Roy

Dear Roy,

What have you done? What have you done to yourself, to your mother? Oh god, oh god why didn’t I see this? Why did I turn my face from it instead of trying to help more? Oh god, how could I have been so selfish as to ignore this? Why? No, don’t tell me, I don’t think that I can handle why.

You had so much heart; you were full of so much love and so lonely all at the same time. But I was scared of you; I was scared of your desperation. I just had my son, I had just escaped an abusive relationship and there you were, sweet and understanding. I didn’t know you’d take my advances so seriously, but you did and it was awkward. A great start, to a great friendship, and then you changed. You became someone I didn’t know very well, someone who reminded me of how lonely I really was. I stopped taking your calls for months; I stopped responding to your emails. And one day you just fell into my lap by sheer accident. I confronted you about my feelings and you apologized, but in the end I knew I was being selfish. You’d told me about your dad, and his gun, when he killed himself while you were home with your Mom, in the adjacent room to your own. I told you about my father, what he’d done in that hotel room in Phoenix. Our feelings brought us closer, and bridged that gap. We became friends, and it was wonderful. But your tone was so different, and when we spoke over the phone, I could hear the change in your voice.

On May 26th, 2004 I came home from work, after not hearing from you for a few days, to find my answering machine blinking with three new messages. It wasn’t unusual, I had a lot of friends who called and left obscene messages as much as possible. So, imagine my surprise when a friend directed me to your obituary online. I refused to go to my computer for a while, refused to acknowledge that it might be true. The whole time I was fighting the angst that was building a knot in my stomach, a sickening twist of feelings like stone in my gut. I fed the kids, and put on a movie for them, did the dishes and a load of laundry. And when it was time for them to sleep, I logged onto my computer. The link was left in my messenger.

.

I remember the sting of the tears as I hesitated, but finally clicked the URL. It was your picture, your senior picture from high school. I ran from my computer and to the bathroom, and I vomited. I hit my knees in front of the toilet and I bit down the strangled cry that ached in my jaw and the back of my neck. It wasn’t possible. You couldn’t have seen and felt the devastation of your father’s death, you couldn’t have been a survivor of suicide, and do this. You couldn’t do this to your mother, oh god your poor mother. The pain I felt was mild, had to be mild compared to the heart shredding ache your mother was enduring.

Her husband first and ten years later, her only child had followed in his footsteps.

Death scares me so, and you never gave me a chance to say goodbye. You never gave me a chance to tell you how much I loved you. Oh god. Oh god what have you done? How could you? Why didn’t she get rid of that damn gun?! Why did she put temptation so close? Couldn’t she see? Was she that blind?

A thousand questions, and suddenly I was so lonely and scared for you. So many fears of the dark shared between you and I. So much of my soul bared and given over, and all of that was lost now. How could you make the decision to pull the trigger? How could you be such a coward and so brave, all at once? Oh god, oh god please don’t let this be happening; this can’t be real. One, two, three wake up. One, two, three wake up. Please, Roy, please let this be a bad dream, please let me wake up now. Please?

But I didn’t wake up when I opened my eyes, I only saw the picture of you on my monitor looking back at me with that coy half smile you always had in your photographs. I saw the words on the screen and didn’t understand any of them. I drown myself that night, in whiskey and tears. I drown myself that night, in my sorrow for you and a wonderful light that was extinguished far too early in life.

I blamed your mother first, for keeping the same gun your father used to kill himself with, in the house. Then I blamed myself for avoiding your advances, for keeping you at arm’s length. If I had just returned your last call, maybe I could have heard your voice, known something was wrong and talked you down from the edge of that cliff. I made a midnight call to my mother, and I don’t even remember what I told her, I barely remember her words between the gasps and the sobs.

I kept your ICQ on my computer, and every year since, when your birthday message pops up, I send you a message and wish you a happy birthday. I miss you.