The time really has come to break the silence. Although, by this point one can clearly see that I have long been relentlessly breaking silences all the while.
Indeed, there are so many truths behind the rage, insanity, and broken-hearted despair that devoured not only my beautiful husband, but so many countless others that have walked this Earth “abandoned”.
The time has come to break the silence. To tell truth behind the rage. The years of living in denial. The time has come to turn the page. But it’s hard to forgive. Even harder to forget. I am a son without a father. He gave his name and walked away. I am a man, now a father. And I swear my son … oh … will never know that pain. I was a child, I was abandoned. Too young to fight to have a say. Oh God, what seemed so heavy handed made me the man I am today. It’s so hard to forgive. Even harder to forget. I am a son without a father. He gave me his name then walked away. I am a man, now a father. And I swear my son … oh … will never know that pain. I will … I will… be the space between the shadows. I will … I will … be the light inside the sorrow. {Scott Stapp}
While I am more than thankful to claim the highest honor of “mother” of two living children, a son and a daughter, and one angel baby in Heaven, I am ever so mindful as I end this bittersweet day with the heart-breaking awareness that not every child got to celebrate with their mother today. As you’ve already read in the admonishment to his “mother THING” one year ago this day, the abandoned and motherless man who I was honored to call my king began his painful descent into the darkness she left him in that literally devoured him alive and indeed ended the most beautiful chapter of my life.
It wasn’t your fault!
You didn’t deserve that!
So, with that, if you are a mother THAT (not “who”) has abandoned and forsaken a child of her own body, know that the unfathomable wound you left them with will never truly heal. If, on the other hand, you are a child whose “mother THING” abandoned you? Please know that just like the battalion of mothers in this world who understood the magnitude of the job we were given, you are always in my heart and I pray for you daily.
YOU are a gift to this world!
From the depths of my soul, I’m am so sorry that happened to you, but remember this one thing always: Our Father in Heaven DOES NOT make trash!So, “Chin Up! Knuckles Out!”, and never wonder “WHY”. You are loved, needed, and valued here on this Earth.
The fate of a mother is waiting for children. You wait for them while pregnant, you wait for them when they return from nursery. Wait for them when they leave school. You wait for them when they start their life when they come home after a party. You wait for them when they come back from work so they can always find a hot meal. You wait for them with love, with anxiety sometimes with anger that immediately passes when you see them and you can hug them. So make sure your elderly mom doesn’t have to wait any longer. Visit her, love her, hug the one who loved you like no one else ever will. Don’t ever make her wait. Because they age limbs but a mom’s heart never grows old. Love her as you can. No woman will love you like a mother.
I recently stumbled upon the most beautiful passage about “the fate of a mother”, and I couldn’t have said it better myself. Stumble as I may have countless times in my motherhood journey thus far, the gift of all my children has been my highest calling and honor. But what do these words mean to you? You never waited for you son – he only ever waited for you – because you left him, like trash, to die in his own remains.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, your “son” stopped living the day he was born, but it was one year ago today that the hands of Fate threw the very last spin of the wheel that ultimately led to not only his demise, but the end of the most beautiful chapter of my life. Looking back, I can say that the very first hint of change in him was June 5, 2014, as that was truly the day the “rock” that was OUR Zack began crumbling. Slowly, subtly, yet ever so steadily, he began slipping down the hole that devoured him on January 11th this year, but it wasn’t really until May 12th last year that he started coming apart at the seams. I remember that morning as if it were right now, down to exactly where he was standing, what he was wearing, the look of angst on his face, what he was saying, and the tears falling from his eyes. Sufficed to say though, it was “Mother’s Day 2019” that earmarked the beginning of his end.
Still, on the surface, he seemed to have made peace with it all, so he moved on down the road. We made our own little family and he left you all behind in his dust. “Their loss, not mine”, he would say, and he couldn’t have been more right, as none of you were worthy of his presence! Trust me when I tell you that because of our professions, we knew plenty of people who “know them”. The general consensus about all your other Williamsons? You know, the ones you actually managed to want? “They’re selfish, shallow, greedy, social climbing wanna-bes in one of the greatest shows on Earth.” Everything about Zack’s character was so far removed from theirs that no one who realized the familial connection could fathom it. Watching random strangers literally scratch their heads and hearing the things people would say about them were amongst the highest compliments he ever received. He absolutely reveled in knowing that no one could begin to correlate him to “all of them”. But I’ve digressed. Sufficed to say, indeed it was “every Mother’s Day” that hurt him the most, even more so than all the birthdays you forgot as he waited year after year, phone in hand, for you to fucking remember him.
