The following story is something I wrote a couple of years ago for my creative non-fiction writing class. My professor spoke a lot about what is considered "non-fiction" and basically we agreed that if, in your mind, you truly believe that something happened a certain way, than it can be considered as non-fiction. The following story recounts the suicide of my uncle in 2007 and mirrors a charity walk I did in New York City for suicide awareness and prevention. What I wrote in the following story is what I believe to be the truth.
I am also issuing a disclaimer to all before proceeding. There are some intense, graphic images I disucss that may be disturbing to some. If this piece seems insensitive, I apologize, for that was simply not the case. How I choose to handle my uncle's suicide and grieve it, is through my writing. It was also my attempt to add bits of humor here or there. They actually did happen in the days that followed my uncle's suicide and I think it's important that people remember to smile and laugh even in the darkest of times. As Albus Dumbledore says, "Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."
I dedicate this story to the memory of my uncle who passed away 5 years ago today. In 2007 we lost a son, brother, husband, father, and uncle. However, he will always live on in our hearts. I also dedicate it to all his family and friends who have had to handle this tragedy and continue to live on with the love and help of one another. RIP Uncle Gary <3
***Every 14.2 minutes someone in the United States dies by suicide. If you or someone you know is contemplating or talking about suicide please call a hotline or speak to someone who can help.***
Out of the Darkness
Every shirt blazon with a name, a smiling face of someone happy, yet through the hundreds of names and faces only one was recognizable to me—the ironed on letters and pixels of my own shirt. Despite the lapping of the water against the pier and the touching speeches blurring the honking horns and city congestion, everything seemed so still and quiet.
I don’t remember if it was a man or a woman, but someone approached me, wearing an obnoxious volunteer shirt, arms laced with hundreds of strands of differently colored beaded necklaces, the shiny garnish casting a gentle glow against the setting sun.
“What colors?” the person asked.
Unable to find a voice, I answered with a blank stare.
The welcoming face quickly transformed into an agitated one, upset that I hadn’t read my registration papers. The volunteer maneuvered the necklaces and jabbed a finger at one of the pages I was holding. After scanning the paper, a wave of understanding broke over my face as I realized each color held a different meaning; green was the first one listed and it seemed the most obvious: “I support the cause.”
Well of course I do, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.
“I’ll take a green.” I paused as the necklaces were being untangled. “You might as well give me a blue and a purple, too.”
Hanging loosely from my neck, the small beads clanked softly against a provided reflector, offering a rhythmic red light. They partially obscured the name across my chest but I barely noticed. We hadn’t even started and already my heart beat rapidly causing a dull thudding in my
ears. Suddenly, a car back fired, a loud bang echoing around the seaport.
~~ ~ ~
I didn’t even know he owned a gun. It was bought for protection, as I’m sure so many are, due to a string of robberies in their small rural town in New York. Maybe he felt the need to protect his wife and sons. Maybe he just wanted to defend his home. That’s the thing about suicide; so many questions are left unanswered that it becomes hard to accept. It’s a death that haunts your mind and becomes like a leech, sucking the energy out of you as you try to comprehend not how it happened, but why it did. It had been months since my uncle had shot himself, and still, I hadn’t cried. That is why I had chosen to walk.
The sun continued to creep slowly behind the horizon, and soon office buildings began to emit that fake florescent light that many people adore about the New York City skyline. The moon replacing the sun was signal enough for those of us who had gathered to honor loved ones lost by the same fate to begin our own journey. With a pink bag adhered to my back and purple water bottle in my hand, I was ready.
Like an exposed roll of 35 mm film, my memories of the week my uncle died were fragmented; a single frame clearly depicted only to be separated by the next one with blackness, emptiness. Everything was so innocent when we found out—my mother was in her room folding laundry, I was creating a poster to advertise a bake sale at church, and my little sister was working on some elementary homework. The next moments felt as though we were trudging through mud, so slow and so heavy. The doorbell rang and it was my aunt’s sister. We thought the visit was a pleasant surprise, but she refused our hospitality. She spoke to my mom in a hushed voice at the bottom of the stairs before leaving, making eavesdropping nearly impossible. Minutes later my mother was locked in her room, frantically whispering in the phone to my father as my sister and I continued with our tasks without anxiety. Suddenly, she emerged from her room, on the edge of hysteria. Her knuckles were white from gripping the cordless phone. Her normally jovial face was taught and pale compared to her usually tanned complexion. Her whole body was shaking as if overtaken by a chill and her voice trembled terribly when she said, “My fucking brother shot himself in the head.” And then, she was gone, running down the stairs—my grandpa still didn’t know and telling a father his son is dead is no menial task. My sister dropped her pencil; I didn’t notice the pressure I was applying on the marker against the poster-board and the cookie looked like it was bleeding.
