All of My Lasts

TW: suicide, grief

“Hello, everyone. My name is Angela, mother of—”

My voice wavers. I clear my throat of the emotions trying to clog it and take a deep breath. In the mirror, tired, weary eyes stare back at me. 

I am my only audience here, I try to tell myself. There’s no one to keep your composure for except for yourself and the soap. Gently, I run my fingers over the small leather-bound book resting on the vanity. The spine is worn, cracks illuminating the pale flesh of the leather beneath. A gold metal pen sits tucked into the cover and gleams in the fluorescent lighting of the bathroom. These items bring comfort and despair in equal measure and I have to snatch my hand away before the tears can come back. From a hallway away, I hear a recliner’s footrest snap shut and pray that whoever gets up doesn’t come looking for me. 

The loose leaf papers in my hand tremble but I blame it on the coffee. When I start again, I stare into the faucet’s reflection instead of the mirror. 

“Hello. My name is Angela, mother of Cameron.”

So far, so good.

“I’d like to thank everyone for coming to Cameron’s funeral, especially those who have flown in from out of state. It means a lot to me—to us—and I know it would make him happy to see you all here.”

What do you know?

Quickly, I tear off a strip of toilet paper and wipe the sweat from my face. The walls feel like they’re closing in around me. My heaving breaths seem to devour the oxygen in the room. I check to make sure the door is locked, again, then turn back to the sink. 

“It is difficult, at best, to stand before you and attempt to sum him up in too-few words. It is never an easy task to capture the essence of a person in a speech and to be honest, I’ve spent days thinking it would be futile to even try. When my husband and I first went into his room after—”

A tremor courses through my body, sudden but all encompassing. Numb, tingling sensations run from the back of my neck to my fingertips and spread to every cell. I grip the edge of the countertop like it’s a lifeline. 

“After. We found his journal.” I pick it up and display it to the toothbrush and hair dryer. “He wrote everyday, though we never read it until after. In it, he made a list called ‘All of My Lasts’ where he listed things he knew he would experience for the last time along with the dates that he last experienced them. I would like to do something similar.”

I set the journal down again, but don’t remove my hand. “The last day I saw Cameron’s spark was the day he went off to the military. August 22, 2018. The day before, we took him to the recruiter’s office to start the inprocessing and watched him get driven away. The next morning we drove seven hours to Fort Reading to spend our last few hours with him while he took his oath to serve and waited his turn to leave. William and I lined up on the walkway alongside all the other teary-eyed parents and waved handheld American flags while young men and women were boarded onto buses to start their new lives. When Cameron walked by, he smiled and winked with that special little sparkle in his eyes. I waved my little flag and smiled and clapped because I wanted him to see how proud we were of him. Inside, I felt like I was dying.”

Shakily, I drink a handful of water from the tap but it does nothing to wash the bitter taste in my mouth away. I unclip the pen from his journal and scratch through my last sentence. It takes a few tries to clear my throat again. 

“I wanted to hug him and beg him not to go. I wanted to be selfish and keep him safe with me. But I couldn’t. He hopped on his bus, we hopped in our truck and we went in opposite directions. Cameron came home for short periods of time over the years but his spark disappeared. Simply put, he was never the same. But I still loved him like he was.” 

The sound of flipping pages cut through the room like an unexpected clap of thunder. I pretend like I didn’t flinch. 

“The last day I feared for him being in the military was June 13, 2021, when he was dishonorably discharged. I saw the hopelessness in his eyes, the emptiness where light used to be. And I knew I no longer had to worry about how they would hurt him but how they already had. I would spend every day worrying about what I could do to fix it. Because I would fix it. A mother’s love can fix anything.”

My thumb fidgeted with my wedding ring until the skin beneath was raw. 

“The day I learned a mother’s love cannot fix everything was his last day going to therapy, November 5, 2021. He spent months trying to explain to me, to William, to his friends and the world what was ‘wrong’ with him. He spoke often of the demons in his head and the things they told him were enough to make me desperate. When I begged him to open up to a professional, someone who might be able to relate to him, he promised he’d try. For three months, he tried, and I thought he was making progress. It wasn’t until that last session when his therapist called to tell me to put him on suicide watch that I realized how far things had declined. How deep in his depression he’d sunk. When he arrived home, he was drunk. I asked him ‘What happened? Why did I get this call? What changed?’ and he answered ‘I did, Mom.’ That was the closest he ever got to opening up to me about what happened while he was deployed. After that, I realized words would not be able to fix this. Every day I would go into his room and lie next to him on his bed, usually in silence. Although I couldn’t understand what was happening within him, I hoped that my presence would ease some of his misery. He never told me if it did, but he never told me to leave either.”

