Kevin

I remember it like it was yesterday.

It was a typical late August Friday night.

All of my friends were over at my house following the Friday night football scrimmage. People were beginning to leave but my friend, Rachel, was going to spend the night. My mom walked upstairs, which was weird in and of itself because upstairs belonged to me and my brothers when we all lived at home. My mom only ever came upstairs to clean and late Friday night was not her typical cleaning time. She told Rachel that she needed to leave because she needed to talk to me and my brother Joey.

My mom sat Joey and me down in my room and began to tell me some of the worst news of my life. I could tell by the look on her face that it was bad. She was apologizing with her eyes for the news she was about to give us.

"It's about your Uncle Kevin"..." He died".

I was in shock.

My mind immediately went back to the last time I saw him. I had just seen him a few days earlier at my grandparents house. He was pacing around the house tense. I distinctly remember having the feeling that I needed to get up and give him a hug and tell him that I loved him, which was weird because my family is not emotionally expressive nor are we huggers. I had this deep feeling that I attributed to God that Kevin needed to know that he was loved and I needed to tell him but I ignored it because the family was all there and that was weird.

My mom proceeded to tell us that he had killed himself.

He hung himself in his backyard shed after overdosing on prescription medication.

He was later found in the shed by his wife who he was separated from at the time.

My uncle Kevin was my dad's brother so after finding out the news I immediately wanted to be with my dad. The music minister and one of my uncle's friends came to my house to speak with my mom and then took me to my grandparents house. When I walked in I saw my grandpa crying for the first time in my life and my dad crying for the second time in my life. I sat down and collapsed onto my dad and began crying. At some point during the night someone brought me home.

The following morning I had a volleyball tournament and in an attempt to ignore the fact my life had just fallen in on itself I decide to go to the tournament. My mom took me to get some doughnuts and then dropped me off at the school. As soon as I walked in to the room I realized everyone already knew what happened and just stared at me with sad eyes.

Later that day I lost it in the bathroom and began to cry uncontrollably. I needed to be with my family again so I called my dad and he picked me up immediately.

Halfway through the week I decided I would try to go to school only to end up in the bathroom crying with friends again.

There is more memories of that week or so but they are so disjointed that it wouldn't even make sense to write them down.

I remember thinking it was all my fault that my uncle was dead.

I remember thinking God gave me a message to tell him but I was too worried that it was bizarre and I didn't want to be mocked.

I remember being so angry with God for making that my last memory with my uncle.

I remember feeling so guilty for a very long time.

Suicide is strange and painful.

Every person in my family felt guilty.

Everyone thought they should have know.

Everyone thought there must of been something they could have done to stop it.


it
was
awful.