A Season of Loss Part 1

  March 19th 2022. 

Nano was my companion of 7 years. A beautiful mix of Husky and Wolf, stayed by my side through thick and thin since the day I rescued him. His previous owner had been forced into a situation that would see him either give up Nano or take a demotion at work as his job demanded more and more of his time, the time he would spend with Nano. He asked me to take Nano, it was a no brainer for me I needed company and Nano needed a forever home. So together we slogged on together from that day until March the 19th 2022. 

Two weeks prior to March 19th, Nano pulled a  muscle in his hock on his back right leg. It was tender and swollen for about 10 days but then it got better. Then on March 16th he jumped up into my friends car but landed wrong and half fell out. This damaged the muscle in his hock badly and caused an edema in his leg. Not knowing what it was I figured the swelling would go down as it had the last time except it didn't, it got progressively worse so bad so that it quadrupled the size of his paw from normal size. He hobble around in terrible pain most of the time. I tried heat and cold and pressure and a few shots of Metacam I had left from a previous injury of his, nothing worked so I called the vet. 

We saw the vet the afternoon of March 18th. He shook his head in disbelief looked up at me and said "there is no quality of life I can offer your puppy" my life ceased to comprehend anything other than his next few words, "I'm sorry but this is the end for Nano there is nothing I can do to help him without (this is my glimmer of hope) spending thousands of dollars to find out the issue and possibly more thousands to fix it". It is as I had feared earlier in the day this was the time that I would have to make the decision to ask Nano to forgive me for never been successful enough in any of the jobs I have had in the past too be able to squirrel away a rainy day 10K. 

I told the vet I needed the night with him and asked if we could have the last appointment the next day for me to send Nano over the Rainbow Bridge. He was very accommodating even though March 19th was his cultures New Years Eve. We were set to be there the next day at 1:30 with Nano for the last time. 

My friend Karen had driven me and Nano to the vet that day.  We went out to the car and I tried so hard to be brave for Nano but I could not and the tears ran freely from beneath my eyes, he started to whimper softly he knew I was upset but through my tears I assured him daddy was okay, I wasn't I dying inside I was in effect for better or for worse I was putting my furbaby to death. 

I let all the neighbor dog friends know that Nano would go to Heaven the next day and if they would like to visit him Saturday morning before noon i would be happy to host them in our back yard to say their good byes. His best buddy Brewser was walking with him Pawrents when we were returning from the vet. I told them that Nano would be going to heaven the next day and Brewsers mom just teared up and hugged me tight. Nano had no idea what was going on but he was licking his buddies nose so it didn't really matter. Brewser was Nano's best buddy so i glad they go to say good bye. I know for them it was good bye for now, not good bye forever. 

Friday night i cooked Nano a rare Tenderloin steak i was saving for his birthday on April 4th. I got it half price at Loblaws on last day of sale, it was still $18.00 but it was a good chunk and Nano liked it rare and yes he got fried onions cause he loved fried onions. We went to bed that night and I slept on the floor with him, he whimpered all night but he did not walk around like usual no this night he stayed beside me and breathed into my ear with every 3rd breath being a wincing whimper. 

Very early in the morning i woke to wetness on his bed. I know he would not have peed on his blanket as with all animals you don't pee where you sleep. I looked at the staining on his blanket, it was pink. I put my hand gently between his belly and his leg and when I drew my hand out it was covered in blood and watery slime. The edema had burst through the skin. 

I took a bunch of old clean t-shirts and cleaned up this mess as best I could. I wrapped a new black hand  towel around his leg and secured it with painters tape. As much as I loved him I still did not want blood all over the hardwood floors, or for his friends that would soon be arriving to see how bloodied up he was. 

He had a scrambled egg with 5 or 6 pieces of bacon and a couple of Kraft cheese slices for breakfast. Pretty much as soon as we were finished breakfast I carried him down the back stairs and out into the back yard. March this year had been particularly cold and rainy but this morning was not horribly cold and it had yet to rain but the weatherman promised it would. 

