A Cold Warmth

(WARNING Themes of substance abuse, mental health, and death)

A few feet from my chair he’s laying down, my sweet baby boy tucked in with the sheet to his chin. He was always a deep sleeper even as a baby. now the noise outside the the room is bustling but he doesn’t sway from his dreams. Jacob always seemed to have the best ones, he was a born dreamer.

I gave birth in the early hours of the 15th, it was a difficult time, but he’d come out healthy. We told ourselves that there’d never be a Valentines Day gift to top this, and it was the truth. He seemed to us like angel come down to grace the house of Tom and Lena Walsh.

There were a few things that convinced us. His love for the sky was one, he was always looking up, on camp outs you could always catch him stargazing. His ceiling was full of posters of constellations and diagrams of the solar system. There were days at the table where he’d orate to whoever would listen about the newest advancements in the field. We called him the professor for the longest time, we always thought he’d become one.

His empathy and social heart convinced us of his angel hood too. There was never a day when Jacob wouldn’t volunteer to help another kid back up or drive a person home when he got his license. There were many times where I’d hear secondhand that he’s always been willing to loan his time in money to anyone in town. We’d never been evil people but the Love we had for Jacob far exceeded the rest, his being felt otherworldly, we rarely saw ourselves in him.

School was a breeze for him, Elementary School, Middle, and High. It all seemed so easy for him. When college came he was set on astronomy, determined to teach it one day like we had always joked. And even though college ran tight on the wallet, we knew he’d do it , he was a dreamer bound for the stars there wasn’t a doubt he’d catch the flight. But then things changed, there was a party and then parties, he started drinking and rather hard. We never found out from him it only came about when he got into a fight at the school. He’d gotten into an argument with his best friend Troy, the two of them had applied together and they were thick as thieves. But one night at a party an argument broke out and after a few hits were shared he pushed him down the outside steps of their dorm.

They gave him a strict warning, Jacob called ashamed. He plead and he sobbed, and he yelled. We sat and listened to him, believing it to just be growing pains, it felt like it would be the only one. And for a while it was. His grades came back, and his calls home were more regular, but then his roommate brought in a couple drinks one night for a fun night alone, Jacob decided to have a few too. And then he became lost completely. The descent was fast and chaotic. The school notified us he was going to be kicked out due to horrible academic performance. We called and screamed at him, but he turned his phone off and stayed silent.

In most cases we acted more childlike than he ever did. He spent a few years in and out of rehab still living away from home. We offered to bring him back home but ceased asking after a few harsh rejections. It didn’t help our case when the handcuffs clamped down harder and harder on him at the mildest slip ups. It didn’t matter to us that he had been getting better it was all masked by our fears, and what became more and more clear was our lackluster ability as parents. We had gotten this far on luck and laziness; he was a golden child who did no wrong. But that wasn’t the truth we just hadn’t hit the wall like so many others did and usually so much earlier than us. There was never a challenge put up against our skills, there was never any time for us to struggle we were too busy raising a perfect child. But no child is perfect, no child is an angel. They’re humans, a lovingly imperfect one but we tossed our love to the side for restrictions and control. We betrayed his trust we lied to him, when he was getting better, we were always the doubtful ones.

For those years we had a tumultuous relationship of offhanded comments and avoidance of one another. He was kicked out more times than were understandable whenever he visited, and he spent much of his twenties couch surfing. He would tell us of new jobs some real and some fake, but the same reactions were always given. 

So, what does a boy with such problems do, how could he even hope to get over them without any support system. Well, he couldn’t, and he didn’t. 

The messages went dead one day, the calls stopped coming in. Then we got nervous, we started acting like real parents again. Calls went out to everyone we knew that he knew, but no answers came up as to his location. Nobody seemed to know he just up and disappeared. The cops in his city and a missing persons bulletin was put out. Tom booked a flight while I was talking to the officer. We were at the airport when we finally got a call that they found him.

