Chapter 28: The Worst Evening
By this point, I wanted nothing more than to get out of the house.
I wanted to get away from what had happened.
But I couldn’t.
My dad refused to leave, and I did not believe he should be left alone.
I felt trapped inside a nightmare with nowhere else I could go.
My dad wanted his grandchildren home, but he would not leave the place where my mom had taken her last
breath.
He sat on his bed, only a few feet from where she had died, and watched television.
I knew he was in shock.
Even knowing that, I couldn’t understand how he could remain in that room.
I couldn’t stand being there.
I tried to convince him to go to my grandparents’ house or to come with me to get the kids.
He refused.
So I stayed.
I called my friend and explained what was happening.
He suggested asking my uncle to stay with my dad so I could leave for a while, but I didn’t feel right doing
that.
My uncle had experienced tremendous loss of his own, and I didn’t want to place another person’s grief onto
him simply because I needed an escape.
Eventually, my friend brought my wife and children back to the house.
He had bought us pizza, and his children had spent time with mine while they were away.
It was such a simple act of kindness.
But on that day, it meant everything.
Before he left, I gave him the firearms from the house and asked him to keep them.
After everything that had happened, I did not want my dad to have access to them while he was in such a
fragile state.
My wife and children sat outside with my dad beneath the gazebo and ate pizza.
I stayed with my friend for a little while longer.
When I finally joined my family, I had almost no appetite.
I am writing this two days later.
I still don’t have much of an appetite.
I eat because I know I need to.
My children still cannot fully understand what happened to their grandmother.
That night, I continued checking on my dad.
He told me he was fine.
I didn’t know what was happening inside him, and after what had happened to my mom, I wasn’t willing to
assume that “I’m fine” meant he was okay.
I had spent much of my life surrounded by the idea that men were supposed to handle pain on their own.
Be strong.
Don’t cry.
Don’t burden anyone else.
I didn’t want that anymore.
My wife had gotten our daughter to sleep, and my son was playing Minecraft.
Then something inside me finally gave way.
I went into my son’s room, curled up on his couch, and began to sob.
There was nothing left for me to do.
No police to wait for.
No phone calls to make.
No room to clean.
No one standing directly in front of me who needed something.
For the first time all day, I was alone with what had happened.
And I broke.
I could not mentally visualize what I had seen in the way other people might be able to, but the memory of
my mother’s face was still somehow burned into me.
My wife found me curled up on the couch.
She sat with me and comforted me.
I had spent the entire day believing that I needed to be strong for everyone else.
In that moment, I finally allowed myself not to be.
While my wife got our son to sleep, I went to check on my dad one more time.
He was in bed but still awake.
I hugged him.
And I cried again.
My dad is not perfect.
Neither am I.
Neither was my mom.
None of us are.
At the time I wrote these words, I did not know what else there was to say.
I knew that eventually I would return and reflect on everything that had happened.
But for that moment, this was my mom’s story.
I hoped that somehow, it might find someone who needed it.
Maybe something in what happened to our family could help another family recognize that they were not
alone.
For now, I could only try to remain thankful for the people who were still beside me.
My wife.
My children.
My dad.
My friends.
I did not need to understand everything yet.
I only needed to make it through the next day.
And then the day after that.
Keep going.
—DW