The Attic

This Thursday it will be five years. Five years since Joshua took his life alone in an Attic in Wolfeboro NH. There are many places in my mind I do not allow myself to go. They are blocked to the process. Today his lasts are on my mind. His last written note, last comments on the computer, his last meal, last hug, the last time someone told him the loved him. And those led me to his last moments. It is my nature to explore every detail of anything I want to know more about. When I was feeling better I went back to the hospital where he died, I got the police report and read a gut wrenching story of a police office trying to get my son down from where he hung and as of yet I have never had the chance to go to the place he took his last breath. For some reason I can faintly see it in my head, but after struggling for years to connect with this scene, I might have made it up in my mind. I know there are stairs and a landing, but that is from the stories I have heard about how the grandmother found him. Today as I look through the guest book at all the people who came to the service, I am astonished at all I do not remember or know. I so badly want to spend time in that attic, to see where he died. I spend days at the cemetery because that is the last place I saw him, just once I would like to see the place where he drew his last breath.

What I think of this is that, this is about Joshua, about making peace with his death. This is not about people. Not about hurt feelings, not about drama and anger. It might have been once. This is about Joshua. About honoring him. I have taken all the steps I can, and this final piece has always eluded me. When do I get a chance to see this place? To touch this beam, to know my son in all the ways he was hurting. When do I get to kneel and feel his presence? The only way I know how to be a mother to my son, is to understand every aspect of his death and to take it on as much as I can.

What I know is that I do not know everything. There are questions surrounding his last day, surrounding his death. The more people run away the more I know, there will be things in the future that I will find out. This scares me beyond belief. For now though, I feel that God is giving me all I need in the time he has for me.


So for now, this year being his fifth, I am more aware of all the things I could not face and I am more aware of the things I do not have, did not see and need to still do. There are so many things left out there of Joshua’s for me to see. Oh my heart bleeds for this boy and to hold and understand everything he touched!

Frustration!
Amanda