A pulmonary embolism leaves a distinctive diagonal pattern of bruising. It’s not really bruising, but I do not know the correct word and even now I cannot bring myself to look it up.
Some things just elude even my give a shit…
We were at my mother’s house and under 15 minutes.
So by 1:25 I crossed the threshold without knocking.
The painters were there, the door was opened, and they were all stopped.
I knew that something was wrong, deeply wrong. Local Houston painters, who are paid by the job, typically don’t stop. I have seen painters working in the most insane conditions trying to finish houses we were building.
I went straight to my dad’s office.
The unmoving discoloration was unmistakable.
I have seen my share of dead friends. I’ve watched men and women die horribly. I have seen broken bleeding pieces of meat screaming and begging for their mothers, who not 15 minutes before were whole happy humans.
I have seen IEDs go off not even a block away, attacking our troops. I’ve been shelled, shot at, mortared, I have even had someone try to stab me. I dodged a massive chlorine gas attack that maimed 75+ people. I have left my sleeping quarters on the way to morning chow and found two dozen 220 mm rockets nose down in the dirt, fired from 27km away, resting nose down not 20 meters from where I was sleeping; the pricks forgot to pull out the safety pins.
And those were the PG days.
I have a very good friend who is uncomfortable with death. A mutual friend passed and he was severely wrecked. He asked me for the strength that I had.
I told him that what I have is not strength. I also told him that he would not want to pay the price for what I have.
My wife and stepdaughter broke down crying.
I cannot.
So many people wish for things and they have no concept of what they’re asking for. To some people it appears to be strength.
The truth is that for me the volume, on a lot of things, is just turned down.
So I say that something really frustrates and upsets me, all of that proceeding is just so that you understand how intense it needs to be to push me off my center.
I tried to reach out to my children to let them know that their grandfather had passed away.
The message showed as received and read instantly.
It took the ex-wife almost 3 hours to respond…
She did that knowingly.
She did that deliberately.
She did that with open-eyed intent.
And then she turned around and continued to use my children to inflict the maximum amount of pain and discomfort that she could manage…
She turned family tragedy into an opportunity to continue lying to and manipulating 10 and 13-year-old children.
And children lived up to her expectations…