I am a member of an online sweepstaking community that is so much more. Someone posted about the loss of her son to suicide and it wells up emotions inside of me that are unpleasant and yet triumphant. In January of 2000 my on again off again boyfriend killed himself. He listened to “Last dance with Mary Jane” laid down on his bed and put a gun to his head. The moment it happened I was out dancing. I got so dizzy I almost fell down and did not know what was wrong. 2 days later his brother was pounding on my door screaming for me. I ran down the street praying that it was a joke. Ran up to his room - the neighbor tried to stop me “Is he dead? Just tell me is he fucking dead?” He didn’t know so I had to go in. The smell of rot clung to my face and I looked down at him. His face had bloated and distorted into a weird bloody triangle. There was blood in his golden curls and spattered on the wall. I had to touch him to look for a pulse and he was dead… Just dead. I stumbled down the stairs screaming about how I knew he shouldn’t have a gun. I fell out his front door and into the grass. I was rolling in an ant pile but everyone was afraid of my grief and left me to be bitten. His phone started ringing and I heard his voice. I wailed “Close the damn door he’s dead and talking to me!” The breeze blew the scent of his cologne to me and I started dry heaving. His brother had been living in the house for 2 days with a dead body and didn’t think to check. The smell was horrific and he didn’t think to check. The overwhelming guilt that belongs to the survivors is enough to crush a person forever. The anger, the what ifs, the missed signs… It took me so long to get past it. I dreamed that he came to me and asked me to come with him. I had to tell him I couldn’t because he had killed himself. He got a half smile on his face and said “I really did it?” I said yes and that meant we could no longer be together. He skipped away looking relaxed and the happiest I’d ever seen him. I guess one would have to hope that something good came out of something so damned awful. I think of David often and what might have become of his life had he never enocountered Steroids, Hydrocondone, GHB, or alcohol… what he could have been had he never been abused… he just couldn’t find his way in the darkness and did not know how to light a candle or ask for help.