Letter to Moms whos boys commited suicide

Update to the post below: Investigation has revealed that it was gun accident not a suicide. While this makes this senseless tragedy easier to bare I am not going to change the information below because it reflects how I felt on that day.


My good friend Holly's 13 year boy shot himself Monday. There are a lot things I'd like to say to Holly right now but this is not the first precious young boy that I have buried due to suicide. The things I want to say to Holly are the same important things I want to say to every mom who has gone through this. I want the feelings to be out there on the web because I want to say them to those other moms who grieve this awful loss everyday too.

First - Travis was probably like your kid. He gave no sign at all that this was coming. He was an a/b student. Honor roll, always smiling. He was on the football team. Everyone liked him. He was in love with a cute girl. He was extremely responsible and took special care of his younger sister who he adored. He loved his family, he was a responsible, respectful young man. This is not me painting a glossy picture - this is really who he was.

His family in turn loved him back. Never has there ever been a better mother than Holly. Her children never went to bed without knowing that they where the pearls of their mother heart and that she adored and loved them with out end. She prayed for them, sacrificed for them and just simply loved and adored her son. He was her sweetie.

Travis's Dad traveled a lot but he was a good Dad. Travis was his only son and he and his dad shared a special connection. It was apparent to anyone in the same room with Travis and his Dad that his Dad not only loved him but also adored him too.

I can't say what went wrong. I do know that in the cases where my friends who have children who have committed suicide that it was a train wreck no one saw coming. There where no warning signs. Like giving away personal items and such. There was also never a suicide note.

Some how in a very short space of time. Maybe just and hour or two -the surge of adolescent emotions overwhelms their good judgement and reality was lost to darkness. A dark blanket descends on them like the wrath of Satan himself. In a moment - one rash act end a life on the cusp of blossoming. Some sudden misplaced belief about himself became his full measure. Had the boy only waited an hour or made one phone call to a friend the shroud of blackness would have crumble away and been blown into the wind by the laughter of friendship. He would have seen himself in his true light. He would have reached to his mother for help. But that hour and that phone call never happen and today Travis is gone.

It just wasn't Holly's fault or any ones for that matter. Not even Travis's. God knows this and he has Travis in his arms tonight. He has Holly in his arms too. God is good and loving and he knows how sudden the cruelty of the world can over take a small boy. God is there when illness - physical or mental sweeps over a child and takes their life. Children are so sensitive. God understands how hard life is and that not all of us can just keep charging forward. Another friend of mine had a perfectly healthy laughing child die six hours later from spinal meningitis. Its the same thing as Travis - it just happens that fast and it makes no sense.

One hour Travis was happily playing with his sister and the next hour he was gone.
Upon Holly there is now a dark mark written upon her. A tattoo upon her heart that depicts terrible loss. Unbearable loss. She will never just go on with her life. That tattoo can never be scrubbed away. She must make this mark a part of the other colors of her life. In the darkest ink a sad story is written and she will never be able to erase it. The struggle to accept the mark - to stop scrubbing and trying to erase - well that struggle is sometime as long as life it self.

I love Holly and I love Travis. He is not coming back and I miss him very much.

Top 10 Thing to make it look like you are working - Monday Morning Work Flow

Top 10 things to make it look like you are working - Monday Morning Work Flow:
I decided when I turned 40 that this whole work thing was a waste of time. If you work with me you would find this ironic. I consistently win awards for my hard work. I surpass my sales goals and my reporting is always on time. But this all because I decided I not to care about this crap.

I have automated most of my duties after speaking with a friend of mine. I have a friend who is in jail for the next 90 days for stealing a boat. It was a drunken joke at the beach that went way wrong. We told him not to do it. I don't drink so it was a total mystery to me why anyone would have a few drinks at the marina and notice a guy left his keys in the boat and then take it for a ride. He didn't go but 100 feet or so but still...It was a VERY expensive boat so - he is in a low security prison. He and I talk quite a bit about his life and mine and I have discovered that working in an office in a cube is pretty much the same a as a low security prison.

