Part III

Cont...

She was also smart in ways I could never be. She had this organic sensibility that led her to always have the answer. I ran to her. I wrapped myself around her. As a child, I hesitated to believe in any other way but hers.

When she was sad and frightened, I was strong. Did I really have a choice? My brother needed clean socks. My sister had a birthday party to attend. The pugs needed a walking. The man delivering the oil needed to be paid. You see, the house doesn’t run by itself.

I’ve been mediator. I’ve been big sister. I’ve played mom. I’ve been eldest daughter and granddaughter. I’ve been career woman. I’ve been the child that puts her parent into a mental hospital. I’ve been lover and fighter. I’ve been devastated.

When a life is taken in such a way, a big mess is left in return. My father doesn’t even bear a close resemblance to the man that raised me. My brother must tell me he loves me even when I briefly leave the room. My sister, well, I could say she has tuned out, but that would be too easy. She feels fucked.

Even the pugs have felt loss. Right after my mom died the little one scratched the fur off her head leaving angry red patches. The fat one just sticks to herself these days. And the old one … she was my mother’s favorite … some six months later my sister came home from school to find her dead.

Grief often prevails.

The kids and I have tried to stick together, but it’s been impossible. I can’t be their mom though sometimes I would like to be. I would like to give them that because they deserve to have a mom. I think that I could do a better job than she. I mean anyone could, right? For Christ sake, she left her two teenage kids alone forever one dark fall night. They were just in their bedrooms watching television or IMing their friends as teens do. She made the choice to miss my brother’s first day of high school, to not send my sister off to her first day of senior year. She will miss the birth of my first child, something that is not currently in the mix, but something that I stay up at night crying over. She always promised me that she would watch her grandchild whenever I needed her to. I remember the day when she told me that I would be a great mom.

This is all the talk of grief-stricken girl.

The other night me and my best girlfriend estimated that I pay $1500 a month in medical fees; the vast majority of funds going to therapy. This suicide has cost me a bloody fortune. And all I do is talk about the same thing … her.

There are no doors to unlock, symbols to decode, mysteries to solve. Suicide is what it is. There is no universal cause. I can think of a million reasons why it became easier for her to shoot herself on October 26, 2005, but I can also think of a million reasons why she might have looked twice at the gun, closed her eyes and stepped away, never to feel that cold metal in her hands.