The First Call

I will preface this blog post to say that this is hard.  It’s unbelievably hard as it’s still, SO UNREAL.  

There is no preparation for the phone call.  
No muscle memory to rely on when your dad’s voice tells you that your brother killed himself.

It feels like drowning in place, it’s gray, and unfathomable. I felt it before I could comprehend it. In fact, I didn’t believe it at first.  The thoughts were flooding in; I was in shock and disbelief. His words dissolved midair, and my knees lost their grip on gravity. I lost every ounce of strength in my body, and my mind was racing in multiple directions. I was trembling, in a cold sweat, and instantly sobbing.  A complete train wreck in the middle of my mom’s kitchen.  

But in those moments, I became the person who had to speak the unthinkable. I had to deliver the news that would unravel the woman who gave us all life. I had to look into our mom’s eyes and tell her that her baby, her son, had taken his own life.

I can still feel the weight of it. It’s impossible heaviness.

She stepped into the room, took one look at me and said, “Which one is it?” Not what’s wrong? Not what happened? “Which one is it?”

I am a firm believer it was her mother’s intuition. Piercing and precise. Painful and final.

I whispered, “Brian.”

And she started to go down.  It took every ounce of strength I had to get her to the couch.

Before the silence could settle, my other brother Justin walked through the front door and joined us on the couch. His body folding into ours, into the shared ache, and empty space. His hands shook. His breath was shallow.

And the three of us sat there. Not speaking. Not crying. Just lost.

And barely breathing.

Time didn’t pass. It paused. Inside that living room, we were somewhere else.  We were weightless, wordless, lost in disbelief and profound sadness.