Now what?

Still May 14, 2019

Mom and I went for a drive. She couldn’t sit still and I didn’t want her to be alone. The silence was uneasy and awkward, definitely unusual for us. She drove aimlessly but I knew eventually where we’d end up. At his apartment. She wanted to be where he was last. We wouldn’t be able to get in of course, one had to be buzzed in by an occupant and ours was now in the morgue. Cold. Unseeing. Dead. The coroner told mom we couldn’t see him. Apparently that is something which only happens in the movies and on television. He had been identified by fingerprints, mugshots, and tattoos from his arrest records so there was no need for his body to be viewed.

On top of that, the coroner gently  told her viewing his body was discouraged as the state of decomposition was advanced and no mother should have to see their child in that state unnecessarily. I suppose it was intended to be a kindness, however, in our case all it did was make us picture the worst case scenario. The only description aside from “advanced decomposition “ was his skin was blackened. That made me wonder how long he’d been dead before he’d been found. After driving for about an hour we arrived at Tonys apartment building. 32 Orel Avenue. Not the best area of town, not the absolute worst either. We knocked at the door several times but no one came. Mom wrote a note and stuck it in the door hoping someone would call her, then she walked over to the gas station across the street. I sat in the car in case someone came out of the building. Maybe ten minutes later mom returned with a man who said he knew someone who lived there and would try to get them to answer. They didn’t. But he took moms number and promised he’d get in touch with her as soon as he could and with the apartment managers contact info.

He kept his promise. He texted mom a few hours later with Rocky’s number and said she (Rocky is a chick) was expecting mom’s call. Mom immediately called Rocky and set up a time to go to Tony’s apartment the next day, Tuesday, so we could get some of his personal effects. I couldn’t sleep. Neither could my mom. We talked about things left unsaid, the last times we spoke to him, memories of him as a little boy, silly things he did as a teenager, stuff like that. Still I didn’t cry. Mom teared up a lot. Surely I was numb or in shock, I don’t know. I felt awful for her. I couldn’t imagine losing one of my boys. No one looks at their child while they’re growing up and thinks “they’re going to grow up and be an addict and alcoholic and break the law and totally screw up their lives!”... Of course not.  Parents do the best they can, well, most parents do anyway. They love and nurture and teach their children how to be good people and somewhere along the way something goes wrong. With Tony it happened slowly, I always wondered what was the point of no return. That one thing that changed him forever, irrevocably marking him. I’ll never know. It doesn’t matter now.

I sat beside mom on my couch, listening to her, knowing she needed me to listen until she was all talked out. Then she leaned over, putting her head in my lap as my boys did when they were younger in need of my comfort. All I could do was stroke her hair as I had done with my sons so many years ago, with the knowledge nothing would ever bring her comfort. Obviously she felt it too because she crawled to the floor and curled up into the fetal position and began to weep. I’d never seen her cry like that. I bent over to rub her back, just let her know I was there with her though I shouldn’t have as she moved from her spot on my floor to the end of the couch close to my bookcase, curling her petite frame into a tight ball she’d rock from time to time as her weeping turned to wails. Witnessing this was gut wrenching. Seriously. It nearly made me sick to my stomach. I could only try to understand the depths of despair she was falling through. I hope I never know. I sat there with her like that until after 4:00 am. I certainly couldn’t get up to go to bed with her spiraling in misery. So I sat and she wailed. Until she ran out of tears and her voice box failed her.

Finally she weakly stood and turned the television and lamps off and went downstairs without a word. Since Jamie gets up around 5:30 for work I didn’t want to risk waking him with less than an hour until his alarm went off, so I found a blanket and slept on the couch. That first night was awful. Monday’s really are terrible. I drifted off thinking at least now we knew why Tony didn’t call mom on Mother’s Day.