In the previous few days Nano had taken to lying in a certain spot in the back yard that was directly below a 60 year old apple tree. There was a good creche of dead leaves there but there were also some tiny sticks. I put the blanket down for Nano so he could lie in his perfect spot. Before he got to it a tiny branch hit or stuck his bad leg and it punctured his skin easily and Nano was now bleeding on the front of his leg as well as the back. My poor friend, his skin was so taught even with the pressure release the previous evening that even a tiny stick punctured his otherwise tough as nails persona. 

By 10 am we had a visitor her name is Kallie. Kallie is an 11 year old Rottweiler mix. I found out on this morning that Nano was Kallie's first friend in Toronto and oh they were friends. They used to run around the back yard so fast, around my little garden or the pool that once sat there, they would run and run and then Kallie would come to my feet and sit and get snuggles and cuddles and Nano would get so jealous. Nano loved her, really loved her. 

Kallie's mom her name is Jen. Jen is a great friend to both of us, Nano and I. Jen was so affected by the events that would unfurl with in a few short hours that she was beside herself with grief which made the grief that i was feeling just so much more intense. Jen and I cried together and Kallie went for snuggles with Nano, Nano tried to get up to run I encouraged him to lie down, he conceded and laid back down and Jen and I had a good cry, telling stories about the shenanigans these two got into. It was good to be able to grieve with someone who loved him so much. 

They stuck around for an entire hour. I made her a coffee fed both Nano and Kallie many treats. Before they left Kallie gave Nano a little lick, she was sad he didn't play with her and so was Nano that he could not play. They left and we were alone again in my tears. 

I left him outside while I made another coffee had a good cry made him some snacks from the left over bacon and big bowl of water. I peaked out at Nano to  find a former neighbor and friend, James, outside on his knees beside Nano. James is a Landscaper and there he was on his knees in the mud tears in his eyes petting the dog he used to howl with. 

On or walks pretty much every morning from April to October we would see James crawling into his truck. James and Yasmin his ex (who could not come because she had Covid-19) were the Paw-rents of April, Nano's gf. James was a very special friend to Nano. He never gave him treats but he gave him love everyday. He would stop what he was doing and give Nano a really good cuddle and try to get Nano to howl. 

When I returned I half expected him to be laying somewhere else in the yard which was his usual but not today. He was lying peacefully in the place I left him, surveying his yard, taking one last look at the place he spent so many hours in. I could see his tears, he knew how he felt and he had seen my tears. I sat quietly beside him drinking my coffee trying to keep it together, because James was sitting at his feet and having a moment with Nano. We sat and looked at the yard and from time to time he would lick my hand and look at me as if to say "it's okay dad I"m ready". Thanks Nano but I'm not is all I could think. 

James and I discussed what had transpired to come to this situation what options there were were and just small talk. He never once raised his head to look at me. He concentrated on Nano and pet him and talked to him quietly in Nano's ear. We sat in silence for about 45 minutes and then round the corner plodding down the driveway came Georgia. James stepped back but hung around as the neighbors started to arrive to say their good byes. 

Georgia at this time was a 8 month old Bassett Hound she is rambunctious and as flitty as a puppy is at 6 months. Oh she just loved Nano and Nano he just tolerated her. See our dog walking group was Nano the Husky/Wolf, Georgia the pure bred Basset Hound, George Michael the Shi-poo and Archer the Jack Russell. As you tell Nano and Georgia were more close in size than the other two and I think that was Georgia's attraction to Nano. In her mind this was her big brother. 

Since Nano was lying down Georgia dragged her mom Suzanne to the backyard. The gate was open and Georgia in her puppy fashion barreled into the back yard. She bee lined for Nano and stopped dead at the gate. Suzanne unlatched her leash and still she sat there. She got up sheepishly and walked over and nudged Nano with her huge snout. Nano gave her a side look and laid his head back on the blanket. 

