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I believe the emotions that followed those words are one some of the most difficult to describe. Many people would describe such as shock, or an out of body experience. I didn’t really feel that those descriptions do justice to my state of mind at that moment.

The best description I can provide is that is as if I took an obscene amount of amphetamines and my mind was playing a movie of my life in fast forward beginning with the very first memory I had. I thought about everything in that moment, things that made no connection to anything that was currently happening in the present moment. I thought about the dog I had as a child, the last time I was grounded as a teenager, eating a breakfast sandwich in my dad’s work truck. I remember wondering if I had put the laundry in the dryer and if I had put the garbage cans out (as if was garbage day). The mind is an elaborate and confusing part of a human being, but it surely does it’s best to protect the heart. 

Tears did not come at one as one would expect, even as my mother went through the details. She explained to me that he had taken his own life and that I needed to call the police in NY to get the rest of the details. It is in this moment I remember reaching for the phone and wondering how in the world do you call the police in a different state? I couldn’t very well dial 911. A warm hand took the phone and dialed for me, no doubt my mothers. I never turned to look at her but I could feel the love in her touch.

Before long, I was speaking with a Rochester City Police Officer who had apparently responded to the call at my father’s home. I had a less than pleasant conversation with the man who had clearly gone cold to all emotions from his time spent in homicide; or in my case suicide.  His confirmation of the events was quick and cold and the conversation was terminated within minutes.

I set the phone down and realized for the first time that I had a shaky hand.

I spent the rest of the night making calls to family, alerting them of the situation. I sounded like a recording, void of all emotion as I called aunts, uncles, my grandmother, friends, each conversation as bland as the last. In the back of my mind I kept thinking about my ten year old little sister, had anyone told her?

     I finished the necessary phone calls and returned to the living room to be with my family. It was looking into their swollen red -rimmed eyes that I finally grasped the sense of awareness. The tears flowed freely from my eyes, as unstoppable as the pain I was experiencing. I cried until I choked and eventually until I vomited. I spent the remainder of the night in the bathroom, unable to stop the effects.