Thirteen Words

The scene in his room is a violent still life portrait of a desperate and tortured soul. It’s been four days since my son killed himself and the room has been sealed by an LA County Coroner’s crime scene sticker. The seal gets torn but I still have to jimmy the door open with a spoon because no one has a key. It seems fitting somehow to have to break in.

The stench of pooled blood hits my nose before I can even take in the full scene. It is kind of putrefied and sweet-smelling at the same time; I see maggots have begun feasting on the still moist sleeping bag that took the brunt of the life spilling out of him.

There is a still moist pool on the floor by the edge of the bed as well. I know all this because the pictures I snapped tell me so. Click and move. Click and move. Adjust aperture, shutter speed and ISO. Click and move. Click and move. And then I cannot bare to lift the camera to my eye any longer. It’s only then that I can focus on the sticker on the wall, just above where his head would have lain to rest for the final time, it says “Peace.”

And I just lose it.

Tears begin to flow full bore. He cannot be gone, he just can’t be. All the evidence of his own personal hell is right there before me, but all the other accouterments of his “normal” life are scattered about. Books by the dozen. A portable chess set, his computer. His clothes. Oh god, his clothes.

Neatly sorted and folded in a simple chest of drawers. I pull a t-shirt from the pile and shove my nose into it, surely if I can smell his scent this nightmare I’ve been walking in for four days will burst asunder and I’ll awake to curse the cruel but all.too.real dream I’ve been having. But the smell of the blood won’t let go; I can’t smell anything but.

And now I realize that my mouth tastes like what the damp air smells like. But I dare not leave; there must be a clue here somewhere, surely, that will give me an idea of the answer to the “Why Now?” I’m desperately seeking. Surely he left some clever, if twisted, message that will explain all this, give reason to the insanity that was his suicide. But there’s nothing.

In his closet I stumble onto the grizzly realization that he must have at first thought about hanging himself because a makeshift noose, made from a sturdy scarf, hangs among his shirts and a cheap second-hand suit. He probably figured (rightly) that the wooden bar wouldn’t support his weight and he just never bothered to untie it…

Yes, there’s a note. But even the “explanation” he leaves behind is no explanation at all:

“To my Friends and Family, I have committed suicide. Please forgive me. Love, Torrey” is all it says.

Thirteen frightening, insignificant words (not counting his name)—the note mind-bending in its abruptness—is all he could muster. I should be angry, terribly so. The Note was supposed to be THE key… it’s what I’d held out hope against hope for to help me make sense of the “Why Now?” But no. Thirteen words. And suddenly I’m crying again as I think how much effort it must have taken to even write those few words. How dark and myopic his world was at that very.last.moment before he savagely violated himself with steel and blade. The pain unknowable, unworkable and all-consuming. And I immediately forgive him. Yet Again.

I now have to carry his belongings outside onto a sidewalk; his mother cannot bear to be in the room. We sort through the remainder of his life and divvy up the trinkets that made up his last days, splitting his memories as easily as cutting cards.

“I’ll take that…” “Ah, I gave him that book, I’ll keep that.”

We fall into a rhythm. There is no How-To manual for sorting through the remains of your child’s life. And though his mother and I split decades ago, there is an easy detente between us, patched together over the years by our son’s constant pain and struggle with his demons and now tested at this macabre negotiating session. But there is nothing but gentleness and understanding and for that I am forever thankful.

It’s a hell of a thing to have one’s entire life sorted into a few small boxes and carted away. As I linger back up in his room, glancing around just.one.more.time my feet are glued to the floor. I cannot move. I am afraid that if I leave it will all be over, final, that I will have once and for all said “good-bye” to all he was and I am not ready for that.

“I can’t let you go, Torz… I just can’t let you go, not now… not now… not yet, oh nononononono!”

Defenses and walls have abandoned me again and the tears flow hot and sticky. And I am oddly thankful for the acrid taste in my mouth. As I find the strength to walk out his door for the last time in my life, I carry that taste in mouth. I look at my hands, dirty and grimy with the sweat and residue of what had been his life. And I catch myself winching when I think of having to eventually wash my hands.

Tomorrow I will go through the boxes and the piles of old journals I have rescued and taken possession of. I can already feel myself breaking into a million pieces at the thought of what must on those pages.

For now I breathe deep and hold it. Swallow. And close the door — finally — on what was the rest of his life.