Grief. I knew it the moment I heard it. Someone outside my window was crying that deep soul crushing guttural cry that can only come when someone you love dearly has died.
That's what woke me at 5a this morning. I grabbed my glasses, popped my head up just enough to see out my open window. My neighbor and her mom (we'll call her Grandma) were standing in the street wrapped in a deep comforting embrace. It was the Grandma's cry of grief I had heard. Her body language mirrored her feelings. Legs weak, she could barely stand. I watched as they escorted each other to the porch step to sit. I knew they sat there so they wouldn't wake the three young children sleeping inside.
Groggy with sleep I went downstairs to pee. Husband was up getting ready for work. As I left the bathroom I said, "Someone died. Somethings going on across the street."
And that's it. I went back to bed. Closed the window because whatever was going on was not my business and I still had 2 hours of sleep to get.
How simple was that? Close the window. Not my problem.
Morning happens. I take my kids to school. Later the young kids that live across the street are ferried to school by Grandma. I leave to run errands. I wave to the mom who is now sitting with a friend on the front porch. She waves back like it's a normal day. But it's not. People are coming and going all day. I notice most of the people are youngish. There are hugs on the sidewalk. Tears. Lots of tears. Private hushed conversations on phones happening in the street, on the porch, in the driveway. Something terrible has happened. I notice one person specifically is missing from this menagerie but I'm not assuming anything.
When I get my activities of the day done I fix a drink, get my book and take my place sitting in the front yard on a lawn chair to read a book while soaking up the sun. It's not long before the Grandma is making her way across the street. I know whatever she's going to tell me is going to be bad. Awful. I hop up, "I have something for you!" I grab the pint of Fireball off the doorway table that I had bought earlier. "I don't know what's going on but I've always found that Fireball makes it easier to deal with!" As I hand her the bottle she gives me a weak smile and pulls me into a deep hard hold-me-from-falling hug. I've talked to Grandma several times and even had a couple beers in the backyard with her so I know her but I don't hug her know her. Today is an exception. I tell her, "I heard you this morning. I heard the grief in your cry. I know someone has died." She says, "Her husband." I say, "Fuck."
I say fuck because that's what you say when someone in their early 30's dies. Fuck. "He committed suicide," she says. I am floored. Instant tears. Anyone who knows me knows I am not a crier but this is the kind of news that will soften even the hardest hearts. I had met him, seen him, exchanged pleasantries many times but did not know know him. I know her better. In the past 9 months since she moved in we've had lots of front yard conversations. Tons of times our kids playing at our house or hers. Not besties but we did just have beers on her patio a few nights before. And we had literally last night, the same night, text talked about having a weekly "Book Club" without having to read the book.
I am not making this story mine. I'm just telling it from my side. There are more details but they are not mine to tell. What is mine to tell is, I have also been suicidal.
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