We All Make Mistakes

I dread February.

In February of 1993 I was fourteen and struggling poorly with being an awkward teenager when a friend took his own life with a 12 gauge shotgun. This was a friend who had helped pull me out of a severe depression a year earlier. Someone who had made me feel like I fit in just a little. His name was, Paul.

Paul and I became friends in 7th grade while on the wrestling team. We partnered up and suddenly realized we both were a bit weird with a uncanny gift for finding trouble. I remember being kicked out of a school event for fighting and having to sneak back in through the janitors area to get our coats. We hid out escaping notice until the event was over. Paul was impulsive and we would ride our bikes to local retail stores to wreak havoc because there wasn’t much else to do in our town. I remember one moment in a Wal-Mart when a mother was yelling at her child and Paul just started screaming, “Child abuse, child abuse, child abuse!” We found ourselves kicked out once again.

One time, while spending the night at his place, we snuck out while everyone was asleep and walked a short distance to local public park. We walked to a hill where months later his body would be found. When we got back to his place we watched Nirvana’s Come As You Are video before playing his TurboGrafx 16. He was the only kid I knew that had a TurboGrafx 16 and it was the most amazing thing ever at the time. I had brought over my Game Genie for the NES so we eventually started playing whacked out versions of Excitebike. We also would sporadically just start fighting and I remember we broke something but I can’t remember what it was.

My parents had been going to a Christian Rock Festival every year in Kentucky and in 1992 they let me bring a friend. Paul and I stayed up the night before making prank phone calls to the local college radio station. We had trolled them hard enough that they were getting angry on air and that of course was our goal. While in Kentucky we snuck off to the local town on our own and bought some comics. At one point we decided to walk on the railroad tracks. Now in our town, trains really didn’t go all that fast, so we didn’t think much of it until we heard people from the street start screaming at us. We saw the train come around the corner and we started sprinting back to the street with Paul on one side and I was on the other. Paul wasn’t having that though and decided to jump the tracks to get on my side and was nearly hit by the train. We got chewed out by local town folk before we were able to wander our way back to the festival. That night we would hide in the bushes and scare people walking back to their campsites.

Hanging out with Paul was the first time I had really felt like I was one of the cool kids. He pulled me out of my shell and built up my confidence. He was a good kid.

Something happened though when we started 8th grade. Paul suddenly started to drift away. We sat next to each other in class but weren’t really hanging out anymore. When wrestling season started he told me he wasn’t going to join. I was upset with him. I tried my best to talk him into it, told him it wouldn’t be the same without him, but he wouldn’t change his mind. I never knew anything was seriously wrong. I never thought he would hurt himself. I can still remember his laugh.

I can’t explain the gut wrenching agony I felt when I learned he committed suicide. I denied it. I kept denying it until I got to school and it was filled with counselors but I couldn’t deny the empty seat next to mine. Our class came together and mourned and never was the same. Paul was friends with everyone but nobody seemed to know he was hurting. This was childhoods end for many of us. We were made painfully aware of our own mortality.

After school a group of us walked to the hill in the park and the scene was still disturbing. Little specks of meat and bone littered the grass. I later found out that it was just too much for those responsible to clean it up to deal with. This little boys body with his head scattered. I can’t blame them but I still see those pieces in my dreams.

I was in shock for a long time. Shortly after he died another friend and I decided to walk to his grave during a snow storm. His grave was covered in a bed of flowers that were now layered in ice and snow. I wanted to crawl in there with him. We walked back to my friends place and my brother calls saying I need to come home right away. My uncle had just had a heart attack while talking to my father on the phone. He died. All within a few weeks time I had to go back to the same funeral home and the same cemetery. I became numb.

I lost more friends over the years to suicide than I care to count. I would come home from school and hold my brothers gun and try to work up the courage, I began cutting myself, eating pills, destroying what I could. I hated myself and felt so much overwhelming guilt. I still feel it. I’ve been able to forget so many moments of happiness in my life but these things stick. They burrow in. I knew I had to escape my hometown, and eventually I would, but I never could escape the guilt.

And now it’s February again and these thoughts and memories come haunting. While I still feel the sting of it, my life is in a much different place. I have my own family who I love and who love me. I was able to make it though many difficult years and find happiness. You can too.

I never dreamed I’d have the life I have right now but I had to fight for it. I had to be willing to accept it. I had to overcome myself. I had to let someone love me.

I’ve supported and worked with Hope For The Day over the last few years. I wish there were organizations like theirs when I was a kid. Sometimes you just need to be told it’s ok, not to be ok. If you ever need someone to listen please reach out to them and don’t hesitate to reach out to me as well.

I’ll never forget, Paul. I often wonder what kind of mischief he would be getting into today.

Over the years I’ve written many songs and poems about Paul. As you can tell… it stays on my mind.

I’ll leave this poem:

The Inescapable Art of Growing Up

I recall my mother lifting her shirt,
showing me the stretch marks spread across her stomach,
like lightning across a cloud, a road map of dead ends.
She said,

“it’s your fault I’m ugly.”

I recall my father splintering the bedroom door, 
fist packed full of regrets and insecurity. My mothers
screams transforming him into a child, crying for his mom,
dad nearly beat her to death.
He asked,

“do you want him as a father?”

I recall Paul making a mess of his head 
with a twelve-gauge shotgun. At fourteen and even now
I can’t understand. My friends and I buried our childhood
with him.
They said,

“it’s going to be ok.”

Carry guilt like a fallen comrade, can’t let it go
dead weight dragging you down. I’ve awoke at night to 
the sound of screams and gunpowder on my breath. We all 
make mistakes, we all make mistakes, we all grow up.