I tried to take a deep breath but my lungs felt tight. I forced myself to meet my own eyes in the mirror. 

“The last day I saw him as a child was February 19, 2022. For twenty-two years and three hundred and sixty-four days, he’d always been my Baby Boy. My Kiddo. He’d always been the child who loved playing baseball and the drums and meeting new people. The day he turned twenty-three, he went out to party with an old group of friends from high school and drove home drunk. The next morning, we received a call from police letting us know that his truck was found wrapped around a tree but miraculously, Cameron was alive. And he was waiting for us at the West Anaheim Medical Center. Only, when we got there, he wanted nothing to do with us. He lashed out in a fit of violence William and I had never seen before and it occurred to me in that moment that at some point he had grown beyond the bounds of my love and protection and had become his own adult. I think he lashed out not because he was angry with me—or us—but because he was angry with himself. In my eyes, Cameron’s near-death was a warning issued by God. In Cameron’s eyes, his near-death was God’s failure. This was also his last birthday.

“The last day Cameron was alive was July 9, 2022. This was the last day I was able to hug him.” The last day I wiped his drunken tears away. The last day he mumbled hundreds of apologies and promises to be better. “The last day Bubba would scratch at his door to be taken for a walk.” The last day I told him how perfect he is to me. “The last day we would eat dinner as a complete family.” The last day William and I forgot to lock the garage door. 

The last day I would be anything but a grieving mother. 

My breath hitches, a sharp sound that echoes in the silence of the room. I close my eyes, willing myself to calm down, but the tears that well behind my eyelids refuse to be held back. Fat water drops mar the written words held between my crumpled fists. Even the papers strewn across the floor aren’t safe from the damage of my tears. 

“I’m sure—” my voice breaks, a choked sob escaping my lips, raw and unbidden. I clamp a hand over my mouth, conscious of the family members not so far away, but the sound slips free, suspended in the air like a kicked bucket. “I’m sure you all will have your own lists of last moments to share but I also would like you to recognize all the ‘firsts’ you will have from this moment forward. For me, I know there will be a first day where I will go to check on him and then remember he is no longer here. But there will also be a first day where I won’t have nightmares. Where William and I will be able to listen to music again.”

I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and try to smile but the gesture comes out more like a grimace, strained and painful. 

“And I also encourage you to think of all of the new ‘Firsts’ Cameron will be able to enjoy now and let it bring you comfort. I hope his list will have moments like ‘The first day I won’t feel pain anymore’ or ‘The first day of peace. Of a new life.’ Thank you everyone, again, for coming. As we say our last goodbyes, and look upon him for the final time outside of photos and memories, let us do so with love and gratitude for the time we had…”

Something fierce and foreign builds in my chest, throwing itself against the cage of my ribs like a battering ram. “I want more,” I cry to the fluorescent lights, my voice rising in barely contained anger. “I wanted more time.”

My knees give out beneath me, though the cold tile does nothing to ease the inferno within me. 

“Angie?” my mother asks softly through the door. A gentle knock follows. The frail sound of her voice only serves as a reminder that someday soon I might find myself crying over a speech for her, too. She knocks again and I manage to fling my body far enough to turn the lock. Before I can collect myself, the door swings open and misses me by inches. 

“Oh, Angie,” she coos, racing forward to pull me to my feet. Her eyes dart across every inch of the small room. If the papers weren’t evidence enough of my breakdown, my swollen eyes must’ve closed the case. As I take in the mess the way she must see it, it all of a sudden looks cramped and miserable and not at all like the cavernous space I felt like I could never fill. 

Her wrinkled hands are cold on my face as they brush away the strands of hair that stuck to the tracks of my tears. “Are you okay?”

I open my mouth to answer but can only suck in a shaky grasp. I swallow my spit like it’s a mouthful of salt. “I wanted more time,” I croak. 

I’m not sure that this makes sense to her but her arms pull me in and hold me tightly anyway. In the open doorway, William stares at me with glistening eyes to match my own. “Are you okay?” he mouths, as though voicing his question would burst some bubble keeping us all momentarily in tact.

Wordlessly, I shake my head, the movement so minimal I wasn’t sure if he’d recognize it. But he holds out his hand, a bridge of strength, and I cling to him so tightly that my fingers tingle painfully. 

I shut my eyes but Cameron’s face stains the back of my eyelids and every corner of my memory. No, I think. July 8, 2022 was the last day I felt like things would be okay. And I don’t think there will ever be a first day for that again.