Stacey Kathryn
All I could do now was sit on our front porch as the police looked for his dead body.
“Mom do you think Dad is already dead? Do you think he’s at peace now?” Emma softly whispered leaning the weight of her body and her concern against mine.
The police officer kept his eyes locked straight ahead and Emma was staring blankly at the ground, and I sat powerless. I wanted to curl up and die; an immediate combustion and float away into dust but, I was the adult. She was my responsibility and she wasn’t my only child. How will I muster up the courage and strength I will need to parent five children-alone.
“I don’t know Em.”
Oh, my God Stacey. That’s all you’ve got? This is only one of the most, if not the most, pivotal moments in your parenting career and you just said you, “ I don’t know.” Your Father was right, you’re an epic failure.
You can’t prepare yourself for every conversation that you’ll eventually have with your children but, you’re pretty confident that the infamous “sex talk” comes sooner than later and “say no to drugs” is before that but, when your child asks if her father had died yet, words will fail even the most accomplished conversationalist. I am a great conversationalist and I fell short with, “I don’t know.”.
Emma asking me about her father and the probability of his self induced death was going to be a dangerous and slippery slope. I knew the kids knew their Dad had severe depression that was robbing them of him but, asking that if he may have died by suicide.....made me feel like hunting him down and killing him myself. It didn’t feel fair.
I could feel my brain melt into every extreme scenario imaginable and as my vocabulary eluded me and left me speechless, I began to get pissed.
My liquified brain cells couldn’t handle all of the emotions that arise while you’re waiting for word.
“He should have left them a note; at the very least, an explanation.” I thought. I hated the selfishness that depression can look like. “You diluted shit. They would have loved you no matter what....” My blood pressure rising and boiling with every passing minute.
I didn’t have the answers Emma needed. We are all going to need answers. I didn’t have any answers and he held all the card. He would die and we’d be confused and lost. “This is so unfair.”
The police officer who was watching over Emma and I looked down at the two of us sitting on the step. I could tell he was irritated. He didn’t want to be babysitting emotional girls. He didn’t chime in any words of encouragement or condolences nor did he have the education to console a family ripped up by mental illness. He was backed into a corner of stoicism. He wasn’t qualified to assist.
The two of us sat together awkwardly aware of his irritation and there we were stuck together waiting. This poor officer would become a poignant player in the day I lost my friend; my husband and because he came across like such a self righteous douche bag....I was really becoming pissed at B.
Hours went by and it took everything in me not to start rattling off jokes. The tension was choking me and I was breaking under the pressure of the anticipation. Anticipating the worst of the worst and yet, longing for the bandaid to be ripped off. The inevitable news.
I also just needed to know where he was. What was he feeling? Why did he feel so alone and desperate? I ached to be near him. To be consoling him. If I told him it would be ok, he’d believe me but, he never trusted my words of false enlightenment-he had suicidal depression. I was already mourning him. Missing the life we had when circumstances weren’t so tender and torturing.
I had been holding on to Emma for three hours. Still no word. I started to panic, “I can’t. I should also disappear.”
I was incapable of having clarity; only fragments and fractured pieces of intense pain and fear of the unknown.
“It’s all too much Em. I promise we will be ok.”.......I reassured her as my hearts palpitations were making me dizzy and lightheaded. I didn’t even believe what I was saying. I am fraudulent.
I didn’t have the courage to look at her. I knew in my heart she needed more from me than I was equity to give and yet, I had nothing to offer her but, a small amount of hope in a God I didn’t have any faith or trust in.
So, we both sat in a state of catatonia-waiting. Waiting for the “words” that would rattle my family to the core. We waited patiently and in silence-for someone to tell us that my husband, her Daddy was dead by suicide.