Chapter 27: The Worst Day of My Life
Content Warning
This chapter contains descriptions of suicide, death, blood, and the physical aftermath of my mother’s death.
This may be the hardest part of this book to read. I know it is the hardest part for me to write.
If you wish to skip this chapter, please do.
I would not wish this experience on anyone, yet I know I am not the only person who has lived through
something like it.
What follows is my personal account of that day—what I saw, what I experienced, and what I felt as it
happened.
First, I want to make something clear.
I did not know my mother had access to a gun.
I had been under the impression that the firearms in the house were secured because of exactly this
possibility.
I still do not know how she gained access to one.
At the time I wrote this chapter, I did not feel capable of asking my dad about it. I believed he would hear the
question as an accusation, and I wasn’t prepared to put either of us through that conversation.
So that question remained unanswered.
October 13, 2024
The morning began like any other.
Coffee. Breakfast. The kids watching cartoons together.
It was a beautiful, cool fall day—my favorite kind of weather.
My mom had not gotten out of bed that morning.
My dad was outside installing new fog lights on his truck. My wife, who had sprained her ankle a few days
earlier, was sitting in a lawn chair in the backyard while our children played.
I was inside washing dishes and listening to an audiobook through a Bluetooth speaker.
It was just before noon.
Everything about the day still felt ordinary.
Then my wife came inside.
I could hear the worry in her voice.
“Your dad’s yelling for you. Something’s wrong with your mom.”
I told her to keep the kids downstairs and ran upstairs to my parents’ room.
My dad was sobbing and screaming beside the bed.
My mom was on the floor near the dresser.
There was blood everywhere.
For a moment, my mind simply couldn’t understand what I was seeing.
“FUCK!”
It was all I could get out.
My hands began shaking. I could barely breathe.
My dad pulled my mom toward him and held her while he sobbed.
The way her body moved told me what I already knew.
She was gone.
“My baby. Oh God, my baby. I thought we were getting through it. Oh God.”
My dad repeated himself over and over.
I had never heard him sound like that.
I didn’t know what to do.
I yelled for my wife to call 911 and ran downstairs to my children.
I pulled them into my arms and broke.
I kept telling them I was sorry.
Sorry they had to experience this.
Sorry I couldn’t help Grandma.
Sorry she was gone.
I told them that I loved them and that I would never leave them.
I don’t know how long I held them.
Eventually, I went back upstairs.
My dad was still holding my mom.
Most of what he was saying was incoherent by then.
Time seemed to stop.
I moved back and forth between my dad upstairs and my wife and children downstairs, trying to make sure
everyone was okay while we waited for the police.
I called my best friend and asked him to come get my wife and children.
I needed them away from the house.
I felt as though I had no time to grieve or even understand what had happened.
My mind immediately turned toward everyone else.
She was my mom.
But she was my dad’s wife.
She was my children’s grandmother.
She had taken my wife into the family as her own daughter.
I felt that someone had to remain functional.
So I tried to be that person.
Eventually, the police arrived.
Once they were with my dad, I spent a few more moments with my children before my friend took my wife
and kids away from the house.
Before leaving, my friend offered to come back and help with whatever happened afterward.
“You shouldn’t be the one to do that,” he told me.
At first, I didn’t understand what he meant.
I assumed someone would handle the physical aftermath.
I was wrong.
I returned to my dad.
The police had gotten him onto the front porch.
He looked fragile in a way I had never seen before.
I sat beside him while people moved in and out of the house.
Eventually, someone suggested that he shower and change.
I went downstairs with him, started a warm shower, found him a clean towel, and waited.
When he finished, we returned to the porch.
There was nothing I could say that would make any of this better.
So I sat with him.
Eventually, I called one of my mom’s sisters in Michigan.
I had to tell her that her sister was dead.
There were questions, of course, but I couldn’t answer them. I could barely talk about what had happened.
I called my grandmother on my dad’s side next.
When I told her, I heard other family members reacting in the background. I hadn’t known my aunt and
cousins were there with her.
My uncle said he was coming over.
After he arrived, he sat with my dad.
He offered to arrange for someone else to handle what remained upstairs.
My dad refused.
“That’s my wife. It’s my job.”
After several hours, my mom was taken from the house.
We were asked to step away, but my dad wanted to see her one last time.
I couldn’t.
I stayed back.
I had already seen more than I could bear.
Afterward, I tried again to convince my dad to let someone else clean the room.
He refused.
I became angry.
I knew he was in shock, but every part of me wanted to get away from that room.
I did not believe either of us should have to do what came next.
But if my dad was going to do it, I couldn’t let him do it alone.
I began gathering cleaning supplies.
“She’s your wife, but she was my mom. You’re not doing it alone.”
“I never said you couldn’t help,” he told me. “But no one else does this. This is our responsibility.”
So we went back into the room.
There was more blood than I had ever seen in my life.
This was the first death I had ever experienced firsthand.
I had been present when my mother-in-law died, but this was different.
This was violent.
The physical aftermath of my mother’s death covered the room.
I found myself on my knees cleaning what remained of her from the walls, furniture, and ceiling.
I was furious.
I kept thinking:
Who puts their own child through this?
I was an adult, but I was still his child.
And she was still my mom.
I did not believe anyone should have to clean up the remains of someone they loved.
I was angry with my dad for refusing help.
I was angry that I was in that room.
I was angry that any of this had happened.
But I stayed.
Someone reading this may believe I should have walked away.
Maybe there is truth in that.
But I can only tell you what I felt in that moment.
I could not leave my dad to do it alone.
So I stayed beside him, and together we cleaned the room where my mother died.
There were some things we could not completely remove.
Eventually, we covered what remained.
And then it was done.
At least, the cleaning was.
Nothing else about that day would ever really be finished.