The messaged continued, “Please make sure my son gets ‘blah’ and ‘blah.’  I’m so sorry.  I love you very much.”

(If there could be a blank chapter, it would be this one.  That’s how I felt…blank.)

It was a staggering contrast, the serenity of such a blissful moment coming together with the implications of this message.  It seems a breakdown of the whole human system occurs.  I’m not sure how it works, but shock appears to me to be a gift of grace…a soft easing into a new reality that’s about to shift your entire life.

I stared at the message then put my phone back in my pocket.  I was kneeling on the ground staring at a fern trying to make it make sense.  I took my phone back out and read it one more time until it finally started to click.

I called him, right to voicemail.  Then I called her, right to voicemail.  I called him again.  I called her again.  Over and over, I called.  Over and over, voicemails.

I called my love.  I said, “I think something bad has happened.”

He said, “Love, you have to go to the police.”

Oh yeah.  Why didn’t I think of that?

Shaking now as reality began to settle, I drove to the nearest police station.  I explained the situation to the lady at the front desk.  The sympathy in her voice brought tears to the surface.  “Hon, there’s nothing we can do here.  You have to call their jurisdiction.”

Shaking and now crying, I started driving.  I was blank again.  I didn’t know where to go.  Where do they live??  What’s their address???  He had recently moved in with her.  I didn’t know.   

I pulled into a shopping center hoping that I’m misunderstanding what’s happened. I called my brother again. I called his wife again.  Voicemails.  I Googled his wife’s name and came up with an address.  I called that town’s police, explained the situation, and gave them the address.  I sat in my car and waited.

An officer called back pretty quickly it seemed.  They went to the address, but it was her mother’s house.  Her mother didn’t have their address either.  What the fuck??

I Googled again and came up with another address.  I called 911 this time, explained the situation, and gave them the address.  The operator discovered that the police were already on their way there.  Someone else had called too.

I sat in my car and waited.  Shaking, crying, waiting. I noticed that 11:11 was everywhere…the time, the odometer…why?

It was eerily quiet, and nothing was happening, so I drove home.  I called my brother again.  I called his wife again.  For over half the day, I called them. 

Mindlessly, I went outside and onto my porch wishing that I still smoked so I could have a cigarette.  The police were outside too, walking towards my house.  I can hardly remember anything they said to me.  I gathered they were looking for him and I overheard that his phone had pinged near a quarry only 10 minutes away. 

Oh, he’s still alive?

I was begging them to tell me what happened, but they wouldn’t tell me anything.  Right then, a text came through from my brother’s best friend, “She’s gone.”

OhmyGod,OhmyGod,OhmyGod.

“Is it true?!”  I asked the police, “Is she gone??”

“I’m so sorry.  Please be careful.  Call us if you hear from your brother.  Call us if you need anything.”

I didn’t know what else to do and I couldn’t get the quarry out of my mind.  I drove there.  I’m sure they had already checked there, but I had to see for myself that he wasn’t there at the bottom.

I was circling the roads around the quarry trying to find an alternative way he might have driven in.  I parked at a church close by and started walking towards the quarry from there.  As I was hiking, one of the police officers that was at my house called asking where I was.  I said, “I’m looking for my brother.”

He said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.  What if he hurts you?”

“He would never hurt me.”

I hung up the phone and kept walking until I arrived upon the steep fenced-in hill leading to the site.  There was a hole in the fence that I was able to open up enough to slip through.  As I climbed, I came across a Woodpecker feather in pristine condition.  I picked it up.

“With the knocking of the Woodpecker, you are being signaled that significant changes are happening.  It is up to you to seize the moment. It may be about the renewal of an old project.  Get busy!  Keep moving forward without interference.  You understand the power of words and can use them with precision to get your point across.  You can shake up the awareness of others.”

I finally reached the top where I had to slip through yet another fence.  Heart pounding out of my chest, entire body shaking, feather in hand…I peered into the vast pit.  There was nothing. Rocks and dirt. 

(For a split second, I thought about jumping.  I’m not sure why.  The old demons, I suppose.)

I found my way back to my car and drove home.

It was early evening now.  I was sure the next call would be that my brother was gone too, but it wasn’t.  It was someone telling me that they could tell that he was checking his messages.

At that (and in a rush), I gave it all I had…

“Brother, they said you are reading messages.  They’re looking for you.  I can help you turn yourself in.  Please. You still have a chance.  You know how much you mean to your son and to all of us who love you and believe in the good in you.  I love you tremendously.  I promise that someday, someway it will be ok.”

A few minutes later a detective called.  He was asking me where he could be and what led to this incident.  I started to answer when the other line beeped in.  It was my brother.  God, please help me.  I hung up on the detective and clicked over.

I asked him if he was ok, and he said that he was.  He tried to kill himself all day but couldn’t do it.  He was not in his right mind.  It was obvious.  He wasn’t making any sense and could hardly formulate a coherent explanation at all.  He swore that he would turn himself in and tell the truth.  We said our ‘I love you’s’ and hung up.

I called the detective back and told them he was on his way.  He was glad to hear it and asked me to come down too to be interviewed. “Ok,” I said.

It was an hour-long drive.  I remember that it was the first time ever I wasn’t terrified driving over the massive bridge to get to that area (and I haven’t been scared to cross a bridge since).

When I arrived, they sat me in a small room to wait to be questioned.  I was numb again.  The events of the day would take some time to really sink in. 

While I waited, my love called.  He offered to come down too.  He had been checking in with me off and on since the morning and, honestly, I think it was him who got me through that horrendous day.  I don’t know how capable I was of showing it at the time, but I was so grateful for that (and still am).

The detectives came in and broke up our phone call.  I told them the exact truth of what I knew.  A part of me still wasn’t sure what was real, but when they told me that his wife was at the Medical Examiner’s office, it sunk in a bit more.  They said that my brother had arrived at the station around the same time that I did.  I asked if I could see him and received an unapologetic, “NO.” 

I just wanted to hug my brother one last time.

I went back home.  In a daze, no thoughts…just presence.

Presence…the solace of sorrow.

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