Day 57

 **Warning - Contains vivid imagery describing the real death of a teenager.**

Friday, December 10, 2021 was a good day. Work for me was going well and Christmas was only 2 weeks away. I was excited. Even more so because Damian and I were set to go sailing the following day (Saturday) on our new boat.

Damian had finished most of his classes. I think he had a couple of finals he still had to tackle the following week but most of the pressure of the semester had been bled off over the previous couple of days. The following afternoon, after we got done sailing, Damian was going to a robotics party at a friend's house. This night he was content to play video games online with his friends. When Dawn and I went to bed that evening we could hear him yelling, in the heat of computer-simulated battle, through our bedroom floor from the basement. That was the last time we heard Damian's voice. 

Around 3:30 the following morning, I woke up because I had to go to the bathroom. I didn't hear any sounds in the house so assumed Damian had long since gone to bed. After tossing and turning for awhile, I finally threw in the towel on more sleep, got out of bed, put some clothes on, and went to my office in our basement. After toiling away for a couple of hours on a work project, I was ready to get on with the day's official agenda. 

It was around 7:45 when I walked into Dawn's office. She had also been up for a while and was at her desk. After a brief chat, I told her that I was going to wake up Damian so he and I could get some breakfast before splashing the boat. 

I yelled up to Damian's room. No answer. I yelled again. Still no answer. I walked up the stairs to his room and knocked on the door. No answer. I opened the door and turned on the light. He wasn't in his bedroom. I remember thinking that was weird since he either slept in his bedroom or the couch in the basement. Since I have to walk past the couch to get to and from my office, I already knew he wasn't there. So where was he? 

I felt panic creeping in as I walked towards my shop which is also in the basement. When I turned on the light and looked to my left, my panic exploded into full blown terror. I had found him. Damian was hanging by a rope tied to my pull-up bar. I remember screaming as I sprinted across the room. The moment I reached him I knew he was gone and there was nothing I could do. I grabbed his lifeless body and lifted it as high as I could, screaming "Why, Damian?!" Why?" And "No! No! Please no!". I tried to untie the knot holding the rope to the bar but I couldn't manage it to hold him with only one arm and untie the knot with the other. After what felt like an eternity, I gently let him back down, grabbed some scissors from my toolbox and, holding him with my left arm, I cut the rope that was holding him. I then gently laid him on the ground. Eventually, I untied the noose that was around his neck. Damian, my only son, was dead and I was now in the after. 

Technically speaking, my son's death was a suicide. Damian had taken his own life. He had fashioned a noose, put it around his neck, tied the other end to a pull-up bar and...then I don't know what happened. All I know is that he didn't survive. Death by hanging. 

I don't know why Damian did this. There were no red flags, no warning signs. Damian was a happy teenager. He didn't struggle with depression or have a history of mental health issues. The evening before he was acting like himself. Nothing presaged him being in crisis or nearly so. As such, Dawn and I are forever left with the question of "Why?" Someone who I've grown very fond of in the aftermath of Damian's death told me that even I had the answer, it still wouldn't be enough. I will carry the pain and the hurt for the rest of my life regardless the reason. What Dawn and I have concluded is that whatever Damian's frame of mind in those last few minutes, we know in our heart that he would not have wanted this. For this reason, we don't think of his death as a suicide but consider it a tragic accident. It's a small comfort but one that I'm not ashamed to hang onto. 

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