The Healing

  The call came long before we had cellphones. In hindsight I believe he was lucky I was home. Sober. And answered. I know he called others. I learned later that some had ignored. Attributing his pleas for help as just another rambling, melodramatic, drunken escapade. Not a first. More importantly, we hadn’t spoken recently, and emotions were still raw.

When I arrived, his doors were locked, and he ignored the buzzer, but I knew he was inside. The street was still and quiet and there was no one around to draw suspicion to my visit. I leapt high enough to grab the concrete ledges of his patio and hoisted myself up and onto his deck. I could now hear his voice crying, punctuated with threats of bodily harm. He saw me through the patio door, standing outside. I asked him to please open the door. He screamed for me to get away then put the barrel of his rifle into his mouth.

I ignored his defense knowing full well that wasn’t truly what he wanted. I broke the glass and quickly turned the lock and let myself in. He acknowledged our current differences immediately, dispelling my efforts as hollow. I wanted him to finish the job at hand. I countered his callous assessment, recognized our differences but that taking one’s life solves nothing. He was loved, he had much life to live. All very true. But I still hated him in that moment, but simply could not show my disgust. I knew death was not his true objective, He needed help, and this was the stage he sadly preferred. But his recklessness had the potential for unintended consequences. And I was chosen to ensure that circumstances did not take such turns.

We have not spoken for many years, yet his name appeared yesterday on my phone as a missed call. We survived that episode devoid of tragedy, yet afterward never spoke of that day again. Still, the memory occasionally haunts me as I question my own mortality. Life has become an endless stream of misguided communications and unfulfilled destinies. There are some wounds that time simply cannot heal.