I Will Speak

I've been reading the book "The Body Keeps the Score." The entire book I've thought about Enzo and the

Why?

behind his suicide. 

The answer is very clear. Stark. Loud. Screaming, yet a hateful whisper. It's a tortured sound with no actual noise.

It's sinister and abhorrent in the ugly truth that it tells. If you knew Enzo well enough, you know instantly what it is. I'm not making allegations, I'm telling my son's story when people ask me why. If you want to know, you can simply read the book. Enzo's story is in there, between the lines and revelations of what trauma does to your body and mind. 

It's inside this book I've seen what he was trying to say, I can hear the voices, the suicidal thoughts that haunted him and kept coming back, over and over. I understand now how it was impossible for him to control or conquer those thoughts. He didn't have the right tools.

And my soul breaks, it mourns in an entirely new way that only a handful of people in the world know.

The kind of ache that a parent, providing a home to a severely abused child, knows. The mournful cries from a mother, who became a mother because someone else didn't care for this child properly.

So they seek solace in a chosen family; a family that becomes what they never had. Peace. Calm. Predictability. Safety. 

That kind of pain, very few know because very few do this: take in a broken child that becomes a broken adult and attempt to construct, build, provide and make available a place of home. A place of full acceptance. 

Not many know this side, but there are enough of us that I need to speak loudly for them; I need to represent the chosen family that loses a child, the "I picked you" Mommas of children that escaped brutality and thus, begin to stumble their way through healthy relationships. 

While I would rather have my son than to be a voice for loss by suicide, that's not my journey anymore. 

And in this chaos of ache, a burning pain that scorches your every cell and every breath, I must speak. 

So I will. 

And that book- The Body Keeps the Score- 

I had to stop listening when the chapter came up about trauma that adults face and block out. Because that's me.

Almost a full week of my life is simply chewed up, bits and pieces of voices trying to comfort me. This missing week of my life sits on my shoulder every day, begging me to remember, to visit, to dedicate all my energy to the parts I can't remember.

But it's mostly the sounds that consume, devour, and haunt me.

Sounds I recall repeatedly, like the creak of the floor as I shifted my weight the very second I was told Enzo killed himself. That creaking floor sending me into a fit of anger and tears when I hear it now. 

Or the shake in the officer's voice as he spoke the words "we regret to inform you...." I flinch when someone's voice sifts now, my body prepared for news that will surely suck the soul from my body.

The deep growl of bitterness and sorrow in Brad's throat as he asked "Can you tell us what happened?" I hear that growl when I watch animals on TV, being killed by a predator but trying to fight back. Yes, that sound. 

I stopped reading because I can't address that. I can not, will not face it right now. I'm simply coping for now.

If I can't face the monster of grief, how could Enzo ever face the monsters that dominated him? How could I expect more from him that I'm willing do myself? 

Not in the same way, but I understand, Enzo. This can't be faced. Yours couldn't either. 

So I ache. I hurt. I mourn. I sorrow. 

And I will speak. I will tell Enzo's story.