Somebody had to finish it.
— Lila Bowman
Death is inevitable.
But death does not mean dead. Not quite.
Alive is here. Dead is gone. Death is the moment between the two which only leads to the latter. And from that moment, there is no escape. That's why you fear it. Everyone does.
I saw death for the first time when I was nine. A stranger died before my eyes. I thought her name was Sofia.
Mom was really hard up for money, so we went to visit a guy in La Porte, which meant I had to wait outside a shitty motel room while Mom earned a few bucks on her back.
I was young but not stupid. I understood the general idea.
A few minutes later, Mom came out of the room.
We started walking back to our car, but Mom stopped to lean on one of the other motel room doors while she adjusted her dress. She almost fell when the door swung open. Maybe it wasn't latched shut. I tried to peek inside the motel room, but Mom shook and yanked the door closed as she pushed me away.
Closing a door wasn't something we did. You saw an open door? You went in, because you might find something valuable. That was our way. When times were tough, that's where grocery money came from. That's how bills got paid.
But Mom pulled the door shut as fast as she could. Almost shut. Then, she looked at me, and said, "Wait here, Dandy. I gotta check on somethin'."
I assumed it meant she was going in, to see if there was anything worth taking. But she never hid that from me. Why would this time be any different?
As Mom went into the room, I looked inside.
A woman was lying on the floor, struggling to breathe. She had a long extension cord looped around her neck, and the rest of it was sprawled beside her. A hook was on the floor too. I looked up and saw a hole torn out of the ceiling, where the hook had been. She must have tried to... y'know... but the ceiling gave way before the job was done. Chunks of drywall were scattered everywhere. Some of it was on her dress.
On the dresser, there was a gun. Maybe that was her original plan, but she couldn't go through with it? I guess she thought she'd try another way, but it didn't work.
You may think one method versus another makes no difference in the end, but I assure you it does. Both are choices. But one makes it happen. The other lets it happen.
As a child, I didn't know that, but I knew what I saw, and I knew it was bad. And I was scared.
I looked at Mom, but she didn't see me. She was looking around the room. Looking for something.
I said, "What do we do?"
"Oh, lord, girl. I told you to wait outside. You weren't supposed to see this."
Again, I pleaded, "Mom!!! What do we do?!?"
"She's already done it, Dandy. She's gone."
But she wasn't.
The woman was gasping. Choking. Crying.
There was a piece of paper on the dresser, next to the gun. That's what Mom was looking for. She grabbed it, and she mumbled as she read it. All I heard was, something something, "stage four," something something, "debt."
"Is it that bad?" Mom asked the woman. "You sure? It's over, Sofia. Is that what you're sayin'? 'Cause I can do it if you can't, but ya gotta tell me to. Do ya need me to do it?"
Sofia wept as she nodded yes.
"You gotta be sure," Mom said. "This is the kind of thing that can't be undone."
Again, Sofia gasped, and she coughed as she cried, while nodding, and even begging Mom to do it.
Mom came over to me. She untied the bandana from my hair and used it to pick up the gun, which she placed in Sofia's hand. Then she used the bandana to cover her own hand as she held Sofia's, to keep the gun steady.
She said, "You can close your eyes now," as she helped Sofia aim the gun upward, toward her chin. "You're free," Mom said. "It's over."
But it wasn't.
Not yet.
Mom leaned back as far as she could.
And finally, BANG.
It was bad.
I shook.
Sofia lurched forward and her eyes flew open wide as death took her. Just as quickly, I saw her eyes roll back into her head, and I knew she was gone. She fell still as blood began to spill out of her.
Mom yanked the bandana away, and the gun fell to the floor, still in Sofia's hand.
Mom handed the bloody bandana back to me. "Put this in your pocket, Dandy, so nobody sees it. We'll talk later, okay?"
I nodded, mostly because I didn't know what to say.
"Dandy, look at me."
"Mom?"
"Is any of it on me?"
"There's a little. On your dress."
Sofia's jacket was draped over the far side of the bed. Mom calmly walked over, picked it up, and put it on. She looked at me, and she winked. Then she started screaming, "Oh my God, oh my God," as she ran from the room. "Oh my God, I think this lady shot herself!"
We waited outside as people arrived.
Things were said. I watched as men with shiny shoes wrote the things on little notebooks, and they lied to us, again and again, saying, "It'll be alright," as if they knew a goddamn thing about pain.
Real pain.
They hadn't seen what I saw.
I think that was the first time I heard the word suicide.
On the way home, I asked Mom why she did... what she did.
Mom said, "She was gone, but she needed help gettin' the job done. She was sick. There was too much pain. When it gets that bad, and it's over? There's nothin' left to do but free ya. I know it's hard to understand, but someday you will. Somebody had to finish it. It was the right thing to do."
Mom was right.
I didn't understand, but years later, I would.
The woman's name wasn't Sofia.
What Mom actually said was...
It's over.
So free ya.