Suicide
that word is so ugly. And how many times have you heard someone make references to slitting their wrists or shooting themselves in the head?? It's become so universally accepted and meant as a joke but to me it's like the words cancer, retard, nigger.....makes me cringe really. and physically sick all at the same time. In my most vivid nightmares I NEVER saw this as my reality, or the reality for my fifteen year old daughter. How do you help your baby cope with something you can't even wrap your own head around?
I get asked all the time how Kaileigh is doing. She really is fine, stronger and emotionally coping in ways I can't even understand where she gets it from. When Leon took his own life, he took her childhood and her innocence with him...and he took a piece of my heart as well.
When Leon's mom called me in the middle of the night it changed me in such a profound way. I don't think I had really had to parent before that. Up until now, Kaileigh's life has been such a easy journey and we have been so blessed this was really the first big blow we'd been dealt. You take so much for granted when the toughest thing you have to deal with is where your gonna have her next birthday party. Now I have to deal with estate lawyers and feuding families and emotional breakdowns I can't put a band aid on to fix. I have to know what to do for her and I can't figure what to do for myself half the time.
The last time I saw Leon is a scene I will replay in my head over and over until I die myself. Tubes were coming out of every place imaginable. His head was wrapped in gauze and the smell still fills my nostrils sometimes. I knew when I left that this would be the last time I would ever see him and that the hard work of being there for Kaileigh was about to begin. I always thought of myself as a single mother anyway where Kaileigh was concerned but I remember thinking that day that I really was all alone now. I leaned forward and I whispered in his ear "I promise to love her for the both of us". He was not always around but he was always as much in love with her as I was. He knew she was the best thing he had ever done...
So much about when someone dies is devastating but when they die because they chose to it's even harder to accept. Ugly and ignorant statements get made about how selfish that person is. It's not selfish, it's sad. it's heartbreaking. Death makes some of the people left behind act like they have no sense. It makes friends and family members divided and fight and for some reason forget that it's in times like this you should be supporting and loving each other. How we got here in this place I still don't know.
We deal with this every single day. Kaileigh deals with all the times she wants to call him, hug him, she deals with just wanting to be a fifteen year old kid with a daddy.
I deal with this huge weight of being a single mother. I deal with the loss of my high school sweetheart and a boy that was becoming my friend again after ten years of being a thorn in my side. and now I deal with the loss of a family I thought was like my own family. I deal with accusations and attacking in ways I don't know how to accept in any other way then to just shut down or cry. Neither of which is healthy for my daughter.
I deal with being left behind just like Kaileigh was.
But we will deal with it. We will deal with it together (Kaileigh and I) and I will keep my promise Leon, I will love her for the both of us......
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