So, with that, today is bittersweet, as not a Mother’s Day had passed since he walked into my life that I wasn’t cherished, celebrated, and placed so high upon the pedestal he built for me that there literally are no words. It was no secret to anyone that your “son” was hell bent on making sure that I was abundantly aware of how revered my role was in not just his life, but my children’s as well, and especially on Mother’s Day. When we first met, he told me about his past and how not just you, but his entire “blood family”, abandoned him for what reason only God knows. He was so ambivalent about the things you people had done to him, but it still outraged me to the core of my being to not only hear the stories of his maternal abandonment and fucked up beyond reason childhood, but to have watch, live and experience the abysmal things his “family” did to him, all of which were completely unacceptable. As for those other “Williamsons” you spat upon this Earth who still get to live and breathe in the very same city where their “brother” slipped through the void? If a stranger were to meet a single one of them and not know who they really are, they’d be so impressed with the personas they present. But his truth is the truth, he spoke it, I witnessed it, and God watched every single bit of it! So, congratulations “mother”! You made self-consumed, dressed up narcissists with the plastic smiles and shallow hearts that only a “THING” like you could possibly be proud of!
Here’s all you really need to know now …
It’s Mother’s Day 2020, and 264 days ago your “son” shot himself in the head with a Springfield handgun and a hollow point bullet at just before midnight. You were nothing to him but a stranger, and what a shame you never knew what an amazing human being you threw away and the gift he was to this world.
Only God knows what was going through his mind in the very last moments of his life, and “what that may have been” will break my heart forever. Alas, he’s at rest now, finally at peace after the legacy of abandonment you chose to burden him with. But here’s what I do know was about the things that were in his mind during the years I was lucky enough to give him the only real home he ever had and the only real love from a woman, other than his Grandma, he had ever known:
Your “son” hurt us all with a broken mind and heart that were jaded beyond comprehension. “He must have had mommy issues” is what some will surely say, and sadly? IT WAS TRUE! He wasn’t quite two when you left him behind – him, and only him – but not your other kids, because for what good reason he could never understand you just didn’t want him like the others! You never turned back to see the tears that burned through his heart every day for the rest of his life.
When your “son” was just a boy, he had to sit in classrooms making Mother’s Day cards that he never really knew what to do with, so, he would tear them up and put them in the garbage as he was leaving the school grounds watching all the other kids being greeted by their mommies as he walked home to nothing all alone!
When your “son” was just a boy, he would go to his friends’ birthdays while his heart physically ached because you apparently couldn’t remember the day he was born. (It was October 5, 1982, just in case you forgot, which by the way, I know you did, since you never once called him on his birthday.)
When your “son” was just a boy, Mother’s Day broke his heart into little, tiny pieces that none of us who really loved him could ever put back together. He cried for you. He ached for you. He longed for you. He dreamt of you. He disappeared inside of himself waiting for you to want him!
Despite all these words and my more than apparent hostility, I have forgiven you and yours to the best of my ability for all the ways you destroyed my beautiful husband, especially given that I wholeheartedly believe that the entire lot of you are truly evil:
I really can forgive anyone for just about anything, and as God is my witness, I HAVE! But I’ll just keeping taking people on a case-by-case basis. The Devil’s Own really do walk among us, but I’m not even sure they’re “people”. They’re a different kind of breed “thing” altogether. I’m not quite sure I’ll ever get to the point that I stop avidly praying that God really DOES sort us all out in the end. I’m just a mortal human, not a god or Jesus Christ, so I’ll just keeping asking for “forgiveness” for not being too excited about the idea of “mercy for the merciless”.
But never will I forget the last ten years watching him try so hard not to break because none of you gave a FUCK about “the Zack of shit”, your “son”, their “brother”. You know, now that I think of it, there were so many things I was prepared to do for your son over the course of our lifetime but having to pick out his urn was never one of them. It’s all good though, because his remains will forever be mine, and not yours, because as he famously and repeatedly said to me:
Catherine, if they couldn’t be bothered with me when I was alive, then they don’t get to have me when I’m dead!
So, with that, Happy Mother’s Day to you, “mother THING” of my fallen king. May you sleep well this night and at the end of every Mother’s Day going forward that you’re able to enjoy with the other kids you did somehow manage to “mother”. Hold your hand over your chest now and breathe in all that you feel.It’s the still beating heart of the one woman in this world that was supposed to love my husband forever! Also? It is my most avid and fervent prayer that one day you will burn in ACTUAL hell!
