Death
Okay... so this is the entry I haven't wanted to write about.
Death is a scary thing to me.
Especially this kind of death.
There is so much we don't know, and may never know, until death is at our doorsteps.
Nicole came into town.
She had coffee with her mom.
That, I think, was to be the only interaction she would have with her family that weekend.
She was hanging out with old friends.
A couple from church, one from high school.
And the phone call came.
She had to go home.
It seems to be the one place she was avoiding most fervently.
It's the reason she met her mom at the coffee house instead of that old familiar, slightly stale, place.
But she had no choice.
She had to go home.
There were police cars.
And panic, I'm sure.
He had killed himself.
Of all the suicides I have known (and I think I may have known more than the average person), this one seems the most reasonable.
I mean, death never seems reasonable to me.
But I somehow pitty him, instead of hate him.
He was in Vietnam.
It never really left him, I think.
It made him very sick.
In his mind.
And with the cancer.
And somehow, the thought of having himself pumped so full of radioactive chemicals that he wouldn't recognize himself, on the chance that it may go into ressession - never really appealed to him.
He had enough chemicals for one life time.
Enough of death and blood and pain.
And so he decided to live out his days in peace.
In his own home.
But recently, the pain was becoming too great.
Appartenly, he told his son what he was plotting.
He explained why it was necessary, so I hear.
And he left letters for them.
It seems so shallow to me, considering the price they paid for the letters.
And I was asleep in bed when my phone call came.
BJ called.
Then I called JP.
She was with Nicole when the whole thing happened.
I told her I was praying, and to call me if they needed anything.
I wanted SO BADLY to go over there.
But I would have just been another person standing around not knowing what to do.
So I did the only thing I knew to do.
I prayed.
A lot.
And I woke up the next morning with a heavy heart.
Hasn't her life been complicated enough?
Why would he add something like this?
But he was hurting, in more ways than one.
And who knows what I would have done in that situation... who knows what any of us would have done.
She's back in Fla now.
She'll return in 2-3 weeks for the memorial service.
I'm just not sure what to say.
Or do.
I'm not even sure how to pray.
Except that God will be her comforter.
I love you, Nicole.
You are constantly in my heart and prayers.