Transferred Pain

"Hey babe, I'm gonna jump on the computer and download some music to these cd's for our trip to South Carolina, you good with hanging out without me?"

What I said to my husband before I sat in front of my brother-in-law's computer, for what seemed to be forever. It's 10:42 at night and I've got my headphones on and completely oblivious to my surroundings. I'm jamming out to some Steve Winwood, "Roll With It," while I'm downloading my playlist to a cd. I happen to look up at the computer screen and out of the corner of my eye, I see a gray t-shirt move out of frame. So I turn my head thinking I was going to see my good friend standing there trying to get my attention, but instead I see my baby brother standing there out of the blue. I take my headphones off of my ears and ask him, "what the hell are you doing here?" He looks at me with this look on his face. He was dying inside but was putting up this front of strength for me because he knew what was coming next and I was going to need him in the moments to come, more then I had ever needed him before. As I turned around in my desk chair, I slowly begin to see the picture rolling out before me. My brother wasn't the only one in the room with me. There stood my mother, my stepfather, my brother's wife, my husband, my husband's sister, my mother and father in law, my husband's brothers, and our friend. Everyone standing in the doorway, blocking my only way out of the room in the event that I chose to run. I see the look on my mother's face and look at my husband. Then I turn and look up at my brother, "Stand Up," he says to me.

Confused I sit there and ask, "Why? What's going on?" "What are you all doing here?"

Again, my brother looks at me and at this point has my hand in his and tells me once again, "Stand up, we have something that we need to tell you."

My mother starts to see the concern come across my face and immediately tells my brother, "No Callen, let her sit."

When she says this, I realize that something is wrong. Something is very wrong. Worry starts to set in and I can feel the panic and anxiety rising in my bones. Heart pounding, ringing in my ears starting, "Mom, what's going on? If all of you are here, it can't be good. What's wrong with Memaw? Is she ok?"

My mother looks at me with this look of, maybe, she wished it had been her mother that was going to be the topic of discussion at that moment because it would have been easier to deliver the blow to her child. The next words out of my mother's mouth literally took a piece of my soul with them. With such sorrow in her eyes, with the pain in the pit of her stomach, she tells me, "Your father killed himself this morning."

...

Honestly, this part is going to be difficult to write, not because I had just found out my father had committed suicide, but because everything literally was a blur. My world literally came to a stop and then rewound in high speed all my childhood memories, to then just fast forward through the rest of my life. I remember scanning the room, locking eyes with my husband. As I stood from my chair, I said, "Baby," and before I could take a step forward he was across the room and had me in his arms before my knees gave out and I collapsed in his arms and we went to the floor. All I heard for the next few moments was screaming. Very loud screaming. I was confused and getting angry as to who and why they were screaming so loudly when I realized the screams were coming from me. There I was curled up in my husband's arms and lap, screaming that my mother was lying to me. That it wasn't true. To please tell me it wasn't true!!! That this was some sick joke they were playing on me!!!

I was begging her, pleading with her, to tell me that this was anything but real. Through my screaming and crying, I could hear my mother telling me that she wished it was a sick joke. That she wished she could take it all back. As I started to come back to myself, I started to calm down, and the screams became sobs, all while still curled up like a baby in my husband's arms, on the floor. We sat there for what seemed like an eternity, until finally I broke free, looked around, and felt the burn of reality setting in again. When I stood up, everyone was still in the room with me, waiting for me to come back. I sat on the edge of my brother-in-law's bed, next to my mother and placed my head back in my hands and cried some more.

My mother wrapped her arms around me trying so desperately to comfort me. Everyone coming over to me and hugging me. Trying to console me, help me find some comfort. Then came the anger, but not from me. Surprisingly, it came from my husband, who stood up from where he had been sitting on the floor with me and snapped at me, "I HATE HIM! I fucking hate him for what he's done to you! How could he be so stupid and so selfish? I hate that he's hurt you like this!"

As my husband blurted this out with so much destain for my father, my in-laws immediately grabbed him and pushed him out of the room telling him that now was not the time to express how he felt. I felt even worse because, at that moment, I realized my husband felt helpless, this wasn't something that he was going to be able to fix for me.