I am highly supervised. I have low cube walls - so pretty much everything is open landscape. When I arrive and leave or go get coffee it is carefully watched by my micro-managing supervisor/prison guard. So for the most part I am expected to sit in this one spot reading the tea leaves all day ( I am a web analytics forecaster ).

So what’s a girl to do? After all there are trails to hike, books to write, paintings to paint. Children to hug. Naps to take and house keeping to do. Cookies and milk. No of this includes web analytics or this horrible cube.

We will go over how to deal with the cube later but what do you do with your Monday morning.
1. First you start a blog. Document all your projects in a blog.
Then have a blog you just like to write in to get the day started. When people walk by and see you blogging they will just assume you are setting up your project blog for the week - how proactive of you.

2. Make a pot of coffee at the coffee station - socialize. You know all those tricks from Saturday night live. Hang around the copier. Continually dump out your cold coffee and get hot coffee.

3. Find a friend who would like to waste an hour or more and have a weekly Monday morning meeting. Meet in the cafeteria (because there is no conference room) available. Then just shoot the sh*t. Schedule about 3 or 4 of these every Monday.

4.Get Skype and spend some time catching up with your spouse.

5.Upload your family photos to the family blog

6 Print out a bunch of charts and graphs and lay them around your desk to confuse people. But add torn out creative articles from your favorite magazines and staple them to your graphs. So they are never really clear what you are working on. So then when you are just reading creative articles and newspapers for the hell of it everyone just thinks you are doing research.

7. Call you kids on their lunch hour and make it look like you are on a conference call.

8. During your lunch hour go to the gym and due "meditation" on a work out mat. Otherwise know as a nap. But mark your lunch hour as a meeting on your calendar. Then eat at you desk. Makes you look committed.

9. Take a walk out side but carry mail or something that looks like you are delivering something to someone else. Due this a least three times a day.

10. Surf the Internet under the guise of doing competitive research.

Have a Happy Monday. But when Tuesday rolls around its time to get to work a job is a privilege not a right.

Monday Morning - Hi-Ho -Hi -Ho It's Off to Work We go

"Heigh-Ho"Music by Frank ChurchillLyrics by Larry MoreySung by the dwarfs coming home from workReprised by the dwarfs going to work.

This song was written in 1938 for the movie Snow White. It captures the gratitude of Americans as they march off to work . Feeling fortunate that jobs are becoming more abundant and the Great Depression is lifting.

Heigh-ho, Heigh-hoHeigh-ho, Heigh-ho
t's off to work we go(Whistle)Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho, Heigh-hoHeigh-ho, Heigh-ho
It's off to work we go(Whistle)Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho(Whistle)Heigh-ho, Heigh-hoHeigh-ho, Heigh-hoHeigh-ho, Heigh-ho Heigh-ho humHeigh-ho, Heigh-ho
It's off to work we go(Whistle)Heigh-ho

We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig in our mine the whole day through
To dig dig dig dig dig dig dig is what we really like to do
It ain't no trick to get rich quick
If you dig dig dig with a shovel or a pick
In a mine! In a mine! In a mine! In a mine!
Where a million diamonds shine!
We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig from early morn till night
We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig up everything in sight
We dig up diamonds by the score
A thousand rubies, sometimes more
But we don't know what we dig 'em for
We dig dig dig a-dig dig
Heigh-ho, Heigh-hoHeigh-ho, Heigh-hoHeigh-ho
Heigh-ho, Heigh-hoI
t's home from work we go(Whistle)
Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho
Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho
It's home from work we go(Whistle)
Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho(Whistle)
Heigh-ho, Heigh-hoHeigh-ho, Heigh-hoHeigh-ho, Heigh-ho Heigh-ho hum
Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho
It's home from work we go(Whistle)
Heigh-ho

Heigh ho, heigh ho
To make your troubles go
Just keep on singing All day long, heigh ho
Heigh ho, heigh ho, heigh ho
For if you're feeling low
You positively can't go wrong
With a heigh, heigh ho
Heigh ho, heigh ho
It's home from work we go
Heigh ho, heigh hoHeigh ho, heigh ho
All seven in a row With a heigh, heigh ho