Flying made me sick, it always had. I wasn’t built for the sky like Jacob was. Tom massaged my back and gave me tender support, but I had that feeling we were in for a earthquake. They didn’t give us much information besides the fact that he’d been to the hospital but was alive and well at a Rehab and Mental health Clinic.

When the plane touched down the sickness didn’t leave, the driver couldn’t have gone fast enough if he was driving a rocket ship.

We hit the front counter running from the Car. Leaning against the wall our message came through shallow breaths to the confused but understanding receptionist. She did a search and found Jacob, but he wasn’t in the rehab clinic, the woman directed us down to the psychiatric ward. It didn’t take us long to find him, he was laying on his bed, reading a book on astronomy of course. But when he turned and looked, he didn’t smile, or not genuinely at least. He just seemed to give a look of acknowledgment.

He’d been sober for a long time it turned out. The doctor couldn't confirm how long from the blood work, but she trusted Jacob's statement that he had reached a year. At least for the time it wasn’t alcohol it was something else. 

From the nurses account he had been dropped off after an ER trip. A grounds keeper found him lying in the grass of a local park, peering at the sky. When he got closer, he saw Jacob’s wrists cut across and bleeding, Jacob didn’t resist he had lost most of his strength.

He’d been missing for two weeks before he went through with it. His psychiatrist was a kind woman with a sweet drawl who put it calmly too us. She said he’d been planning it for weeks but only got up the courage a few days ago. She answered our questions for a while before it became too much.

Tom and I walked outside and grabbed a seat out in the large courtyard. At the far edge of the courtyard spread out far and wide was a beautiful lake of striking blue. The color reminded me of Jacob’s eyes, their was an absence of waves just quiet movements of nature. Our hands were separated at the start, my eyes darted around the lake avoiding what I knew needed to happen. With the calm water swaying my nerves seemed to loosen and our hands crept to each other as we morphed into an embrace. My breaths came out ragged and he began to cry into my shoulder, we cried together husband and wife, Father and Mother, two pieces of a now fractured trinity.

The hug turned into a talk, the whole thing a revelation to our failure. He was not a perfect child; he was our angel and a perfect miracle. But nothing perfect could come from such imperfect parents. It was unrealistic and we lived on a lie, he had been an easy kid. Many children are, but when the good times left and the stressed days started, we ceased being parents.

We ignored, we doubted, and more often than not we were aggressive. Jacob went from total support to abandonment and doubt overnight. The Narcissism we had, his failures looked like a reflection on us, because they were. And in other cases, his normal teenage behavior was looked down upon senselessly. It took us longer than one bench conversation to figure everything out, but we gathered together are broken selves enough to face our son.

Jacob still sat with that glassy look as we walked in. And that look stayed for most of the conversation, he was now in need of more help than just a simple “We’re sorry”, but it started with that.

He came home with us reluctantly; he got a job at a machine shop apprenticing. We tried to step back as much as we could with our control, we slipped up here and there, but he was never afraid to correct us. We supported him as much as we could emotionally, and as the handcuffs loosened, our relationship started getting better. A few years back home he was able to get a new car, and pretty soon he was in college commuting, studying for a major in aeronautical engineering. Things were going great he was talking to a girl Rebecca who he’d known from school, and she seemed right for him, we thought it might be a fly by night relationship, but they had tons of fun together.

not long-ago Tom started to have some mild complaints and regular checkups and appointments which raised some alarm. His doctor though assured it would just be tedious, he was a healthy man with a regular exercise routine and a steady diet, he would be fine they just needed to finish up the testing. So, Jacob drove him to most of the appointments when I was working, which grew their bond as they made their weekly outings. Things were going great.

Then on a Friday two weeks ago Jacob called me a 10 ten to say he was going to a party with Troy. I wished him a good night and said “I love you” Tom called from the other side of the bed to say it too. Jacob laughed and said “I love you guys too” and hung up.