As everyone started to clear the room to give me a little space, my mother still sitting next to me, I asked her, "How did he do it? Where did he do it?"

She turns and looks at me saying, "Now's not the time for those kinds of questions." I looked at her and then turned and looked at the floor again. My brother now sitting on the other side of me.

I say, "How did he do it? I need to know. I don't know why, but I just do."

My mother then tells me that he had hanged himself in his garage. That image is forever burned into my soul. While I didn't personally see it, it's not an image I'll ever forget. I got up and decided to go outside to smoke a cigarette, so out on the front porch, I went. Just me and my thoughts. Just me in the dark to try and wrap my brain around what the hell I was just told. How my life had just changed in a matter of seconds. I could hear everyone in the house talking about when the funeral was going to be, what the sleeping arrangements were going to be for the night since it was now almost midnight. All I could think about was how was I supposed to move forward in this world without one of the most influential people in it?

I go back inside and kiss everyone good night and go lay on my pallet in my sister-in-law's room. Laying there in the dark, I closed my eyes and then snapped them right back open. The image that I saw there in the dark was not one I was prepared for. I took a deep breath and told myself that I needed to sleep, tomorrow was going to be tough and I needed to be able to face it head-on. So, I close my eyes again and boom! There he is, hanging by the rope in his garage, eyes closed, swaying back and forth. Eyes snap back open and I laid there in the dark while tears streamed down my face. Deciding then that I wasn't going to get any sleep, I get up and go into the kitchen to get a glass of water and realize that all of the guys are up and in the washroom drinking and smoking. It was cold out and this is where we gathered to smoke instead of having to go outside. I walk in and all conversation stops and every man in my life at that moment is staring at me, waiting. I walked up to my husband taking his cigarette, took a long drag and grabbed his beer. He kisses me on the forehead as he pulls out another cigarette, lights it for himself, and grabs another beer. I climb up on the deep freezer, cross my legs, and sit there like a fly on the wall, smoking my cigarette, drinking my beer, while the guys talk about military and war days. I loved listening to their stories. So I just sit and let my mind wander to Iraq in 2003, when all I was concerned with was if my husband was going to come home alive and in one piece. As the night drew on, the stories got longer, the cigarettes and beer became less, and I knew that I was eventually going to have to try and go to sleep. I crawl off the deep freeze, grab my husband by the hand and we go to sleep on that small pallet. Me wrapped in his arms all night. Slightly inebriated and completely drained, sleep found me quickly and took me off into the abyss.

The next morning came early. With a house full of people, it's hard to sleep in. Although everyone was trying their hardest to be quiet so I could sleep in. I got up to the smell of breakfast being made and coffee being brewed. I walked into the kitchen and of course, all the men are at the table eating, mother-in-law in the kitchen cooking, mom making coffee. I'm greeted with good mornings and kisses from everyone and handed a cup of coffee and a seat at the dining room table. Of course, now it's down to business time. My mother had already been on the phone with my father's family and it was settled that we were driving to Dallas that day to meet at my grandmother's house. Once my mother and my mother-in-law sat at the table, I started asking questions. My mother lays out for me what happened the day before.

My father had committed suicide in the middle of the night on December 11th, 2005. My stepmother found him the next morning during her morning routine. My stepmother woke to her 4:30 AM alarm to find that my father wasn't in bed next to her. She didn't think anything about it as my father suffered from insomnia and often found himself sleeping on the couch. She gets up and goes into the living room and no Callen asleep on the couch. So she figured he had gotten a head start on her and was already gone for work. She goes into the kitchen to make her cup of coffee and then off to the garage to smoke her morning cigarette. Upon opening the door and turning on the light, she sees something in the corner of her eye and as she turns, there he is... lifeless. She tries to lift him up, to help him, but when your only four foot eleven and trying to lift a man who is six foot four of dead weight, one can only imagine. So comes the 911 call.

