[trigger warning: graphic suicide details]

We can’t rely on the next breath or the one after that.

Every breath requires a pair of lungs talking to a brain 

resting in a cranium 

that has not been violated by a wayward but intentional bullet. 

“Death within seconds” said the autopsy. For that, at least, we are grateful.

But the details pick and pick at me. Is this part of grieving a violent death? Did he fall forward or backward or to the side? Were his eyes open?

It was a surprise to learn that the bullet had not exited.

On the day of, we drove to the “scenic area” by following the geographical coordinates supplied in his final note.

He wanted his body to be found. He spared us a crime scene clean up and a horrific discovery. The choices show care. He was considerate, our boy.

It took a while to come to those conclusions. To appreciate the way he chose to exit.

We arrived. Emergency vehicles lined the road, lights swirling and flashing. Not allowed to walk downslope to where his dead body lay, we paced in the lot at the trailhead and cried. One of the sheriff’s aides wrapped a sleeping bag around my shoulders.

The wind picked up, the temperature was plummeting and the light faded fast. It was as if the landscape at 7,000 feet outside of Boulder on the day my son killed himself, which was also the day he was born, responded. A world going cold and dark, turning inhospitable. 

It is still cold and dark.