Georgia came over and sat with me and snuggled into my legs and went from a sitting position to laying on my foot in an un disturbed gaze at Nano. While Suzanne and I were talking, Georgia would periodically turn and look at me and I swear one time she winked at me. When it was time for them to leave Georgia who was now on the leash again went over gave Nano one last sniff and looked back at me with the saddest eyes. She walked down the driveway slowly and this was not a Georgia thing to do and she looked back with such sorrow in her eyes. It was in this moment I believed that dogs can talk to each other. 

Soon after Georgia left then came George Michael and his mommy Martha. George Michael bounds around like a little puppy and he really is a tiny dog but over a year old at this point. He trotted over to Nano gave him a little snuggle then came to me to say hi, as for him this was like a party because he had just seen Georgia at the end of driveway. I'm glad George thought it was a party the whole atmosphere was getting thick for me and I think Nano was feeling the gloom. This little turkey was going to liven the mood. 

Martha and spoke for a few minute about what I don't recall. The air was heavy my chest was heavy it was after 12 noon and our appointment was at 1pm to send Nano over the Rainbow Bridge. Soon after George Michael arrived so did Archer. 

Archer is more my friend than Nano's but Nano tolerated him as well but all these dogs were Nano's tribe. They were his charges when we were on a walk together. He was always out in front making sure not one dog or person got a good sniff of his tribe before he make the once over first. Since the little dogs were far less cautious than Nano they would take a closer look after Nano gave to okay to approach. But this made him insanely jealous and the screams and howls Nano would belt out were often deafening. As if to say to the little dogs " I said that dog was okay, I didn't say, sniff his arse" Nano was so vocal at times

Archer did his once around the back yard, he gave Nano a few sniffs but Nano was more concerned with all the people at this point that were petting him. Martha was there and so was Karen, Archer's mommy and Georgia and Suzanne had come back to say one last good bye. 

While they all did their good byes I snuck in to get treats for the puppers. One my way in the back door my downstairs neighbor Danielle, whom i affectionately call Earl came up the stairs and asked "is it time". 

I answered "that all the dogs were in the backyard I needed to get some treats for them and yes we will need to leave soon but I'm not ready" and the tears flowed. Danielle hugged me and stepped outside to entertain while I composed myself changed my clothes and readied myself for the impossible hour."

I changed and headed back out to the yard. I had in hand the treats (chunks of bacon from Nano's breakfast) i was hoping all the dog owners would say their dogs cannot have people food but none of them did and they all dined on bacon. I had also taken the receipt for the procedures today. I knew I would not handle being tasked with paying for the death of my friend on the same day it happened so I paid on Friday when we got the diagnosis. 

Karen, Archers mom was taking us to the appointment. I asked her "if it was time" and she said "we should start getting Nano ready"

With those words everyone around gave me a hug and went on their way. I grabbed Nano's leash and he stood right up. The swelling in his foot had really gone down. But when I took off the towel paper taped to his leg I knew why. A huge amount of the Edema has seeped out into the towel and he was still bleeding out. The flow had slowed because of the towel but not stopped. 

We left his blanket where it was and Nano limped along beside me to Karen's mini SUV. The very car he had cause the damage to his leg when he short jumped in, a week earlier. But this time he jumped right up in to the back seat. I got in and sat beside him one last time. He was excited he though we were going for walks. I cried all the way to the vets. We are not going for walks Nano, but soon you will run again with April in green fields and flowers. 

When we got to the Vets they were not ready for us (Danielle, Nano and me). Nano knew this parking lot and he immediately was on edge. I snuggled him and told him it was okay. We cuddled and soon they came to the parking lot to get us. We are still in the age of Covid at this time and you waited in your car until you were called for your appointment.

Karen waited for us and Nano with some trepidation made his way up the back stairs and into the examination room. For the first time coming to this vet, he recognized and acknowledge Nano, was prepared for our arrival and actually knew why we were there. 

Nano collapsed at my feet and just laid there panting heavily. He looked up at me for reassurance several times and I assured him with pats and cuddles that this one would not hurt like all the other shots and procedures. I think he had finally resolved himself the the inevitable and if daddy said it was okay then it would be. 