IN HIS REMAINS
Separate. He sifted through the wreckage. He couldn’t concentrate – searching for a message in the fear and pain. Broken down and waiting for the chance to feel alive. Now in his remains are promises that never came. Set the silence free to wash away the worst of him. Come apart. Falling in the cracks of every broken heart. Digging through the wreckage of your disregard. Sinking down and waiting for the chance, to feel alive. Now in his remains are promises that never came. Set the silence free to wash away the worst of him. Like an army, falling one by one by one. {Linkin’ Park}
My own husband, Zachariah, who I lost to suicide August 22, 2019. He was the Godsend game changer for me and my my two kids, larger than life with a heart the size of an ocean, but had been abandoned by the “mother THING” that (not “who”) left him permanently at 18 months. While I suppose his “father” did the best he could with lack of parenting skills he had, but he was then and is still but a grown child himself, and even in his death has continued to just leave him behind.He was left alone for a majority of the time from a very young age, and his basic needs were never properly tended to. Eventually, even his siblings discarded him, too.
We didn’t realize his ACS (Abandoned Child Syndrome) even existed until five years into our marriage, but once faced with the sobering truths of his traumatic childhood, every bit of strength and fortitude he’d managed to find and survive with in his life of solitude before finding us, the first and only real home and family he’d ever had, began slipping right out from under him.
The abandonment issues that led to his mental illness were further complicated by the fact that for some unknown reason the mother was able to manage to have a maternal relationship with the older siblings she’d had with the same father, just not him. Again, his entire family left him on the proverbial “curb of life”. Not just the mother, but neither the father nor his siblings could be bothered with him. His two older brothers would often refer to him as the “Zack of shit”, and although he would laugh about in their presence, those words tortured and haunted him incessantly. This heartless, selfish, numbingly ice-cold and shallow brood of people literally broke his heart into pieces that could never be put back together.
There were demons living in the hole they burned into his soul we fought desperately to keep him from drowning in, but in the end, the demons won. In the last months of his life, it appeared that he was in the early stages of psychosis, if not schizophrenia. He’d been hearing voices, seeing things that weren’t there, missing blocks of time, and ultimately just vanished completely within himself. He said “he couldn’t feel anything anymore“, and honestly, we lost him months before he put that gun to his head. It was a living nightmare to witness and the worst kind of heartbreak to suffer. He died of a broken heart that led to his mental illness and suicide, but not before he hurt not only me, but even more so our daughter, VERY badly.The trauma that he bestowed upon her in his final psychosis and “separated from self” state of mind is beyond comprehension, barely fathomable, and one that may unfortunately take her own lifetime to heal and overcome.
I’ve been writing tirelessly about not only his, but my mental health journey as well, in “The Diary Of My Perfection“. I’d be honored if any of you would care to read, follow or share it, as it is now my mission to try and be a Light in other people’s darkness. In the meantime, thank you for the many kind words and vast support of this post. It means everything to me. I cannot let either his lost battle with mental illness, or anyone else’s for that matter, have been in vain.
I understand that you are upset right now and maybe a little with me too. All I am asking you at this point for HIS sake and for the sake of all that he went through while he was here on this Earth is that you please try to come to terms with his truths. His realities. His last wishes and decisions. That note he left us was a gift. IT WAS FOR US, NOT FOR THEM! You, me, Gia and Rick? We were “his family”! No one else! Those words he wrote in his suicide note were not intended for either the general public, the world at large and most ESPECIALLY the “family” that threw him away like garbage! I will always consider you my family D. And in my journey to speak his truths I will never fail to credit you for being the only brother he had because that is how he saw it! That’s how he spoke of you and that’s what he made painfully clear to anyone that paid attention. He always felt that you were “caught in a void” between “all of them and the truth” because maybe copping to the sobering facts was going to be as painful for you to bear as it was for him. When Zack made the decision to excise them and the “thought of them” from his heart it was a bittersweet and painful gift to unto himself.
So, that’s all there is to it. Rick and I are here for you when you’re ready to talk true facts. I truly hope you can be well someday. He worried about you incessantly and I cannot say it enough! It always bothered the fuck out of him how you let them treat you like a revolving door, only using you as they needed you, in and out, in and out, and there was nothing he could do or say to convince you to stand up for yourself and say ENOUGH and walk away like he did! He kept praying you’d find a family of your own one day, a nice, safe, loving woman to finally give you a real home and some joy and healing and peace so that you’d finally “not need to accept their bullshit scraps and leftovers”. Your brother’s legacy “before he got sick” will carry on somehow – I’LL MAKE SURE OF IT! You need to do everything you can to honor him and all that has happened here and start finding a way to, in fact, say the words: NO MORE SCRAPS AND LEFTOVERS!
