With one hour of sleep, I put my feet on the bedroom floor and headed for the kitchen. I had survived the night, and it was a sunny Tuesday morning. Even in the mess that I would now call my life I still had to function as mother and wife. Breakfast had to be fixed, Emma needed to be fed, and although I could semi function on one hour of sleep, I could not function without food. I had not eaten since Monday afternoon about 2:00 p.m. I was hungry, but the mere thought of food made my stomach flip. Grits, a great southern comfort food would do the trick. Today they would be creamy yellow, thanks to Land-O-Lakes Butter. (Just a side track, whoever came up with putting sugar and milk on grits must have been stoned.) I also knew Emma loved buttery grits, and today of all days I didn't need to fight with her to get her to eat. There was little conversation at the table. I murmured to myself. "Why was I in Asheville? If I had been home I could have stopped my dad. How in the world did I miss any signs that he might have been giving off? How could I have let my dad down so terribly?" Chris startled me with his reply. "You will not beat yourself up like this, it is not your fault, and I am not going to guilt trip myself either." He was angry. He like the rest of my family was dazed and stunned...... I had to remember that he was with me when I found dad...... Chris saw more than I did...... He was still in the apartment when the funeral home came to pick up dad's body...... and there is a strong possibility that Chris had to help carry his body from the apartment......... He had been through a lot in the past 12 hours, and I needed to be silent for the moment. "You have got to be strong, and try to put this behind you...." With that comment from Chris, I knew that to keep silent was my only option, because the response from my mouth would have blown him out of the water. I believed with all my heart that he did not realize what pain his words had just caused me, he is by no means a cruel man, but these words were. You don't ask a person, no matter what the circumstances of a parents death to "Be strong and get over it."
10:30 a.m. came quickly and my sisters had emerged upon my front doorstep..... By the looks on both of their faces they had little sleep during the night...... We hugged, but today we said little..... Numbness does that to a family.... silence was golden....... I volunteered to drive to the funeral home..... I am so grateful that the Director who would be meeting with us was a personal friend of Chris and mine. That would make it a bit easier, but awkward at the same time. He would know how Dad passed..... but I knew that the circumstances would be kept confidential. Mike walked in the conference room where we had been placed. He embraced me and shook the hands of my sisters. Words of compassion flowed, notes were taken for the newspaper article, a crematory box was selected, and service arrangements were made. We were given the responsibility of going by the church to speak with my pastor about details for the service that would be held Friday evening. When I called Pastor Monday evening, he was also in disbelief.
I was veering the car back towards home when Liz spoke. "I want to go to Dad's apartment." I froze in my seat. I didn't want to go near the place. Ellen spoke. "I want to go, too." Well, I think I was outnumbered. I drove home, retrieved the keys to the apartment, got back in the car, and before I knew it I was retracing my steps that I had taken less than twenty-four hours before. It was creepy being back upstairs. The first thing I did was to place a pillow over the blood-stained mattress..... I didn't need to have this visual, nor did my sisters. Reality was quite enough at this time...... Liz slowly moved from room to room, I believe trying to make sense of her nightmare. Ellen shook her head from side to side for the longest time. We all landed in the living room, not seated near each other, but looking from one face to the other. "There has to be something we are missing." Liz spoke. "I believe I have a clue, I am not sure, but I think it is all going to come down to his personal finances." I said. And, I would be the one to discover this, because not only was I my father's youngest child, but he had elected me to be the Executirx of his estate. "Before we leave I am going to take all of Dad's bank statements home with me and start digging through his papers. I think this will give us a better picture of what he was dealing with mentally and emotionally." I said. We all went back to dad's bedroom to the main closet. I knew where the fireproof lock box was hidden, and I had the key. The top document wasn't his Will as I had expected, it was his Divorce Decree from my step-mother. How odd I thought, but I packed it up with other papers that I knew I would eventually need. We took a closer look at dad's dresser, and in neat piles each of our photographs had been placed together. "His suicide had been well thought out or he would not have taken the time to do this." I said. A snap decision was not made to take his own life, dad had had a plan and it would come out.......
We moved to the kitchen and I started to put a time line together ...... on Monday Dad had taken the time to go get the Charlotte Observer, he had worked the crossword puzzle, retrieved his mail from the post office box, returned home to dress again for bed..... it didn't have to make sense.... but at least it filled in gaps of time. I continued to look around the kitchen. Dad had always kept a well filled pantry, he loved to cook. The pantry was almost empty, the frig was the same, and the freezer that was supposed to contain all of the "Buy 1 Get 1 Free" meat sales items, well it was empty, too..... My father had not brought me newly purchased food on Friday, he had emptied out his refrigerator and that was the beginning of his plan......
At the suggestion of Liz we all left the apartment and headed back to my home. Brooke was happily entertaining Emma on the playroom floor, and we sisters found my kitchen transformed into a Deli. Food and flowers had started arriving. Liz and Ellen were grateful for the good eats, they both had skipped breakfast, I could not eat. Chris would be home soon for lunch, thank goodness I did not have to deal with that....... he was capable of making a sandwich. I found my living room sofa calling my name. The lack of sleep the night before was taking its tole on me. Emma was tired, too. She would nap several hours this afternoon and I possibly could shut my eyes.... I had convinced myself that I would sleep better if it were not dark outside.... the night would not close in on me in broad daylight. Liz and Ellen ate and both knew they needed to sleep.... "We will be back tomorrow to start cleaning out dad's stuff.......what time do you want to start?" They asked. "10:00 a.m. seems fine to me.... I will get Honey to watch Emma." I replied. We had two weeks to go through and clean out dad's entire life history...... what would be discover?
Chris had been home and returned to his office for the afternoon. With the house quiet I placed Emma in her bed for a long nap. Even though I should have rested I didn't, I started digging through papers. I placed the Divorce papers to the side, I could not imagine that they had anything to do with dad's suicide. I started with bank statements, and it was no surprise to me when I looked at the ending balance of the check register.......$4,368.91 was all the money he had to his name........ I saw the entry for Social Security $1,008.91 each month......... I started going through credit card statements......... what a shock it was to me when I realized that the funds in his checking account were from a cash advance he had deposited in July of 2009...... He owed more to a credit card company than he had in his account...... Dad, even though retired, had been down recently because he had wanted a part-time job to help support himself a little better..... I had no idea that he needed a part-time job just to make ends meet...... He was to proud to admit he was broke....... This reality made his death all the more tragic. My grandmother, dad's mom, had always said that pride was going to be the death of her son.....well, she was right......... I put all of these statements back into a brown, legal sized envelope, everything except the Divorce papers. I slowly opened Dad's Divorce Decree and the first thing that caught my attention was the sealed date at the very top.... I could not believe my eyes, January 10, 2003.........Dad killed himself the very day that his divorce had been final...... to me this was a major clue.
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