First Thing Tuesday
He was the one that found her.
Before all of that though, I remember last year in the winter after his eighth late day and the 30th warning that a Saturday School was just around the corner he nearly cried for the black mark on his permanent record. His appearance has always reminded me of a fawn; his legs never look strong enough to support his small body, the bulbous knees look as though they will buckle under with each step. When I looked him up in our software and learned that he was a senior, I thought there must surely have been some data entry error. There wasn't.
I remember yesterday when he signed in late again and I joked "one of those stay-in-bed kind of days, eh Steven?" He just put his head down on the desk and took five deep breaths before he lifted it again. I made his pass excused and wondered about the world that he had just stepped in and out of so quickly. The space in between breaths. The space from my hand to your hand. They can be more distant than we think possible.
When he found her she was already dead. "He wanted to come to school anyway." His dad sounded agitated more than anything over the miles of phone line that seperated us. "He said that he would go crazy, just sitting at home."
I wished I could have been there as some kind of patrinous ala Harry Potter. Did he take her body down from the ceiling? Did he loosen the noose and whisper "....mom?" thinking that it wasn't too late? Was he all alone? How cutting, and brutal, and selfish, to do that kind of a thing in your own home where the one who might stumble upon your body could be your very own son. I was never one to find suicide to be a sin, until today. To leave that kind of mark on a life when the marks on yours were enough to force your hand...
If only I could take them all in and provide the warm and beautiful childhood that my parents provided me. A kiss raised to the heavens for Steven will have to suffice.
Before all of that though, I remember last year in the winter after his eighth late day and the 30th warning that a Saturday School was just around the corner he nearly cried for the black mark on his permanent record. His appearance has always reminded me of a fawn; his legs never look strong enough to support his small body, the bulbous knees look as though they will buckle under with each step. When I looked him up in our software and learned that he was a senior, I thought there must surely have been some data entry error. There wasn't.
I remember yesterday when he signed in late again and I joked "one of those stay-in-bed kind of days, eh Steven?" He just put his head down on the desk and took five deep breaths before he lifted it again. I made his pass excused and wondered about the world that he had just stepped in and out of so quickly. The space in between breaths. The space from my hand to your hand. They can be more distant than we think possible.
When he found her she was already dead. "He wanted to come to school anyway." His dad sounded agitated more than anything over the miles of phone line that seperated us. "He said that he would go crazy, just sitting at home."
I wished I could have been there as some kind of patrinous ala Harry Potter. Did he take her body down from the ceiling? Did he loosen the noose and whisper "....mom?" thinking that it wasn't too late? Was he all alone? How cutting, and brutal, and selfish, to do that kind of a thing in your own home where the one who might stumble upon your body could be your very own son. I was never one to find suicide to be a sin, until today. To leave that kind of mark on a life when the marks on yours were enough to force your hand...
If only I could take them all in and provide the warm and beautiful childhood that my parents provided me. A kiss raised to the heavens for Steven will have to suffice.
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