And for the record, regardless of how it appears on the surface there is no “hatred” in my heart for anyone involved here. I feel nothing for the people that destroyed my beautiful husband from the cradle to the grave! Nothing! Absolutely NOTHING! They aren’t worth my energy! If anything, I feel sorry for them all because they missed out on REALLY knowing one THE BEST human souls that ever walked this planet. They missed out on his “best 10 years” and getting to see him flourish. Smile. Succeed. Grow. Be fearless. Courageous. Change. Become self-aware and strong (much stronger than he even knew). Experience joy. Laughter. Happiness. They missed out on getting to know what an amazing human being, husband, brother, friend and DAD he was to Gia! We got the BEST of him. Everything good he ever did, was or could have possibly been, WE GOT TO HAVE AND WITNESS IT. He was a fucking miracle and you can’t not know it’s true. With all the odds stacked against him, statistically the last 10 years should probably have never happened. He was the frog who turned into a prince and then eventually into a king – he just needed love, and a home and a family to get there. And? HE FINALLY HAD IT! It’s just that the holes your mother left inside his broken heart were deeper than any of us know and he couldn’t find his way out of them anymore. He got too tired and fell. THEY ALL FAILED HIM MISERABLY AND YOU KNOW IT! I’m sorry if this upsets you. I just want you to help me honor, validate and hold ALL his many painful truths and realities up to the light. It’s the right thing to do and I WILL NOT HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY!
{Text To “Brother” dated September 12, 2019}
As of this night, December 28, 2019, neither of the only two “blood family” he’d ever believed he could rely on to be there when all of his cards were down bothered to “come and get him”. These are the keepsake urns that Rick and I had made for each of them on the day he and I went alone to make the arrangements for my husband because neither of them could be bothered. Somehow, we both foolishly believed that for once in his life or his death at least one of them would finally just show up for him! “Taking him home” is no longer an option for either of them at this point, however, as I would rather spread these ashes amongst the footsteps of his ancestors in all the places he dreamed of going than let anyone treat him like “scrap” ever again!
FAR FROM HOME
Another day in this carnival of souls. Another night’s end ends as quickly as it goes. The memories are shadows, ink on the page. And I can’t seem to find my way home. And it’s almost like your Heaven’s trying everything. Your Heaven’s trying everything to keep me out. All the places I’ve been and things I’ve seen. A million stories that made up a million shattered dreams. The faces of people I’ll never see again, and I can’t seem to find my way home. ‘Cause it’s almost like your heaven’s trying everything to break me down. ‘Cause it’s almost like your heaven’s trying everything to keep me out. To break me down. {Five Finger Death Punch}
… that moment your friend of a million years who’s known you through some of your darkest hours sends you one of THE songs of your life. Meanwhile, I’m literally thanking God right now for the very kind strangers who picked me up off the floor after losing it in the middle of my workout.
LOOK AT THE NAME OF THE ARTIST!
It’s as if it’s was written just for me … and Zack. Regardless of how he left us and what many believe about suicide, I know the God I serve did NOT forsake him in his last breath and was waiting to rescue my husband with His hand reached out to take him “Home”.
… to this very day and minute, October 5, 1982, 9:51am, not only I and my children, but this world as a whole received one of the most beautiful gifts I never knew I would have until that moment our eyes locked so many years later in October of 2008.
It was written in the stars, on the pages of my heart, oh that someday I would find the love I feel for you … On the ocean of our dreams, like a prayer you came to me. And the longing that had been found its ending in your eyes …
There are no words to describe the bittersweet emotions I am raw with at this moment. “One man’s trash really IS another man’s treasure“, and God Himself knows this is true. She may have thrown you away, but you were indeed my greatest treasure, other than those I have given birth to myself. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZACHARIAH. Your battle is finally over.
Exactly one year ago this morning Zack and I were sitting in a hotel lobby in Paris waiting for a shuttle to come schlep us to the airport for our flight home to Dallas. “So, where are we going next”, he asked me. One trip to Europe and literally could NOT wait to plan our next adventure. He was hooked! After having spent the entire morning considering the possibilities, we were split down the middle: Ireland? Switzerland? Kids? No kids? What to to do, what to do? BEFORE WE’D MADE IT TO THE AIRPORT he had already called Globus to book our trip to Switzerland for my 50th, and within a week of getting home he had the Ireland trip for “all of us” booked as well. My point is this: Life just threw us a curveball that no one ever “really” saw coming. And this my friends, IS LIFE. Each day, wait, no, each second we are allowed to spend here with our souls in these flesh and bone bodies just turning and burning, living like there’s no tomorrow and making plans for the future is a gift. So I beg you all: If what happened to our family hasn’t already made you “stop, look and listen” and take serious stock of your life, please, DO IT NOW! One month ago today? Although, yes, there had been signs, and yes, we had been fighting for months against the demons that were devouring him, I THOUGHT WE HAD MORE TIME!