The vet returned from the other room with both shots and a catheter needle and electric razor. He asked if i was ready and i said yes. He bent down and put a needle full of fluid directly into the muscle beside Nano's spine. Nano did not wince even a little. He said "he is a big dog it will take some time just stay with him and when he is groggy we will lift him up on the table. 

It did not take long at all which was strange for Nano, he usually resisted and resisted. He just laid down and with the help of Roger the assistant and Dr. T the vet, we lifted Nano to the exam table.      Dr, T  shaved a small spot on his front leg. Nano was none to pleased but he was pretty dopey so it got done without Nano interfering. The vet put a synch around Nano's leg to pop out a vein. For the first time that this procedure was ever done on Nano it popped right up. The vet inserted the catheter needle and looked at me "you tell me when it is time". 

I looked down at my child, my companion, my protector, my tormentor, my gift of a substantial amount of time and nodded to the doctor. He inserted a syringe with a blue liquid into the catheter and emptied it into my boy. 

The vet said "it will only take a few minutes, take all the time you need, dry out loud, this is painful," he put his arm around my shoulder gave me a side hug and left Danielle and I to usher Nano over the rainbow bridge. I held his paw I held him, gave him all of everything i had left and I felt his heart stop and I felt him leave. I put my lips in front of his to feel his breath, there was none. I listened for his heart there was no breath there was no rising and falling of his chest. My Nano was gone. 

I kept it together in the vets office pretty good but the next few hours are a blur. I loved you Nano like my own child. See the universe made it ardently clear to me that it would not allow me to have my own children and it took that ability away from me. Nano was my favorite son of all the dog kids I have had in my life Nano is the favorite one of all. 

Thank your our time together buddy I'll miss ya. 

Reflections of my last year so far.

Since most of my friends either have money and great jobs which begats more fulfilling lives or have no money like me and are struggling with either ailments or some other mental event I was left kind of out of the loop this year and very alone. It has been that way for about a year after loosing a battle with trying to better myself with a failed attempt at business, the death of my mother and the death of my vehicle I was left homeless, ,motherless and friendless, with out wheels living about 40 kms from my job.
The last year to say the very least has been hell. A friend came to my rescue and asked me to move in with her rather than living in a low tel motel with about a 3 km walk to work. I moved in with her and her dog Vegas last January and have been in west Toronto every since. She has been a god send but a puriah in all in the same breath. She has introduced me to many wealthy educated people that for me are no challenge to hang with or converse with but I am unable to really enjoy the company as it comes at a price. All of them are successful business people, wealthy or well off people, I am not. I am not jealous in the least it just limits where our fun as a group ends most times for me. My friend who i live with is in the same boat and at times I feel like her nigger running around doing chores so she does not have to. But I have a bed and roof over my head which is much less than I had a few months ago.
Recently a man I fell madly in love with refuted my advances with the "lets just be friends" speech. Ya know the speech that you get when you are the fat kid in high school and the pretty girls need an excuse to be nice but need your advances to be directed elsewhere. Anyway he gave me the speech on a warm summer night and then promptly curled up into my chest and asks "is this okay"?
What the hell am I to say? I am in love with this guy and just got rejected in the most hurtful way but i have him in my arms and "hell yes its okay". Until I get home and burst into tears.