~~ ~ ~
I barely looked at the map included in my welcoming papers, simply following hand-drawn arrows placed around the city. My mind was so full I barely remember anything that night except for the excretions of my uncle’s death. I remember passing Ground Zero but not staying long; one tragedy consuming my mind was enough for the night. I walked through Soho and texted a childhood friend—she lived there now. I was in one of the busiest cities, further fueled with the hundreds of walkers, yet I was alone, too consumed by my thoughts, my frustration that I still hadn’t grieved. In Times Square I had to wait at the rest site because they ran out of water. I called my mom while I sat and waited.
Going to a cemetery after the death of a loved one is an innocent enough task—it’s expected. However, going to a cemetery to tell them one of their model employees is dead by his own hand is a completely other experience. It gives a whole new meaning to the word irony. The day after my uncle’s suicide I went to his job with my mom and grandpa because they still didn’t know and were probably wondering why Gary had not shown up. My grandpa told them first; one of the secretaries fell to the ground crying while my mom and I made our way to his office, hoping to find some note, some sign of why. He had shot himself in his bedroom, looking out the window into the woods. He didn’t leave a suicide note at home and there was nothing at his job. My aunt and cousins showed up, my mom picked out a crypt in the mausoleum that was close to where my grandma rested, and we made our way to the funeral home. We sat in a circle and wrote the obituary. We went downstairs and picked out a casket. My aunt asked me to help choose the memorial prayer card because I was a writer and knew words well.
After the hours of organization and planning, my grandpa, mother, and I headed home but not before taking a quick detour to the local Stop and Shop. My grandfather was out of bacon and enlisted me to run inside and pick some up—after all, my eyes weren’t red and swollen after heavy bouts of tears like theirs were. My years working at a grocery store had not prepared me in the proper selection of pig. There was maple, extra thick, thin cut, and dozens of other choices. After about fifteen minutes in the cool meat case, I settled upon a package, brought it up and checked out. Upon entering the car my mom and grandfather looked at me, almost angrily, and demanded what look so long—after all, I only had to get one thing.
“You don’t understand, there were so many different types, I didn’t know which one you wanted!” I yelled in protest. “That was too stressful.”
As if I had switched on a light, their faces brightened up and they began to laugh.
“Rachel, you just came from picking out your uncle’s casket and you find bacon stressful?”
my mom finally asked.
I crossed my arms over my chest, trying my best not to smile at my own absurd comment. “Yes, yes I do.”
~~ ~ ~
The blue beaded necklace swung gently, colliding with the green and purple ones. I not only represented “support the cause”, but I was a “sufferer” as well. The blue necklace wearers shared in a common bond, we too had gone through similar situations that our loved ones
encountered, some type of mental illness that could explain away the death. My poison included severe depression and a panic disorder, treated by a cocktail of pills and weekly trips to therapy. I guess I was better. After all, no one was walking for me.
~~~~
Photos are a good way of remembering the dead. It becomes even harder when you have to organize photos for a wake only days after the actual death itself. It’s raw. Every time I looked at a photo of my uncle, all I could see was a ripped apart face, crimson washed white walls, my cousin Christian finding him face-down on the bedroom floor dead. But this was a task my mom and I had agreed to take on. How were we to condense fifty-four years of life into two collaged
picture frames? Those days before the wake were an endless array of phone calls and picture sorting. There is only one photo of just my uncle and me and it was from my baptism as an infant. He was my Godfather, but we never acknowledged that degree of our relationship. He wasn’t religious and neither was I; not anymore.
~~~~
It was getting really late into the night and the clusters of walkers were beginning to dwindle. There were plenty of times that I was alone, only the distant backs of others could be seen down the street. It was becoming harder to concentrate on the task at hand; there was a terrible pain in my foot and I still had not come to terms with my uncle’s death. Exhaustion was beginning to lay its hand on me and my time at the rest sites was becoming lengthier. I remember collapsing on the lawn of a school yard which looked stark and eerie at three in the morning. A few stars were visible in the inky sky and the mindless chatter of my fellow walkers was peaceful enough to lull me into a half sleep.