Unfortunately, I have learned all too well by now that everything can change in an instant, but the most important wisdom I’ve ”earned” is in knowing that at the end of the day, it really is all about forgiveness … and acceptance … and empathy … and understanding … and finding our “power and grace“.
My husband hurt us so badly. His actions spoke louder than the even the angriest words I’ve heard in my lifetime, and trust me, prior to life with Zack, I’d heard more than my fair share of less than optimal “words”. There are things that may be revealed throughout the course of time in both mine and Gia’s journey that may surprise, confuse and outrage you. Zack wasn’t “Zack” the night he left us. He was someone else. Some “thing” else. Two beings in one body … an angel battling a demon. As dramatic as that may sound, please understand me when I say this: His choices, actions, and final bat-shit fucking crazy blow devastated us in unspeakable ways. Even still, in in case you haven’t figured it out by now, I have forgiven him for everything, and did so within seconds of knowing he was gone, which for the record, although his death certificate reads “Found August 23, 2019”, I physically felt him leaving here at just before midnight on August 22nd. I know with every shred of my being and will NEVER be convinced otherwise that was the moment he pulled the trigger.
That forgiveness wasn’t just for me, by the way, it was also very much for him. So often in life we are put in positions wherein there is “forgiveness that needs to be given”, but for whatever reason the “person” or “thing” that hurt us is either undeserving of our forgiveness or otherwise “unavailable” for being forgiven (meaning they are dead, in jail, otherwise absent from our life, or simply unwilling or incapable of validating or acknowledging even a shred of the pain or suffering they caused us. In some cases, as in mine and Gia’s, it could be a little of all of the above. These are the times, therefore, when you may perhaps have heard it said, and IT IS SO TRUE:
FORGIVENESS IS FOR US, NOT FOR THEM!
Forgiveness releases us from a self-inflicted prison of anger, hate, toxicity, and resentment when we become victims of the unkind acts of others.
Some have probably argued that what Zack did to us was indeed “unforgivable”. But you see, I have known all too well since the day that precious man’s eyes first met with mine that he was suffering within himself all the days of his life, EVEN DURING HIS BEST YEARS WITH US. Knowing that he lived each day with that gaping hole inside his heart tortured me too. There is a line from one of my favorite movies that has resonated in my mind since I lost him:
That boy, Frank, he lives inside of his own heart. That’s an awful big place to live in.
The movie was Slingblade, and we watched it together often. I cannot tell you how many times I saw tears rolling down his cheeks when he heard those words being said, as that is exactly where he lived the majority of HIS life – “inside of his own heart”. And, yes, it truly was an awful big place to live in. I am so thankful that my husband is finally at peace now, and I absolutely know that he is.
Last night while at dinner with a dear friend, a miracle started happening. Gia is starting to talk about him. Finally. For the first time since “that night”. Up until yesterday, SHE DIDN’T WANT TO HEAR HIS NAME! And not only was she talking about him, but my friend later pointed something out to me that I didn’t really pick up on until she said it:
Catherine, in all our conversation tonight, I couldn’t help but notice that she kept referring to Zack as her dad and her dad as her father.
And that my friends, is perhaps the defining moment of her process. The more time that passes, it is becoming very clear that she too is going to forgive him for everything he did, taking only the best parts of him into her future, and leaving out all the rest! The father-daughter bond they shared before he lost his mind? Nothing is going to erase it! She is her mother’s daughter, so, I guess something I’m doing with her is working. As for me? I know exactly what I want my own legacy to be one day when I, too, have to leave for The Brighter Side Of Grey, and from what I am starting to see, it’s already living out loud through her.
If you can hear or see me from wherever you are, and I’m surviving right now due in large part to my true faith that that you can, I want you to know that I love you. I Miss you.I FORGIVE YOU. I would NOT have made it to this crossroad in my journey without you, and you and I both know it’s true. I will never forget you, or replace you, nor dishonor, disgrace or disassemble the infinite trove of tools, gifts, strengths, and beauty that you and ONLY YOU had the patience, courage and foresight to help find buried deep within myself. You helped me find my reflection in a mirror where I once only saw a faceless monster, and turned me into a queen. That, my king, is something only you shall get the credit for. You refused to give up on me no matter how hard I made you try, and not a day will go by while I’m roaming this earth without you that I won’t pray to God that you’re STILL behind me silently pushing me like only you can do. There is so much work to be done here now, and I’m going to make you proud while my life continues to go on. Every day for the rest of my life I will count these darkened ashes piled beneath our feet and rise so far above them that it will be IMPOSSIBLE for them not to hear “our” voices.