With all of the above coming into play, last weekend is Pride weekend. The rich ones are frolicking at spas and high end hotel pools that cost $45.00 for the rich and lazy, he not so well ones well they are not so well and the ex on his way to Ottawa for his yearly trip with friends I am once again left alone to enjoy the weather. So rather than skulking in the bushes in the local park looking for some cock to suck I decided to volunteer to work for Pride Toronto this past weekend. It was by far the best time i have had in a very long time.
All I was doing was passing out fliers promoting World Pride Toronto in 2014. Yes folks the world comes to Toronto in 2014 to celebrate World Pride. Three million of your closest friends and extended gay family members will descend on our fair city from June 20-29 2014. This was my speech for about 16 hours over the course of the weekend to thousands who would take a flier.
I worked with some very interesting people over the weekend and really got to enjoy the experience of Pride. I also committed in my mind to have an active roll in Pride 2014 and if I can just get one of them to return an email I will get that task started.
Up to this point I had really nothing to live for, I provide no support to anyone in anyway. I am shunned by my family which fell apart after my dad hid his new girl friend from us after meeting her within 10 days of my mothers burial. Consequentially he marries her on July 27 and I will be the only child in attendance I think. It is a huge mess and a completely other blog. Back to my pity party, oh yeah nothing to live for, very few close friends, lots of fuck buddies but they are so empty  or at least they help me to get empty and there is no substance in that relationship. Just fucking thats it just fucking. When I did Pride at least I had something that was mine that I was not having to ask permission to do or seek acceptance from anyone. The people I worked with welcomed the help as they were in a complete cluster fuck when I arrive and my 25 years of trade show experience kicked in and well I ran with it.
Had it not been for the opportunity and had I not taken the initiative I would most definitely be in a huge depression at this point.

Looking for a new life, Chapter 1

So recently a very good friend of mine (Karen) mentioned to the group of gay friends that I hang with most "that she was concerned for me as to what would happen to me in the event of something serious happening to me. Why?, because I am perpetually single.
I don't like being single its not something I would have thought my life would be. I honestly thought that by now I would be in a relationship with a guy that loved me as much as I loved him. I have never not looked for love but admittedly should it have presented itself to me I would in the past have not pursued it either. There is a really long story to this and since this is MY blog I am gonna tell it.

My life has been something that I would not have wished to live as it has been lived. At a very young age I realized I was not interested in girls. When all the other kids were talking about Susie in the school yard I was looking at the guy talking about it and wondering more about him than Susie. I was also the last boy in a family of five kids with one younger sister. I was growing older with no male influences except my father who had an extremely stressful job and his stress release was to work his ass off on mundane projects around the house and the way to involve his youngest boy was to have me clean up after him or hold the nail while he hammered or hold the 4 foot chisel while he swung at it with a 20lb sledge hammer. He was not sadistic in any way or shape I was the last boy at home and the other two had paid their dues to the family and building with dad and up and moved out. I was left with two sister and my mom mostly and what this gave me most was a formal understanding of how to cook and how to clean and how to cry for what I wanted most.
This family is also staunch leftist Christian non-denominational. So staunch that going to the local pool hall to play stand up video games was considered a sin. But pretending to be sick on a Sunday evening during the Stanley Cup play off was not. Another taboo was having too much to do with young guys my own age unless they were kids I had grown up with or went to church with. Meeting an new friend would meet with much scrutiny or trepidation as to who this young guy was. Funny though one of my best friends growing up was a tom boy named Joyce. To this day we are friends and she was the only girl I had anything to do with growing up. Its no wonder either considering for a long time growing up if I got hurt she was involved or was the instigator of the stupid idea that would get one of us hurt. But she was my friend and I would have held that walnut any day while she took a swing at it with the dull hatchet ( thats a very long story too LOL).
Any way with all these variables I was not developing as a young man, No matter what I always seemed to be shirked off into feminine type rolls or activities that would see me involved mostly with things the women folk in the church or on the farm would be doing, simply because of my age and fat boy stature. Yes I was a fat kid.
Most of my grade school years I was a fat boy. It was grueling being the last kid picked for games in school gym class. Being the only one walking home when all the other kids went home in groups. Being berated by older boys or boys my own age cause I was the fat kid. It was really tough being fat and not having much support at home did not help. My father never wanted me to fight battles but to talk my way out of them or to run away and if that did not work he would talk to the father of the kid. We lived in a small town there was one employer in the winter and he was management and most of the other fathers were workers so dad had some push with male conversation about leaving his sissy kid alone. Which was never good for me the next day as it always made the kid in question mad as hell. I remember the most memorable occasion where I asked my dad to back off, he didn't. The very next day some of the older boys ganged up on me and started kicking me in the back so hard that I lost my footing. While lying on the ground in line to go back into school at recess they continued to kick me in the back. I layed on the cold ground under the watchful eye of the then vice principal as he watched the boys put the boots to me, kicking me in the back. The bell rang for us to go in they stopped went back into the building  and I continued to lay there listening to the vice principal "Cramp get your lazy ass of the ground or I will tell your parents you are too much trouble to have at school".
I got up went into class, sat gingerly in my desk for the rest of the day, walked my sister home from school and never told a soul.  I went about my tasks and evening chores knowing if I told my dad I would get a way worse beating the next day. What really happened late that night and next morning committed to my parents that I had been attacked.
I started pissing blood, I had had my kidney bruised so bad by the relentless pounding of the older boys that they were full of blood. This is what the fat kid put up with in school, my entire grade school years were like this. But to finish that story I stayed home that day and the next. My sister came home from school to tell me that if I did not return the next day the boys who had kicked me would all be receiving the strap and suspensions for one week. I look up from my bed with begging in my eyes for the very first time I asked my mom if she though I should go to school the next day. I needed at that moment, I needed her to protect me and to give me permission to get my druthers at the hands of the school penal system. With a twinkle in her eyes she looked down and me and said "not a chance".
The rest of the school year the guys left me alone but I sure wish they could have got the strap. But such is the life of the fat kid growing up in the 70's.

