My uncle disappeared on March 5, 2002. He had stormed out of his parents house following a heated confrontation with my grandfather which had almost become physical. He took a vacuum hose from the garage, tossed it onto the passenger seat, and drove off. He probably only had to drive 15 minutes to an isolated spot on a backroad overlooking the Lockwood Folly River. There, he placed pictures of his children on the floorboard. He ran the vacuum hose from the exhaust into the driver's side window and sealed up the openings. He turned the ignition and waited. He wasn't found until two weeks later.
I haven't thought about the specific details in a long time. My hand is shaking just a little bit as I write this into my phone. This was all 22 years ago. My uncle's two children, Daniel and Hannah, were very young at the time. Daniel died a few days after Christmas 2003 of an infection from a lost tooth. Hannah has her own family now. My Aunt Sherri, my uncle was separated from her at the time, I think, remains a quiet but haunted woman. Still, she's remarried and seems happy enough.
When I think of spring, I think of my uncle. As the years have passed, March has become particularly full of memories of suicide, suicide attempts, and suicidal ideation. These anniversaries aren't always observed by my consciousness but my body certainly feels them. I notice this more this year as I work to overcome my lifelong denial of my own emotions. I don't think I'll ever be an open book but I can at least see myself being willing to read a few select pages aloud, at least to certain people.
None of this really connects in the way that good writing should. These paragraphs are disconnected. But spring, beautiful as it can be in North Carolina, carries a darkness and a foreshadowing. In some memories I'm more passive than active, working to embody stability and normalcy. In other memories, I'm the catalyst and carrier of suffering.
I joked with my wife recently that if one lives long enough, every day of the calendar becomes a potential trigger. The year is littered with land mines and forgotten hazards. How do you navigate that? Certainly, you don't navigate it alone. You don't walk through it without someone to keep watch by your side.
No one on this planet chose to be born. No one was given a chance to opt out. Certainly, no one was given control over the circumstances into which they were born: yet we are expected to be grateful for the opportunity. A mere 70 years followed by a return to nothing. It would be easy to convince ourselves that none of it "matters." To the indifferent universe? No, I suppose it doesn't. But, as José Saramago wrote:
"The good and evil resulting from our words and deeds go on apportioning themselves, one assumes in a reasonably uniform and balanced way, throughout all the days to follow, including those endless days, when we shall not be here to find out, to congratulate ourselves or ask for pardon, indeed there are those who claim that this is the much talked of immortality."