If my wish has come true, you’ve safely made it to The Brighter Side Of Grey with your broken heart in one piece to The One parent whose intention was never to forsake you through all the loneliness and heartache you suffered in your lifetime. I’m hoping that not only have you gone and found my daughter by now, but that you’ve also caught up with that handsome Cajun boy you heard so much about who stole the first real piece of my heart and rode off with it in his “blaze of glory”. Don’t think that I will EVER forget how you not only welcomed him and everything he was, but even more so embraced him for all that I was because of what he’d brought into my world and let me carry him on our journey together. Few are the men that are capable of such selflessness and living with my ghosts the way that you did is one of the things I’ve thanked God for the most.I know that you’ll all be waiting hand in hand for me until I get there, a moment I literally picture in my mind quite often. So, until that day comes when I can see you all again, I love you more than words. Forever. Eternally. Unconditionally.
~ Catherine
BECAUSE YOU LOVED ME
For all those times you stood by me. For all the truth that you made me see. For all the joy you brought to my life. For all the wrong that you made right. For every dream you made come true. For all the love I found in you. I’ll be forever thankful baby. You’re the one who held me up and never let me fall. You’re the one who saw me through through it all. You were my strength when I was weak. You were my voice when I couldn’t speak. You were my eyes when I couldn’t see. You saw the best there was in me. Lifted me up when I couldn’t reach. You gave me faith ’cause you believed. I’m everything I am because you loved me. You gave me wings and made me fly. You touched my hand I could touch the sky. I lost my faith; you gave it back to me. You said no star was out of reach. You stood by me, and I stood tall. I had your love I had it all. I’m grateful for each day you gave me. Maybe I don’t know that much, but I know this much is true. I was blessed because I was loved by you. You were always there for me. The tender wind that carried me. A light in the dark shining your love into my life. You’ve been my inspiration. Through the lies you were the truth. My world is a better place because of you.” {Celine Dion}
At exactly 8am this morning we were supposed to be taking off on our flight to tour Switzerland for my 50th birthday. Lucerne was to be our first night and our last, and one of the things I was most looking forward to sharing with him was ”the lion” … the one that I myself stood before some 19 years prior while having the first of my many to follow “moments” while traveling.
Like Zack, I, too, was trapped inside the prison of my own mind at the time in a dark and lonely chasm where I was alive but not really living. So many of my realities back then were nothing more than lies and I but a walking farce. I vividly remember that day as the group I was with headed up a tree-lined path towards “something spectacular” our tour guide was excited to show us. I was looking down at my schedule, not paying much attention, and almost ran in to the person standing in front of me when the group suddenly stopped and turned to look across the pond at “him”.
The Lion of Lucerne is rock relief carved into the cliff face of a sandstone that was sculpted during the early part of the 19th century to commemorate the Swiss Guards who lost their lives in 1792 during the French Revolution. Yet, as I paused to gaze upon him, I saw so much more than just a fallen soldier. It was in that very moment that I began feeling the plethora of emotions I’d been suppressing behind a fraudulent smile to protect not only myself, but my children especially, from the wreckage to come when I finally started letting it all go.
The Lion. Just look at him lying there slain inside that wall. A beast of many burdens, lifeless and alone, with only the precious secrets he’d carried within his heart. Weak and weary. Tired and spent. Worn out, solemn, and vacant. Life had its way with him, and now he’s but a corpse of some unknown past he’d once lived, the demons that had devoured him, and the countless private dreams he’d dreamt that never were to be. Despite his years of his perceived magnificence, he is, ”no longer”.
Connecting with him in that one still moment screamed to me in ways that I have yet been able to fathom, but what I can tell you this. That was, indeed, the turning point at which I truly began to “feel” the pain from the broken, jagged, silent pieces that had been cutting me from within all the while. Both my stomach and my heart were aching so badly that I literally couldn’t breathe. Yet, it was without question one of the most beautiful moments of my life.
The Lion is me. The Lion is my husband. He is any and everyone who is now or has ever had the daunting task of wandering lost inside their own lonely head and heart just waiting for the day that they’re finally allowed to die.
So, with that, as I finish this post, I think I’ve made a decision. Someday, I will go on to Lucerne and offer some of his ashes to the pond beneath my Lion. It’s what I need to do, and I will when the time is right. In the meantime, I’ll just continue to rise from not just the ashes of his remains, but my own as well, and pray God that I’ll see the beauty that is surely yet to rise up out of them.