When is enough, enough?

Not just a post but a question to all those who follow me. When is enough, enough? When do we stop giving to those who only take and never return in kind or in any kind for that matter the gifts you offer them. I am not talking celebratory gifts like birthdays and weddings where once in a while you go way over board for whatever reason and give extremely generously. (by the way people expecting re-gift visa vi your exuberant spending is wrong on all fronts). I am talking things like patience, going out of your way to do a favor you were asked to preform and against your better judgement or based on your friendship to that person, you did it as a "favor". When does one have the right or balls if you will to say no because you the person in question feel you have done enough for this individual? Is there a guideline to follow, is there an agenda somewhere that lists the check list of "do's and don'ts".
As I get older I find my patience for stupidity, arrogance and expectations of what should be right for all to be lacking at best. I find myself angered often by stupid ill thought out comments by juvenile minds in the bodies of adults or ridiculous self center actions. At times I grieve for my younger years of frivolity actions and precarious activities where though i was to be held responsible for those actions they were nonetheless my actions and it was an exciting time. I guess I know how my mentors felt when they observed me and asked the same question "When is enough, enough?

suicide

It was the summer of 1985 I had a decent job working in a kitchen of a fine dining restaurant at the corner of College and University in the bottom of what was then the Hydro building. It was called Erl’s Court and for all intensive purposes it was a good job. I was liked by Chef Freddie and had a good position as the cold prep and dessert cook. All seemed well to the untrained eye.
I got up every morning at 4 am got on the all night street car on Gerrard Street and headed into work. Thank God it was one car all the way to work. Our days started at 6am and the trek that early took very little time but getting up so early allowed me to prep with a jigger of vodka and a little breakfast.
It was prior to my win of 649. Life was boring for me. I had no friends outside work save a cheating girlfriend who had gotten pregnant by a mutual friend of ours and I found this out the day I asked her to marry me. If anyone really knows me they will know I do not have the ability to have children so there was no way the child was mine. When it was born that was solidified as there is no Black genealogical history in my family and the child was definitely black or mulato in this case.
So there I am lonely, drinking Vodka to wake up in the morning, my girlfriend is gone I have not decided on my level of homosexuality and do to her indiscretion most of our mutual friends had sided with her.
I got home from work at the time I usually did, approximately 11pm. Cause after a day on the line at Erl’s it was common place to pull up a bar stool at DJ’s Tavern as the restaurant owned the bar and as revered employees and cooks we did not have to pay for our libations. We would sit there from about 3pm to 10pm or whenever the Chef left and then go, our merry way and most of the time it was an inebriated merry way.
I would get home as usual clean up the interesting little piles of half pieces of buttered bread that the lady I was living with would place in various places around the house in hopes of remembering and consuming them later in the day. She was a lovely older lady but forgetful. She loved her little house we lived in but I was the last ditch effort to keep her in that home. She could not live alone she was way to forgetful but the truth is I was never home I was always at work or out at the pub so my presence was futile but it afforded me great rent and a classic 30’s style home to live in. Besides it also gave me access to an unlimited supply of Demerol she took for pain.
Arriving home I clean up the bread and the dishes from the day snuck up to her room and took her bottle of Demerol out of the bathroom vanity and got a full bottle of vodka from my room and settled down to watch some TV and end my miserable existence. At this point in my life I was worth nothing more than a drinking buddy and though I loved my job I hated myself and for me at this point death was an acceptable exit.
It’s amazing what you can watch on cable in the middle of the night. So I turned to my favorite station for the movie of the evening and proceeded to take approximately 40 Demerol and wash them back with a couple of swigs of Polar Ice. The movie started off slow but I do believe it was called the Morning After.
