Depths and Darkness

     I have tried the last month to put my thoughts down with clarity, succinctness, and depth.  I don't think there are words for the profound darkness that fills every pore. It flows like water between the sands. My perfect, intelligent, funny, handsome son has left the casino. He was handed a perfect bluff hand, and realized (in his wisdom) that it was not an honest hand.  A just hand. Instead is was the hand dealt by a blind, pitiless, indifferent dealer who gives not a whit about: winners and losers, courage and cowardice, kindness and savagery, fairness, and bias.  He stood up.  And left the table (his own words).  He just couldn't stand a game which gives not a whit about the gambler.   

    My son took his own life one month ago today.  I was there when the police came and told us they had found his deceased body.  It was a sucker-punch unlike any other.  I stood there as the lead officer approached Brax's brother-in-law and asked for a quick "private" word. He told the officer that I was the father.  We then walked a few feet away.  "He is deceased," he said quietly.

    The words cut through me and I was dazed and struck.  My world just stopped spinning.  Time was frozen, but the pain subsumed me immediately.  As I reacted I heard Becca scream out "no!".  I heard her sobs.  My mind went to my wife, but my body walked quickly to Becca and her Sister Michelle.  I held them both in my arms for a moment.

    The rest of the morning was spent weeping and trying to hold back the tsunami of pain. 

It seems like a day ago.  It is still fresh, and the pain, for me, has only gotten worse. I started drinking again a few days back.  I am hiding it from my dear wife.  Bad form.  But I am spiraling and don't want to stop.  I want to be out of consciousness, and out of pain.  With my boy.  My beautiful boy.  06/17/2025 Update: I stopped.  It didn't numb the pain.  It just sucked.

    But, My daughter, wife, and granddaughter pull me on.  I fake being normal.  I know my routine, and I do that.  All the while, my mind whirs with an ongoing conversation with my son and my own brain.