J

I lost my brother-in-law to suicide today. My sister asked me to pick up her two boys from school because she was too wrecked to drive. I knew they’d wonder why I was picking them up in the middle of the school day, and I had a 30-minute drive home to get through with them. On my way there, I prayed hard for the strength to keep it together and for the right words if they started asking questions. I stopped at the middle school for the youngest before heading to the high school for his older brother. When he climbed into the front seat of my car, he pulled out his phone and read a text from his dad out loud. His dad had told him that he was sorry for the mistakes he’d made and to remember how much he loved him. My little nephew had no idea he was reading his dad’s final goodbye, but I did. It took everything in me to hold it together right then. I knew what I was taking him home to and what my sister was about to have to tell him and his brother. I sat next to them on the couch when she told them the news. The grief that followed felt like watching a heavy bone china bowl fall in slow motion and shatter into a million pieces in the middle of the room. There was no fixing it. I wanted so badly to say something that would make it hurt a little less. All I could do was sit there with them. It was a gut-wrenching day.