That morning at about 10:30 AM, I got a call from my mother to tell me that my brother was back from basic training early. That there were some complications and he was medically discharged. During our conversation, I was in the middle of cleaning up my in-law's yard and watching my niece play in the leaves I had just raked up. As we're talking about my brother, the topic of my father came up and how we were both worried about the conversation that was going to ensue between him and my brother once my father found out. My brother and my father weren't very close, but that's another story. My mother and I talked about my father for quite some time that morning. Once I got off the phone with her, my father was still weighing heavy on my mind. I kept telling myself that I needed to call him, but that I would do it later because he was probably working anyway. My mother was at work when she received the phone call from my father's sister. She left work and drove home to deliver the news to my brother. The only thing my brother asked was if I knew yet or not. My mother told him no that I didn't, that she hadn't called me yet. My brother told my mom that they needed to drive to Huntsville to tell me in person so that they could be there with me. So came the four hour trip to Huntsville, TX from San Antonio, TX that will have forever changed my life.

The following morning after breakfast, we all got ready and left for Dallas to meet the rest of the family at my grandmothers' house. That drive was probably the longest drive I have ever been on. Not because of the miles, but because of the emotional state I was in. Once we arrived at my grandmother's house, we're all unloading out of our cars and as I'm walking up the driveway I see my grandmother come to the door and almost faint right there on the doorstep. I see this and immediately wonder what's wrong, what's going on? What was she looking at? Then I turn and see my brother getting out of his car. I had forgotten how much my brother looked like my father. My grandmother thought that was my father getting out of the car and she lost it. I felt so horrible for her and for my brother. A mother having to bury her child and a son having to carry the very face we were all going to miss so dearly. What a weight to have to hold. As we all gathered inside, we ended up all sitting in the backyard by the pool, talking and reminiscing. All the while, I kept looking at the sliding glass door, waiting for it to open and to see my father walk out, with his booming voice, asking us all what we're doing, holding his six pack of beer. I've never wanted something so much in all my life. I've never had to force a smile and that day, the smiles that came across my face were the worst ones ever. During that visit funeral, arrangements and viewing arrangements were made. Something I never thought I was going to have to go through until my parents were a lot older.

The next few days were literally getting things ready for his viewing that would take place in Dallas and then his funeral that would take place in San Antonio at Fort Sam Houston. The morning of the viewing I couldn't smile, eat, think. I just wanted to be left alone. I didn't want to accept that I was about to say my last goodbyes to my father. My hero, my superman. When we arrived at the funeral home, my stepfather and my husband went in before me to make sure that having an open casket was a good idea, being he hung himself and all. Apparently, that doesn't always end up with the casket being open. When my stepfather and my husband both returned with tears in their eyes, I knew there was no way in hell I was going to be able to keep it together once I got in there.

My husband walked with me down the aisle to my father's open casket and the closer I got the more real everything became, this was it. I was going to have to say goodbye forever. I walked up to the casket expecting to see a gruesome scene, but there he laid, so peaceful. I couldn't help, but almost feel happy for him. He was no longer battling the demons that resided in him. He was free. He was suffering no more. I stood there and cried. I kissed his forehead and cheek. Told him that I loved him more then he would ever know. That I was sorry that I wasn't there enough to see that he was hurting so that I could tell him that I needed my Daddy in my life. That he was needed and loved by so many. That I was going to miss him dearly, but that one day I would see him again. I sat on the front pew and watched as friends and family all came one by one to pay their last respects. I watched a little boy put aside all the hurt he had in his heart for his father, to say his last goodbyes. To kiss his father one last time before forever being laid to rest. I watched those tears streaming down his face. I watched my brother die a little that day. I watched a mother cry her soul out and scream into the arms of her husband that should be her laying there. Not her child. I heard her say that she should have been a better mother, she should have been there more for her son. I watched a wife go through the motions of the day, but inside dead because the morning she found him, she died as well. In those moments, a piece of me died too. We all died a little that day.

