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Since I'm sitting with my uncomfortableness and trying to be honest with my husband, I decided to piece together the parts he may have known separately.
That the day he brought me home from the funeral is the day I wanted to commit suicide. The day I wanted it first. The day I would never have thought would be mine. I had I thought the willpower, the intent and the means.
He knew our brother in law has my father's pistol. He had to suspect why the gentleman has it. I don't know if he understood that on that Sunday afternoon after he left my house and was driving home that I sat on our bed with it in my hand and wanted to die.
I dialed the suicide hot line and I hung up.
I thought of different friends. Who could I call?
One is in charge of HR where I work. That might seem awfully dramatic to her. My brother had suffered through two close family friends commiting suicide, I couldn't leave him the rest of his life worrying about me. He doesn't live near anyway. One of my best friends was on the far side of town and she too had suffered through a brother's suicide. It seemed cruel to call her.
I called a friend we can call Marla.
"Do you still live nearby?"
Yes, but not where I did. I live at X.
"I need a favor. I need you to hold my daddy's pistol."
OK
She hated guns. I knew it was an imposition. Her college age son wasn't living at home at the time. She lived near. She would always answer. She did answer, she said yes. She let me cry. She hid the gun in a closet. One day a couple of months later when my brother in law, a policeman, was coming to town I asked him to take it. I asked Marla if she wanted me to give it to him instead. She asked if I could, if I would be safe if she handed it back to me.
She had a legitimate concern about being seen with it at work, and she didn't like to touch them anyway. So for a very short time I had it in the trunk of my car until I met up with my brother in law.
I finally told my husband that before he was handed it, Marla had it. I used a soft voice, I used soft words.
I promised him I am safe. I will not kill myself. It will be a long time before I take the gun back from my brother in law.
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