I did not have to watch too long to realize the movie was about a teenager taking his own life in a vehicle suicide and what the parents and family would have to go through because of this tragic end to a very young life. I watched intently in a stupor of induced sleep from the drugs and heartburn from the Vodka.
I had a waking dream of my mother’s face looking down into my coffin and her tears of pain. That was enough for me to take the few steps to the kitchen grab the milk out of the fridge and drink as much as I could and then the vinegar off the counter that the elder member of our house used to clean everything and down about a liter or so. The nature of spoilage took over.
Vinegar and milk do not mix well and within minutes I was hurling into the kitchen sink. I was cognizant enough to plug the sink so that when I was finished I could count the amount of capsules that came up. I was violently ill, wrenching bile and leftover alcohol from the day’s events and a few Doritos I had consumed at the bar. When I had finished or so it seemed I started to count capsules. Considering my inebriation I was impressed later on that I was intelligent enough to remember to count the capsules.
1-2-3….31-32-33-34 and that’s all I could find. I counted them going in and I was 6 Demerol short. Six had been absorbed into my body. This was evident as I was having a lot of problems staying upright. I would lapse in and out of consciousness and I knew I had to get to a hospital.
I called a taxi, ambulances cost too much and East York Hospital is just up the street. I tucked the bottle in the pocket of my jacked and headed to the door but I knew if I fell asleep I would surely be dead so I took a tack out of the bulletin board and held it in my hand so that when I drifted off I would squeeze tight and the pain would wake me up enough to make my body jolt to some semblance of drunken alertness.
I gave the cabbie $20.00 and told him to get me to East York Hospital and fast that I was having an allergic reaction and there was no time to call an ambulance. The fare would usually have been about $6.00 but I hope to instill in him urgency as my life now hung in the balance of his ability to drive.
We made it to the hospital in break neck speed. I walked into the emergency entrance slammed the bottle down in front of the duty nurse and said “I have decided I don’t want to die” and I collapsed in front of the desk.
The rest is blurry I don’t remember much of it but I do remember the tube for charcoal, I do remember the tubes and being covered in my own excrement and vomit from my body convulsing and vacating. I also remember waking up and looking at my hand and seeing the tack was embedded in my hand and showing that to the doctor. I lapsed back into incoherent though an or sleep I guess where the next thing I could see was my mother standing over me telling me I was an idiot and that it was a much better view than the one that a casket would have allowed.
When I came to the next evening the staff psychiatrist asked me how many I had taken and I told him. I told him 40 but had puked out about 34 before I came to the hospital. I told him about my miserable life and the whys for this action and how I had averted a much worse outcome. He just kept saying “Thank God for Television”. He asked was there some family he could call and I told him I thought they had as I had seen my mother there earlier. He assured me it was a dream that no one had been to see me and that there would have been no way for me to communicate with all the tubes attached to my body.
I told him “no this is my failure, my indiscretion and that I would as I had done most of my life face this task alone. I forbade him to tell anyone, I was old enough to fight my own battles”. I did however ask him to call my work and tell them I would be off for a few days and I also called the little old lady I lived with and told her I was staying with friends and that she should contact her daughter to come be with her. Knowing she would forget I called her daughter and told her that I would be out of town for a few days and that she should do what she needed to look after her mother.
For the next several months I gave up drinking and saw a shrink for about one hour a week. He attributed my successful recovery to his help. I attribute it to my moral standards of not wanting to cause my parents or family the pain of burying a child. That is not fair especially when the reason is so selfish and the way is so despicable. In our church we believe it you succeed in your attempt at suicide you will go to hell. That in itself was one thing I could not do to my parents. I will admit had the movie not been on I would not be here to write this.
