When I was... I don't know, little... Mom used to talk about her cousin Stephen. She adored him, the way I do Billy and Dave and a few various others. Loved and adored. He came over and visited once when I was in 4th grade, and bought the chocolate bars we were selling for some trip, and slept on our couch. Early Saturday morning I crept into the TV room and flipped on the tv to watch cartoons, and sat on the floor so I wouldn't disturb him, flopping his arm over my shoulders and leaned back, and we watched cartoons together. Later that year he came for Thanksgiving, and I told him I hated cranberry sauce, and as I ate he tried to convince me everything at the table was secretly made out of cranberry sauce. I made a grossed out face and we laughed. A couple years later, Stephen graduated from Stanford. On our way up the coast to attend, mom told me more about him. Stephen, she said, had spent a good part of his life drugged out of his mind. Not drugs that give you the munchies, but the hard ones, the ones that come in needles or through straws on mirrors. Alienated, she'd told me. He'd alienated himself from his entire family. A sister and an ex wife that wouldn't let him near them or their children. But he'd pulled out, he'd scraped his life back together, and he was graduating with a masters in English from Stanford University. He kind of became a small hero of mine when I heard that story. Over the years I would proceed to fuck up a hundred small things, but he'd given me this sense, this concrete example, that you can always pull yourself out. The ultimate canary in the coalmine of life.
Stephen took his life a couple days ago. I got a call sometime early this morning, a simple voicemail from dad."Hey Alex, it's Dad. Give me a call sometime today. Love you. Bye." I knew it was bad news. My parents, they dump every conceivable peice of information they possibly can into the minute and a half an answering machine gives you. Unless they don't want to. Unless it's something you shouldn't hear from a recording. Some part of me knew what, but not who. I knew it was on Mom's side. When Grandma died, Dad had made the call, Mom wasn't in any condition to. So I frowned, I put it off. Went out to breakfast with friends, fiddled on the computer, took a breath, called Dad, and heard the news. He braced me, he said he had bad news, and he said Stephen was dead. In my head I flashed back, more conversations I'd had with my parents about him. He was bi-polar. He got sad, was what it was. He got sad and didn't feel like dragging himself out. He was "okay with it." I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes and waited for it. "He... took his life." There it was. Goddamnit. I hadn't seen him in years, but I knew. Dad asked how things were going here in Tucson, and for the life of me, I couldn't remember. "Fine", I'd said, although if the house had burned down a half hour before, it wouldn't have occurred to me, anything to say. I talked a little about school and my upcoming internship quest. He suggested I call mom. "It's not..." I paused. "It's not that I want to avoid it or anything. But should I? If I call, you know, and it's the 5 minutes in the day it's not on her mind...""It's not going to leave her mind, Alex.""Yeah... You're right. But you understand my reservation?""Yeah. Yeah I understand." So I waited a few hours until she was home, and I called. I don't know if it helped, but I think it did. She would stop in mid sentence so suddenly, and I'd think I'd lost reception. And I'd ask if she was still there, and hear her crying. "Sorry," she'd say. Sorry, like she's not the last person on earth who should be apologizing for anything today. When Grandma died, as much as it hurt, I'd been at least remotely prepared. Every time I saw her I knew it might be the last time. This is different though. I always thought I'd see him again. Couple years here, couple years there, it happens with extended family. But we always find a way back to eachother. But not this time. I'm not taking this well. -Alex
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