When will a stiff breeze stop feeling like harassment, an immediate and traumatic reminder of Longmont in the days before Danny killed himself?

The wind blew almost constantly during our time there this spring.

In early March I collected bits of rusted metal out in front of our rental unit. I always do this. They were mostly squashed bottle caps, so the comparison to coins came naturally.

“Rusty coins for the ferryman,” was a thought I had out there in that windy alley. Bending to pick up yet another “coin,” I’d think: “Passage across the River Styx.”

Across the River Styx lies the Land of the Dead.

The presence of Death and a relentless wind were inescapable in Longmont during those nerve-scraping final ten days of Danny’s life.

I’ve been going back there in my mind lately. Unlike the parent who is stunned to find their child gone to suicide, unaware of their despair, I knew. Those ten days ask for healing as much as anything else. Terror, panic, and hope walked in stride with me every minute of those ten days.

I haven’t been going back to scour out my complicity in Danny’s suicide. No apportionment of blame — for now. More, it has been simply remembering. There’s Danny at the sink filling his water bottle before going to the gym. There’s Danny sitting in bed after dinner, laptop open, face illuminated by the screen. Danny eating the final meal I made us.

Or there we were, walking over to the vintage store around the block where I picked up two garments to use as “cutters.”

Except it wasn’t with Danny, I now realize.

The scrambling of time during acute grief is harsh and disorienting.

No, Danny was already gone. It was with Ken and his brother and sister (who’d flown to Colorado immediately to help) that I went to that vintage store. Cary and his girlfriend too. Shopping was a momentary distraction in between sorting through all of Danny’s worldly goods. Clothes, books, bed linens, sporting equipment, kitchen stuff — all had to be shipped home or dropped off at Goodwill.

The used clothing around the block was deeply discounted because they were closing. I bought a brown and black woodcut-inspired patterned jumpsuit. Cotton. And a rich blue, voluminous shawl with whitish swish patterning. Organza.

I know from other garment-finds that these cloths could last for years, becoming part of my visual vocabulary in both casual and intentional ways.

What do I make, then, of the association with Longmont and Danny’s suicide? Does that elevate the cloth and demand a quilted requiem? Or maybe the darkness condemns the fabric, contaminating it with Death’s forceful and unwelcome intrusion.

I don’t know yet.

Outside of Home Depot this morning, a sturdy breeze stirred up my grief, reminding me yet again of those awful days in Longmont.

It feels a little unfair for something as ubiquitous and impersonal as wind to embattle my heart this way.

“Fair,” Dee. You’re gonna talk about fair?

I know, I know. I find myself in a life now where considerations of what’s fair or unfair are completely off the table.