On December 21, 2008, at 2:00 a.m., we received a knock on our door. I was expecting the officer to tell me that my son had done something wrong, again. David was always doing stupid things that got him in trouble, but I couldn’t figure out why they would be coming to my house. David was a grown man. They asked me to wake up my husband. It was only then that they told us that David was dead. That he had taken his life.
I didn’t understand. I had bacterial meningitis and two strokes four years before.
I didn’t believe them. I asked where he was and if I could see him. They told me that he had shot himself and that it would not be a good idea. I just couldn’t understand it. David had a 7-year-old son, whom he loved immensely. He was my lifeline. He had come over on the afternoon of the 20th to tell me that he had gotten his dream job. He was smiling ear to ear. He was just so darned happy. How could he be dead? He never would have left his son and me. But he did.