Well, I’m sitting in front of her new school waiting for her to come out, and if today is anything like the first three days this week, she’ll have a smile on her face from ear to ear. For the record, the entrance ramp you see in the picture is the same one Zack traversed when he, too, went to Bowman! The little house he grew up in is just a few blocks away from the the park in my rearview mirror, and as I sit here, I can see the faint traces of the younger him barreling out those doors headed straight for that park. A sweet, blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy lost deep in a world of solitude, ever so unaware that the feet that were carrying him were already set upon a dark and broken path of “left to his own defenses”.
Despite the nine years we had him healthy, happy, and somewhat whole, Zack’s descent truly began here at Bowman two years ago when we were searching for proof he existed on paper as a child and finally get him a proper birth certificate and a passport.
This Place.
Sitting in the very office where Gia and I sat last Friday to “fake enroll her” (with the intention of online school to finish her 8th grade year) was where Zack and I sat waiting to find that, no, there was no record of him there. Although we were lucky to find two pictures of him later that day at Memorial Elementary, the brutal reality burned him like salt on his soul. Still … the irony! The very place he began falling apart as an adult is where she is coming together as a child. We didn’t choose Bowman intentionally. It just happens that this is the Plano ISD middle school our address feeds to. It was mere coincidence. Or was it? He’s with her here now, I just know it!
Her decision to leave St. Marks wasn’t hard. It wasn’t the school itself; it’s great and I’m proud that my kids have that legacy. Although I won’t go into the dramatics, because that story will be a chapter to itself, let me say this: The particular class she was with year after year (most notably, the girls) bears the distinction as having one the cruelest lot of mean kids in the school’s history.
Worse yet, “real dad” began dating the mother of her best friend, both of whom embarked upon a campaign to literally destroy both mine and Gia’s reputations through words and deeds tantamount only to assault: Bullying, belittling, ostracizing, isolating, threatening, manipulating, and even blackmailing and slander. He’s still dating her, by the way, despite the trauma she and her spawn bestowed upon my daughter.
Gia spent the last five years feeling so alone on that campus, hard pressed to find but a handful of real friends. For the most part, her “friends” saw her as a revolving door, taking or leaving her to best suit their own needs, such that on her birthday this year? She was checking her phone every ten minutes to see if any of “her tribe” remembered the day she was born(much like every October 5th when Zack would check his phone every ten minutes to see if his people remembered him).
Before he left us and hurt her VERY BADLY, she was already damaged and fragile. Her “tribe”? Those girls she stood by loyally and faithfully? The ones she always showed up for, stood up for, and stood behind? The ones whose lockers she made sure were jam packed with treats on their special days? They showed her just what she meant to them on July 18th: NOTHING! No texts. No calls. No cards. NO. THING!
On the first day of school this year, she cried her fucking eyes out when she got in the car. “Still nothing mom.” You see, she’d decided to err on the benefit of doubt:
Well, it WAS summer, so, maybe THAT’S why they forgot. Surely, they’ll say happy BELATED birthday when they see me on the first day of school?
You haven’t LIVED until you’ve seen such a beautiful face and equally beautifully heart reduced to such pain at the hands of the “tribe” she thought she belonged to. After all they KNEW she’d already been through, and after all the storms she weathered for and with them? They threw her away like yesterday’s trash and shattered her glass heart into pieces.So, when she was finally released from the hospital and the school decision had to be made, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind:
Mom, I don’t belong there anymore and you know it. Please don’t make me go back.
So, today I just know she’ll be coming out of that school with a smile! SHELOVES IT HERE! It’s only been three days, and she’s had offers to sit at seven lunch tables. SHE HAS FRIENDS! I’m telling you people … HE’S WITH HER IN THOSE HALLWAYS, I can feel it in my soul!
TO HER “TRIBE” AND THE TREES YOU FELL FROM:
None of you was ever good enough for her, so, thank God she finally saw it, because QUEENS don’t take scraps from anyone! I’d say I’m sorry that her overwhelming shadow kept the light off your bottom-feeder faces, but yah, NO! While we’ve forgiven you for everything, never will we forget! I promise we won’t be laughing from her perch at the top of EVERYTHING as you desperately flail around on the surface-level ground you will remain on as you’re looking up at my daughter’s presence and choking on THIS truth: Lions don’t concern themselves with the opinions of the sheep.
