Vengeance

I'm in a sad and reflective mood tonight. So, I am going to curse all of you with something only my partner knows. It's a dark and humiliating story that I'm not proud of. But it needs to be told, or one day, I might go crazy, and this will be the cause.

People think they know what they're capable of at the worst of times. They think they're capable of anything or that they'd freeze up in a crisis or catastrophic situation. They don't know if they can exact vengeance in times of fear and anger or if they'll do the right thing and try to let it all go.

Most people never have to make those choices.

They're the lucky ones.

I had my "Come to Jesus" moment three and a half years ago.

When my son died, I was left with a cold numbness. It lasted almost a week, until after his memorial. A memorial, I might add, which I didn't attend because my anxiety was through the roof, and even though I couldn't feel it up front, my grief was shredding me alive.

Less than two weeks after his death, my grief began to transform into rage.

Stephen didn't die from natural causes. If you've followed me for any length of time, you know he died because his usual reaction to meth caused him to hallucinate he was being chased, and to prevent his capture, he killed himself.

We went through several versions of this in the past, so I have no doubt it's as close to the truth as anyone will ever get.

With my rage growing, I made a decision.

I knew the crowd he ran with.

I knew who I could ask to find out who supplied him with the meth.

I may be a devout peacenik, but one day, I found myself browsing pawn shops and legitimate gun stores.

I know how to shoot.

I grew up around guns.

I thought hard. Harder than any other time in my life. I knew if I bought the cheapass piece of trash gun I could afford, I'd kill the bastard who gave my son the poison.

When I realized I could really do it, I walked away.

I didn't walk away because I was some great and noble guy sticking to his morals. I didn't walk away because I still had a family. The rage and grief were all-consuming,

I walked away because the idea scared me and made me sick.

I knew I could never live in my own skin again.

I knew I'd be damned for the rest of my life.

That's it, Boils and Ghouls. That was the darkest period of my life. It didn't last long, less than three weeks, But when it'd passed, it was over.