WARNING: This is a very personal/tear jerking post. Reader discretion is advised. Since the suicide of Robin Williams, I have wondered how I could help the World to make any sense of Suicide. I was going to post part of a memoir I was assigned to write in college. The weeks passed, and I never did. My mother committed suicide 22 years ago today. Today I have the courage to share with the World this deeply personal recount of November 3, 1992. My only request is that if you have any questions, that you message me personally rather than comment. Please Like it if you have read the whole piece.Thank you Exactly 11 days shy of my tenth birthday, my World changed forever. It felt like a normal Tuesday, and it was yet again a bitter cold day in November. My sister and I ate cream of wheat for breakfast to warm our tummies and a small cocoa served in a bowl (very French). Papa had dashed off to the restaurant already, so all that was left before heading out into the arctic tundra was to bundle up and kiss my mother goodbye. I loved my new mittens that I had just received for winter, so I was eager to wear them. My sister however, did not want to put her hat on that morning. This escalated into a mild argument, resulting in my sister storming out of the house without saying goodbye to my mother. Bubbly me squeezed her flannel nightgown with white bunnies on it, told her I loved her and ran out of the door to catch up with Natalie. School was normal, like any Tuesday, until we returned to the house. We walked in and my mother was nowhere to be found. Her car was parked out front, and her watch that she never took off was resting on the VCR. We were not alarmed, for she could have been anywhere, the neighbor’s house or out with a friend perhaps. I did not feel alarmed until the sun began to set and we needed to go to our piano lessons. She always drove us to piano lessons. At this point, we called our father at the restaurant, and he asked my older sister Natalie if she felt comfortable walking us the block and a half to our lesson. She agreed and we headed out into the cold winter night. After piano, my mother was not there to pick us up. It was too cold and late at this point to walk home alone. Our piano teacher drove us home, and we reassured her that everything was okay. Natalie realized at this point that the garage light was on. She went to check it out but was locked out. We called Papa to tell him that we were hungry and inquiring about Mama’s whereabouts. He did not know, was terribly busy at the restaurant, and asked us to call Sherry, a close friend. When we called Sherry and told her what was going on, she was in the car before even hanging up the phone. She walked in with fear, masked by a comforting smile. She then sat us down and said, “I do not mean to alarm you girls, but I just need to take a quick look around the house.” That sounded very weird to me, but I still had no clue as to what was going on. My sister then turned into a cold statue. I followed Sherry as she went from room to room searching for my mother as if we were playing hide and go seek. After we checked out the basement, my sister told her that the garage light was on. Sherry turned white and asked where the key was. Though we could not locate it earlier, my sister remembered that she had a copy of the key in the inside pocket of her winter coat. As Sherry perhaps anticipated the worst, she ran through the backyard to the garage and opened the door. She did not allow us to watch from the back window, thank God, for her fears came true. Sherry came rushing into the house, dropped to her knees, and delegated the next course of action. Natalie was to call 911 and give them our address, while I was to wait outside in the front yard to direct the ambulance to the alley. Sherry returned to the garage to see if there was anything she could do. As I stood outside in the frigid winter night, I began to wonder what the hell was going on: Missing mother, something happening in the garage, the police and an ambulance on the way? It is an inexplicable sensation to hear sirens cut through the freezing air and know that they are headed in your direction. As the sirens stirred my emotions and confusion violently in my little body, the sight of the lights and the ambulance pushed me over the edge. As they screamed down the street, I began to scream bloody murder. I did not realize that I was capable of such a sound. Nobody heard me, for the echoes of the sirens were deafening. As they approached me, my tears were freezing like icicles to my face and then melting as the floodgates of my confusion poured out. I was speechless, so I just motioned with my arm for them to head around back. I returned to the house, and saw my sister on the couch like a sad stuffed animal with a blank gaze. Though she is my older sister, she was frozen. I sat down on the recliner and convulsed recklessly with a new understanding that my mother was dead. After Sherry passed the garage situation over to the paramedics, she came in to talk to us. Just as she sat down, a police officer walked in. He too said, “I don’t mean to alarm you, but I need to take a look around.” At that moment, it was clear to me that my mother had been murdered. As the officer climbed the stairs, I turned to Sherry and asked her who would murder my mother? She held me close, kissed me and said, “Nobody would ever murder your mother, because she was a wonderful person.” Just then the permanence of the situation hit…my mother WAS a wonderful person…she used the past tense when speaking of my mother. Before I could ask another question, the house was flooded with neighbors. Twenty minutes later, my stoic father arrived with tears in his eyes. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, my father, my rock was crumbling??? Oh God, I thought, oh God. Then I actually took a minute to think about GOD and was seized by anger. By the time my father called my grandmother to inform her that her daughter had just taken her life by gassing herself in the garage, I shut down. I had had enough, and it looked like my sister was preserving herself from the pain by acting like a stone. At this moment, a very close family friend named Johnny approached my father and asked him if he could take us out and away from all of the chaos for a bit. My father realized that that would be best, so back out into the freezing clear night. He brought us to a cozy diner. He ordered three cheeseburgers with fries, and three vanilla milkshakes. We sat in silence for over an hour. I passed the time by watching my shake melt. As I counted the beads of condensation moisten the coaster, I thought, “I will cry far more tears if my mother is in fact dead.” The server was perceptive to our devastating shock and death energy. She did not ask questions nor give us a weird look when she realized that none of us had even touched a fry or even reached for ketchup. I will always remember that, for anything kind and nonjudgmental was deeply appreciated. Johnny excused himself for a moment and called Papa to see if the coast was clear. He then asked for the check, and we quietly left. On the ride home, I sat in the back seat drawing broken hearts on the frosted window. I remember that Natalie and Johnny started a conversation, but I was checked out. We returned to our house and everybody had gone home. My father sat on the couch and greeted us with open arms, and a deep look of loss in his eyes. Johnny asked if there was anything else he could do, and then went home. We all agreed that there was no chance of sleeping, so Papa took us on a walk late at night in a beautiful park. From that Tuesday night until Thursday when we drove down to Iowa where she was buried, I do not remember anything.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 00:08:17 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015