Troy made me nervous, in college Jacob had been the loose cannon but Troy’s slide into addiction was ongoing. I tried to mention it to him that he was a dangerous man to hang around, but Jacob was ever the empathetic ear, and so when Troy texted him about a night out he said sure.

That night Troy hid two single serving fireball bottles in his pocket on the drive in Jacob's car. He snuck off from the crowd when they said their greetings and procceded drink them in the guest bathroom, Looking around the first floor of the house he couldn’t find anybody, they’d all gone into the basement. It gave him time to raid the liquor cabinet, he took a bottle of wine and sat out on the porch in a hoody drinking on a cold April night. Jacob noticed that Troy wasn’t with the rest of them and after a brief search found him. He pushed back the sliding door and Troy turned Jacob grabbed the bottle out of his hand and began to restrain him. Troy fought back, he kicked and cursed drawing the crowd from down stairs. Jacob told the party he was taking Troy home. The party goers helped him get Troy into the passenger seat, and with a wave Jacob gave his final send off.

They were coming to our house since Jacob figured it was the safest place for him in this state. Troy was belligerent the whole car ride, he cursed at Jacob and swore, all of it was ignored. But then as they were driving down a straightaway Troy began hitting Jacob lightly and then harder and harder eventually distracted Jacob turned his eyes off the road hiding from his sight a man pulling into his lane from across the road. Unaware the truck swung into the car flipping it off the road and into a ditch.

The phone rang at 12, the cop knew us, it’s a small town. They told me about Jacob, he was unresponsive and in critical condition and Troy was left with a severe concussion and minor scrapes and bruises. I woke up Tom and we went to the hospital, on the drive his chest started to get tight we chalked it up to anxiety. We rushed up flights of stairs after directions from nurses and staff, we made our way to the room, the doctor greeted us with the news. Our son had died 2 minutes ago, right as we entered the front door. I turned to Tom and saw his face he started to collapse; his breathing started to delay I tried to call out to him through the fog but there wasn’t any use. I lay there on the tile floor the smell of antiseptic hanging in the air, as they took him and my son away.

Life slams you down like dirty laundry when it wants too, healthy men aren’t supposed to have heart attacks. Young brilliant boys aren’t supposed to be crushed and compacted because of a kind gesture. I cursed them both for the past few days for leaving me, Jacob didn’t need to be so damn good, he didn’t need to give his life up to a selfish friend who threw his life to the pavement. “Why Jacob!” I wanted to scream at him now laying on a cold steel table. 

And then Tom fell, if you had only gone to the doctors sooner, and gotten that testing done months ago maybe we’d be together in the sorrow. There weren’t any signs!?, you didn’t have a feeling!?. But of course there hadn’t been, because death brings it’s presents without notification, sometimes there never is a sign it just swings down. But it left me, left me to deal with the many more years I have. There was a gun in the closet from Tom’s pheasant days, I came so close last night, but I just can’t. It’s not some image of god or any of the religious feelings they say inspire you, it’s them. I still hear their laughs and see their eyes within me they play on repeat, and right now I’m still looking at my son. Our plots are already picked out, and Tom as already been cremated. We’d never discussed what’d we do when we died, but I decided that when I saw them side by side.

Nobody gets to see them like this except me, it’s too vulnerable and if I had gone before I know they’d wish the same. This will be my last moments with them. I get up from my chair and walk towards my baby boy. I see him now as I did then an angel. I see him in my mind on a pillowy field in a child’s run keeping step with his father. They walk along a soft path of light, father hoists son onto his shoulders as they walk out of view.

I bend my head towards his forehead and plant a warm final kiss, his skin is cold but for a moment it felt warmer. I walk out of the room and out of the building, there will be a small funeral in a couple days, I have to reach out to Rebecca for somebody to hold, it’d be nice to keep in touch with her. There isn’t much immediate family left so I think it’s time I do some traveling. There are many places I’ve never seen, I’ll be excited to see them in the shapes of the clouds and the color of the sky. And I know that when the time is fit, they’ll be waiting for me, and we’ll start walking together.