I have nothing left to give. I have found the perfect end. You were made to make it hurt. Disappear into the dirt. Carry me to heaven’s arms. Light the way and let me go. Take the time to take my breath. I will end where I began. And I will find the enemy within ’cause I can feel it crawl beneath my skin. Dear Agony: Just let go of me. Suffer slowly. Is this the way it’s got to be? Dear Agony. Suddenly the lights go out. Let forever drag me down. I will fight for one last breath. I will fight until the end. And I will find the enemy within ’cause I can feel it crawl beneath my skin. Dear Agony: Just let go of me. Suffer slowly. Is this the way it’s got to be? Don’t bury me faceless enemy. I’m so sorry. Is this the way it’s gotta be? Dear Agony: Leave me alone. God let me go. I’m blue and cold. Black sky will burn. Love pull me down. Hate lift me up. Just turn around. There’s nothing left. Somewhere far beyond this world. I feel nothing anymore.
~ Zachariah Lucas Williamson
***
Although his death certificate says “FOUND AUGUST 23, 2019”:
It was AUGUST 22, 2019, the night that changed everything for me and mine. It was the night my husband took his own life, and yes, I physically “felt it happen”. Sufficed to say that there are still so many parts of that night and what led up to it that are very unclear in my mind, as this trauma has obviously affected both me and our daughter in unimaginable and irreversible ways.
That being said, what I do vividly remember was sitting in a room alone trying to get a hold of myself and wrap my head around what was happening to my family. Then, at just before midnight, I felt it! I had an adrenalin dump and it felt like someone had punched me in the gut and knocked the wind out of me. I literally couldn’t breathe. The next morning, August 23rd, the police chief of our town came to find me in the hospital where our daughter was being treated for her own resulting trauma and suicidal thoughts as a result of what he’d done. As he headed toward me with “that look” on his face, I already knew what he was going to say.
“Mrs. Williamson, we did, unfortunately, locate your husband in his car this morning with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. I am so sorry to inform you that he is, in fact, deceased.”
At which point I fell to the ground with a guttural wail that I’m told could be heard throughout the hospital. He went on to say that although they had found his body at 8:30 that morning, the coroner had estimated that he’d already been dead somewhere between 10 to 12 hours, which was confirmation that my physical manifestation of his death the prior night was correct.
Cut my life into pieces. I’ve reached my last resort. Suffocation. No breathing. Don’t give a fuck if I cut my arm, bleeding. Do you even care if I die bleeding? Would it be wrong? Would it be right? If I took my life tonight? Chances are that I might. Mutilation out of sight, and I’m contemplating suicide. ‘Cause I’m losing my sight. Losing my mind. Wish somebody would tell me I’m fine. Losing my sight. Losing my mind. Wish somebody would tell me I’m fine. I never realized I was spread too thin ’til it was too late, and I was empty within. Hungry, feeding on chaos and living in sin. Downward spiral, where do I begin? IT ALL STARTED WHEN I LOST MY MOTHER! No love for myself, and no love from another. Searching to find a lover on a higher level. Finding nothing but questions and devils. ‘Cause I’m losing my sight. Losing my mind. Wish somebody would tell me I’m fine. Losing my sight. Losing my mind. Wish somebody would tell me I’m fine. Nothing is alright. Nothing is fine. I’m running, and I’m cryin’.
I don’t wanna die alone. I don’t wanna live forsaken. I refuse to let this go. Because my soul is breaking. I don’t wanna let you know that my heart is just so jaded. I refuse to let it show. I refuse to let it go. Wake me up when this is over. I’m tired of living life like it’s a dream. Please wake me up when it’s all over. I’m tired of living right here in between I refuse. I’ve always walked alone. I chose the path less taken. I refuse to let you win. Life’s a bitch and I’ve been shaken. It’s not a joke at all. Inside my spirits fading. I refuse to take the fall ’cause no one cares at all. Wake me up when this is over. I’m tired of living life like it’s a dream. Please wake me up when it’s all over. I’m tired of living right here in between. I refuse. ‘Cause at the end of the day I’m not you. I refuse. Wake me up when this is over. I’m tired of living life like it’s a dream. Please wake me up when it’s all over. I’m tired of living right here in between. Wake me up when this is over. I’m tired of living life like it’s a dream. Please wake me up when it’s all over. I’m tired of living right here in between. {Five Finger Death Punch}
… that moment it was your first official day out of the house after a helpless fourteen straight days in bed and you’re now on a date with your husband, who after having spent that same fourteen days trying to do every little thing you usually do as a working wife and mother grabs your hands, looks you straight in the eyes and says:
Honey, I just wanted to say thank you! This last 14 days have opened my eyes and I have so much more appreciation for all the things you do to make all our lives happen yet make it look effortless. Now I understand who you are as a woman even more than I already thought I did. I honestly didn’t get it until now. I love you Catherine Williamson. Thank you for being my wife!
… then you fall back in love with him all over again and can’t even believe just how much you’ve been needing to have exact validation for going on 22 years. No, Zachariah … I love YOU … and I thank God for you “every day”!
The Diary Of My Perfection 
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