To A Dear, Dear Friend - "So Why Didn't They Come Today?" Part 2 ...

I wrote “So, Why Didn’t They Come Today?” because I was, as I say – very curious about the fact that I could receive seven different medications on time and miss only one. The one that for mere seconds the day before had led me down a path that let myself dream about what it would be like to not exist. I don’t want to be dead, per se – I just wanted a break – from the sickness, the pain (especially the pain), the guilt. Just to feel good – I’m easy – I don’t even care if I felt great – just a day of feeling good. And then I remembered the pills and that siren got to taunting me – but I put her in her place.

You see, in 1998 after 1997 and when I say 1997 I don’t mean the year – I mean MY 1997: Valentine baby Rachael, breaking my wrist, tornado hitting my house with Jessie and myself inside, re-breaking my wrist carrying a 10 year old daughter as quickly as I could downstairs to an interior room since she could not handle stairs well, accidentally setting fire to my house during the tornado cleanup … but still, mentally sort of doing fairly well.

And then, I made the AWESOME decision that I could no longer stand to be inside my house during the day – too many memories, too many ghosts, so I got a job in my field of Computer Science at Shell and started the first working day of 1998.

Driving home one night, Gary had told me that he would pick up the kids at their after school activities and head on over to the bike shop to pick up his bike. I said OK, bad weather ahead, I would get in the car and probably beat him home. Got in my car and headed home, but on a road with 3 lanes of traffic – being in the middle one when a HUGE hailstorm hits and everyone stops their cars because they are being pelted with golf ball size hail, you are kinda stuck. Had the radio on and listened to the broadcasters announce in a surreal play-by-play of a tornado that ripped through the mall next to the bike shop. Never mind that I had the wrong bike shop, never mind that Gary decided that the weather looked bad and took the kids straight home and made snowballs out of the hail, at THAT MOMENT IN TIME in the car – I was listening to a tornado rip through a place I thought that my family was standing near in a shop with 3 sides of glass.

Apparently something about sitting there helpless in the car watching my windshield die a gruesome death, and thinking that my family was being riddled with flying glass - something inside me … What? Snapped? Gave way? Gave up? Whatever it was, I started losing chunks of time and was diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

Which actually is NOT what this post is about.

Just background to the moment my mother showed up and flat out asked me if I was suicidal? I told her that things were so far from normal or fine or even good and I was so lost – wandering through Hell without an “Exit” sign in sight. I told her that I just didn’t want to exist anymore – I just could not take one more thing.

Apparently she took this for a ‘yes’ and made me promise her that I would never do it.

I did. And I very much intend to keep that promise.

So – even though I wrote that post – it was a writing experiment and really, truly just wondering why, since I had promised my mother that I would never take my life, wouldn’t my meds just not show up that particular day? Curiouser and curiouser …

A special friend read that post today and confessed to me that she has actually lined up the pills ...

So this is for her – I am posting it on my blog just in case someone else needs to read it.

The day I finally confessed to Gary that I had started a “Shit Storm” by blogging something that he had not read yet (wrote it Saturday and this was Tuesday) he read it and just shook his head … He knows me well …

But that night a rare thing happened – Gary was watching Glee. I don’t normally watch with him, since I am ALWAYS in bed, but I can hear it. That night a character in the show attempts suicide. I got out of bed and kicked Charlie out of my recliner and started to watch …

It was a regular Glee – lots of lovely singing, but there was one part that hit home and I want my friend to think about this. Whenever you think of me, or my post or you are about to line up those pills again. The teacher sits the students down to discuss something and asks each one to describe one thing they want to see in their future. They do and they were great answers. He then tells them that when he was a senior he had gotten into some sort of trouble and his dad was coming to pick him up and he couldn’t deal with the disappointment, so he headed to the roof of the school to jump.

He didn’t.

Then he goes on to describe all the wonderful things that he had experienced from that moment on … It struck just the right note in me and made everything seem so simple, so clear – so ridiculously obvious that I thought about it for days.

So here goes – I will never end my life because I don’t want to MISS ANYTHING! I want to see my son graduate from college, marry, perhaps a grandchild or two? (Ryan – I know you read my blog – no pressure dude – YOU HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD FOR THINGS …) I want to watch my husband excel in his profession, help change the world in his own small way, rejoice in the beauty of a newly created piece of woodworking that will be perfect, of course, I want to see my parents a thousand more times, I want to watch as Jessie matures and as unsettling as it feels now – I want to watch her become independent from us and learn to live her life to the greatest potential that she can. I want to watch all my nieces and nephews grow and excel and make new family units. I want to see my siblings and my brother and sisters in-law a thousand times more too! I want to go back to Australia, I want to go back to Norway, I want to go to Egypt and see the ancient pyramids, I want to go on a cruise of the Mediterranean, I want to go to Greece and see the ruins, and I want TO PHOTOGRAPH IT ALL!

To my dear, dear friend: You have a beautiful family and beautiful grandchildren who love you and need you. You are going to watch them go through hard times and good times, you are going to experience new births, watch first steps, you are going to go to school plays, you are going to go to baptisms and confirmations and ordinations and advancements and honors and I KNOW – I KNOW THIS – you DO NOT WANT TO MISS A MINUTE OF THAT. So, put your pills away, my love – and give me a call. Inside you – you know that you are strong enough – you are! You have come this far … And I know that you have a million dreams you want to accomplish – just as I do.

My dreams …

I think I could go on for hours, but I won’t – they are my dreams, and while they might stay dreams … who knows what the future is going to bring?


Seriously?



I cannot wait to find out …