~~~~
His hands were folded gently across his lap and a long plaid shirt clung to his arms and torso. Adding to his casual appearance was a pair of faded jeans. His tan skin seemed sharply out of place in the blustery setting. I grabbed his hand, and he was cold. I tried not to look up at the white linen that covered his face, but it was impossible. It reminded me of an altar at church, pure cloths hiding away the contents of Communion. There was evidence of blood under the cloth I was staring at, but it was not a manifestation of Jesus’. This linen was withholding the grotesque features that were now my uncle’s face. My mom peeked under, saw the sunken hole of where his temple and eye socket once were intact. She said he looked like the moon, craters of
bone blown away by the bullet, only to be replaced by God-knows what to make him resemble a human once again. Maybe if I looked, I might have cried.
~~~~
Walking was becoming harder, I fiddled with the purple beads of the necklace like some type of rosary. This last necklace I wore for my uncle; purple represented “a loved one taking his or her life”. It was my final connection with the walkers. I was beginning to feel tears in my eyes, but it wasn’t from the onset of thoughts about my uncle, but rather the pain that was now radiating from my foot up my leg. My walk had turned into a slow limp and I could barely stand. A volunteer on a motorcycle saw me, and phoned for the medical van to pick me up. “I want to finish,” I said to her. She gave me a sympathetic look because we both knew I would never make it time. The sun would rise in two and a half hours and I still had eight more miles to cover. I would later learn that I had been walking on a broken foot; the mileage and pressure from that single night had caused a stress fracture. “It’s no wonder you were crying,” my doctor said, showing me the x-ray.
~~~~
The funeral was not unlike the wake. Held at the cemetery my uncle had worked at for years, many people shared stories of the wonderful Gary and what a hard worker he was, the attentive husband and devoted dad, how he had so much money he began collecting cars, about his loft that had become his personal theater, and the countless gadgets and goodies he had purchased off of e-Bay. My mother told all that were gathered that inside her brother’s casket, she laid a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew. As a few tears rolled down her cheeks she smiled and explained how, as a kid, he would never eat homemade stew, only the processed stuff in the can. I wanted to tell the story of how he gave me a large donation for my trip to Africa; I wouldn’t have gotten there without him. Or when I was younger and having a lava lamp catapulted you into the
popular crowd at school, my uncle spared no expense getting my a high quality one—it was pink and purple. However, I sat in my seat, unable to move until my aunt asked me to read a poem. I wanted to read “Richard Cory” because it had the same syllables as my uncle’s name. It was an appropriate poem, practically written for him, but that’s not what my family expected, they wanted an elegy, so I read the poem on the memorial prayer card I chose.
~~~~
Wrapped in a foil warming blanket I felt like a left-over. South Street Seaport had been
transformed into a medical tent and refuel station. I was given water and pain relievers, breakfast, and ice for my foot. The sun was beginning to rise; the first rays were beginning to shine brilliantly, reflecting off my foil wrapper. Walkers were returning now, proud of their accomplishments. Everyone was crying, but not me. I was given a white paper bag for the final memorial. “Write a message to your uncle,” someone said. I decided to do it, but I couldn’t find any words, so I simply wrote his name, signed mine, and placed it next to the others (being mocked by their beautiful sentiments and sweet pictures). My dad was parked across the street, and I hobbled over, clutching my foil cover as I walked.
~~ ~ ~
Every square blazon with a name, a smiling face of someone happy, yet through the hundreds of names and faces only one was recognizable to me—the glued on letters and pixels on my uncle’s crypt. No epitaph. No scripture. Just his name, dates, and the most embarrassing picture my mom could find of him. He was wearing a pink fuzzy hat and purple beaded necklace, just like my own. It’s a tradition now, rotating pictures that would have mortified him had he been alive to see them; it’s our own form of punishment. We watched as the workers scattered clear marbles inside the block that would soon entomb my uncle. My sister wept and I held her close, distracted by the grunts and hoisting maneuvers as the casket was pushed deeper. Some of the marbles crumbled to dust as the weight and friction became too much for their small shape. My sister’s body shook and I couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take for my uncle to disintegrate to dust.
~~~~
I fell asleep as soon as I got home, not bothering to change out of my walking clothes, my backpack and water bottle discarded absentmindedly somewhere in my room. I slept for hours, ignoring the calls of my father and the savory aroma of home-cooked food. The only thing that woke me after my walk out of the darkness was the cool dampness on my pillowcase where my first tears for my uncle had landed.