I am writing all of this in response to a couple of personal experiences with suicide in the past couple of months. One in which one of my very best friends lost her brother to his successful attempt at freeing his life from the unbelievable alterations of depression and the other from an attempted world exit by a friend who believed that it could get no worse than boredom at the hands of sequestering provided at the hands of almost illegal actions of an Insurance company.
In review of my own attempt it was for all the reasons my friends brother succeeded. Depression for the most part had a grip on me aided by the consumption of alcohol and by my fear of showing my inadequacy to my friends and family. I too believed this was an acceptable exit. But the difference is he was receiving help to conquer his demons and there was no way I would stoop to the help of a shirk that would deem me unable to help myself and in my own mind condemn me to ostrasization, something I could never and still cannot handle. It is one of my greatest fears, to not be in control of who I really am.
My other friend decided that after taking lots of pain killers that he should say good bye to someone he felt had pushed him over the edge that his own mind could not handle so I he text him to say good bye. Was it a cry for help, only he can answer that? Was it his saving grace, yes by all means as this person could have the death of an innocent on his hands had he decided not to act on this selfish action. My friend hoped I am sure that this person would be asleep as he dosed himself late into the night. But for some reason he chose to be awake that night and in doing so was able to alert the parents and cohabitants of his home to his plight for social freedom.
In all our cases I find it interesting we all chose the easiest way out. We all chose to deliver ourselves from the evils of life and find a space for ourselves in eternal damnation as our lives had not offered us enough of that already. I was in control of my own mind, as was my young friend who chose pills on a lonely dark night. The brother of my other friend chose the swiftness of a train right outside the entrance the hospital where he was to be receiving much needed care and coaching to alleviate his feelings of pain anguish and stress.
Even though my life now in this moment is horrible, I am stuck in a fantasy of what ifs and if onlys and find now relevant exit that could help me see a higher opportunity for myself. Thankfully now I have a support network of friends, some who cared deeply and some who believe in tough love and to offer as negative a response as possible every time I solicit advice. They depress me but not enough to push me over a proverbial edge but just enough to make me realize I have a good life and how insignificant their opinions are and just how worse off they are then me. It’s rejuvenating actually to speak to them and see how comical their responses will be.
I have learned there is no easy way out. There is certainly no painless way out and even though depression sits on my shoulders most days I still draw breathe every morning. I own a shitty car that, allows me to escape to nature and go hug a tree if I need to (it’s a long story, I will tell that one some other time) and that all I need to do sometimes is retreat to that moment when I was bent over a sink looking into a pool of vomit to remember that there are better moments in life. That not seeking out the moments of passion and not giving ourselves the option to and permission be depressed for the moment is our failing. I am not a financial success but I am a successful listener and shoulder bearer to all who need. I have the energy to persevere or to look intently at what I am and how to collectively create for myself an exit strategy that does not involve the death of the person but certainly does involve the death of an ideal or stagnant movement.
I believe in my own reality especially if it means success for me or preservation of who I am in my soul, my indiscretions of the past are just that. I am happy and sad to say that the experiences of friends in the recent past have allowed me to review and acknowledge my life as a viable acceptable existence. I acknowledge that I will have struggle but I also acknowledge there is never an acceptable easy way out.