The morning of the funeral I was doing better. I was sleeping a little better. Laughing and smiling became a thing again. I was moving forward with life. As we pulled up to the grave site, I started to feel it set in again. The panic and anxiety of, this is it... after this day, you will no longer be. I will have to eventually let you go so that I can move on with my life. As we find our seats, mine being upfront with my stepmother and brother, I begin to look around and realized just how many people came to pay their respects to my father. People I didn't even know. It was a heart-wrenching feeling. If he could've only seen just how many people loved and cared for him. Next came the priest to deliver the message to us. That in which I couldn't stomach because I didn't agree with him. After the priest came the presenting of the flag to my stepmother and the twenty-one gun salute. I've never attended a funeral where there were actual trumpets played and rifles fired in the air. When the first shot went off, I lost it. I lost all composure and let it go. I sobbed like a little girl who just witnessed her puppy get hit by a car and there was nothing she could do to save him. This was the end. I was saying goodbye forever. Thinking all of this while the riffles are going off, trumpets are sounding off, and the flag is being folded so that it can be given to my stepmother in honor of my father and his service to our country. Once the flag was given to my stepmother, we all rose and one by one everyone at the funeral came to us and hugged us and gave us their condolences. I mean really, what can you say? Honestly, there isn't anything that can be said to help heal the void you feel inside. Stood there for a little bit after everyone walked back to their cars and headed to my Aunts house for the luncheon. I stared at his picture, I cried, I whispered hoping he was there and could hear me, that I loved him and I was going to miss him. That I was angry with him for leaving me to face this world without him in it. That I needed him and I was sorry for never telling him just how much he really meant to me.

Shortly after my father passed, my husband and I continued with our plan to move to South Carolina. We were moving because four months before my father passed away, I had lost our third child to a miscarriage. If we weren't ready for a fresh start then, we definitely were now. Four months later we found out we were pregnant again. Talk about that rawness and newness of not having my father to call to tell the good news too. I called his phone after I found out that I was pregnant and listened to his voice mail and in a way was hoping that he was with me and knew that I was going to be a mommy. I wanted to hear his voice, I wanted him to tell me that I was going to be a good mommy and to not be scared, because I was... I was so terrified. A milestone in my life that he wasn't going to be around for.

Here we are though, almost 13 years later and while time has made it easier to talk about without breaking down in tears, the hurt is still there. We never found out why he did it, as there was no note left. I still have questions that will never be answered. I'm a mother of three now and there has been so much that has happened in my life since that day, so much that I could have used his advice for. So many times that I needed to hear his voice, see his face, smell his smell. I miss you every day Daddy. The pain isn't gone, just a little easier to deal with.

I wrote this in hopes that someone who is struggling will read it and see that we all suffer when someone we love decides to end their life before it's their time. I was once told that "There is nothing in your life that is so bad, it's worth taking your life over." Please take it from someone that has been through just about anything you can imagine. I have been the victim of sexual abuse more then once, I was forced to abort my first child, I miscarried two after that, I have been faced to face with death because of my own stupidity, I have been the adulterer, I have been cheated on. I have had a run-in with drugs, I have had family turn their backs on me, I have had family try to have my children taken away from me, and while yes all of this was hard to live with and through, I still did just that... LIVED. You are so important to those around you. Ending your life doesn't take the pain away, it just transfers it to someone else who loves you and they're forced to carry that with them for the rest of their lives. Reach out to those around you. Talk about what's weighing you down. We love you and we need you here with us. You matter. Your story is not over; keep writing in those pages. We all need to get into the habit of checking on each other. We all need to get into the habit of showing each other more love then what we do.

To my stepmother... You, my dear, are the strongest person I know. I know that day you died with him, but you have tried so very hard to live your life every day since then and I just want you to know that I love you and I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you more. That I focused more on my own self, then reaching out to make sure that you were ok. I love you and I need you here. You are the closest thing I have to memories of my father in a time I wasn't always around. I need those stories in my life. Please stay strong and know that there are so many people that need you in their lives today, tomorrow, and many more years to come.

To my brother... I know that the last 13 years have been just as hard for you as they have for me. I just want you to know that Dad would've been proud of you and the man that you have come to be. I don't know if you were ever told this, but the day that we went to clean out Dad's office, we found a letter that was written to you a week before he passed talking about how much he loved you and how sorry he was for not being the father he should have been to you. Thank you for being there for me then and there for me now. We are his legacy and together he lives through us.