things I watched was where he was sleeping.  He had trouble both being alone and sleeping. Because of this combination bad nights were usually spent in my bed. He had been sleeping in the living room since he came home from the psych ward. I took this as a good sign.

I watched to see if he was being social. He had been laughing and spending more time with the family since he came home too. Tuesday he had went to a friend's house to spend the morning with them. To me this was huge, a big step in the right direction.

The sore on his chin was always the first thing I checked when I came home. On one of his worst nights, the Thursday before his first suicide attempt, he was convinced the whole world could read his mind. This was a delusion he had often, but this night he ripped open his chin and tried to pull the wires out of his face. He told me he could feel the wires that were transmitting his thoughts with his pocket knife. His chin would almost heal then I would notice he had opened the wound again. Tuesday night as I sat on the couch next to him I examined his chin and noticed it had healed. There was a scar, but the wound had healed.

For years I thought my optimism was one of the things that made me a good parent. So often when parents worry they make situations for their children worse. Sometimes when my children were struggling I gave them my support but let them work the problem out for themselves. Now I wish I had been worried and scared. In my memory I picture me jumping out of the chair and tackling him football style when he tried to walk out the door. I cannot change who I am. I cannot change the past.

Autopsy is too vague

I spent all weekend beating myself up. As a mother I really did fail at the one thing a mother is supposed to do: keep her child alive. After a month of thinking this over I believe it was a trait that I used to count as a positive one that failed him.
 After reading his autopsy report I am sure he killed himself Tuesday night. So first I felt horrible for not finding his body sooner. It was cold. I only went outside once on Wednesday. It is hard for me to believe that I did not see him then. Several people came and went that day. It is unreal that nobody did see him. He was hanging in a small building with a both a window frame and a door frame that are wide. I had not gotten around to putting in a window or door yet. He was visible from the street. Nobody who was here can believe that he was there on Wednesday. Diva cried when I told her I thought he was. She is sure she would have seen him.
The day he died Fria Chica told me that she had talked to him Wednesday morning. She pulled up early in the morning. It was still dark outside. My mom's headlights were shining a small amount of light into the building. She said that he was looking down at his phone and would not talk to her. That did not alarm her. Often if he was in a paranoid mood he ignored people, or talked so quite he was hard to hear. She was in a hurry so she took this as assent that she could borrow his car and rushed off to work. Since driving caused him to have a harder time controlling his thoughts he did not use his car much and she had been driving it to work everyday.
I did not know Fria Chica had taken his car, so I thought that Jason had taken his car in the middle of the night. My mom said that Fria Chica told her Jason was in the building as she left. My mom climbed the steps to the building and stood in the doorway. She did not go inside. She looked around and did not see him.
All of this led to much confusion and conversation. Was he in the room alive when Fria Chica talked to him? Did he hide from my mom? Could he have survived all night out in the sub-freezing temperatures in his thin jacket? I kept thinking it was a different scenario.
I suspected he had killed himself Tuesday night. Fria Chica does not have the best eyes. She is also not observant when she is in a hurry. Jason did not have his phone. He left it on the kitchen table. I think he was looking down because he was hanging there already dead. Something deep inside of Fria Chica knew this too. She was over emotional all day. At the end of her work day she walked off and quit without a word.
What then of my mom? She has poor night vision like Fria Chica. She also has a strong defense mechanism that leads her to forget things she does not want to remember. Whenever she talks about the past I wonder if we lived in the same universe. Could her mind just have blocked him out?
I have suggested that maybe there was some sort of spiritual veil over him. How else could so many people have walked passed him and not noticed him. I think I was supposed to find him when I did.
Most everybody else believes he could not have been there all day Wednesday. It must have been after dark on Wednesday when he died.
We have been waiting for the autopsy to see when the doctors would place his time of death. They left it as undetermined. The blood analysis from the state is not back yet. If he had meth in his system we would know that he did leave Tuesday night. After looking up a few things in the report I really believe he did kill himself Tuesday, right after I talked to him. The report had said rigor mortis had passed. Of course freezing temperatures make rigor mortis less accurate as measure for time of death.
His body was frozen when found. The autopsy said there were signs of post mortem hypothermia. He was missing for about 36 hours. I do not think rigor mortis could have set in and passed in much less time than that.