I’d posted a tribute for Chester last month on the anniversary of his suicide, and THIS brilliant biotch showed up:
He was soo loved by a lot of people. But he showed people struggling with depression/other mental health issues that offing yourself is the way to go. He couldn’t just live and get help and go talk to somebody to get the help he needs and then when he’s better tell his story. Tell how hard it was but he overcame it. Yes not everyone has the money like he does but just talking to someone and having someone in your corner may have helped because you did say something. He should have lived to be that person that people that are struggling can look up to because he was there to tell people to never give up and to talk to someone. I don’t listen to linkin park anymore.
That’s right, genius, HE SHOULD HAVE! He should have just LIVED! The FUCK? Meanwhile, perhaps one of the worst things you can possibly say to someone who’s either in the throws of mental illness or surviving the wreckage of loved one’s lost battle with it is “if only they had …”, or, “they should have just …”.
For those of you equally moronic and clueless people running around there keeping the stigma of mental health and suicide alive and UNwell, unfortunately, statistics show that sooner or later this most unpopular of monsterswill darken your doorstep. So, lemme know how it works for you afterwards when people start spewing the “shoulda, woulda, coulda’s”. Mmmkay? Mmmkay!
LET’S GET THIS STRAIGHT …
Depression isn’t sadness and can’t always be talked through, much less THOUGHT through! It’s a fucking illness with biological, genetic, environmental, and psychological roots that can take people every day, so, “shoulda, woulda, coulda” FUCK all you literal douche canoes who just don’t get it. There’s far too much information about mental illness and suicide awareness floating around out there for you not to know any better.
It’s August 22nd, by the way, and a few short hours from now, at “just before midnight”, the clock will ring in SEVEN years since my husband literally bit the bullet instead of just sitting down and “talking things through”. I’m okay, by the way – BUT – this kind of human stupidity is just not cool! Just sayin’.
Twenty years ago on this day, Demon Hunter released this most powerful song of not just Zack’s lifetime, but even more so mine as I’ve continued to break everything down in hopes of making sense of the silent pieces of his existence. So, what better time to finally memorialize it than today by sharing my answer to a question that was posted earlier in one of my writing forums:
My “Triptych” story is bittersweet and unfathomable to most, but true nonetheless. Since I’m the “REAL Cat” and an admitted over-sharer, I’ll share. Demon Hunter was the all-time favorite band of my late husband’s life. He’d been thrown away by his “mother THING” on his birth day. Years of burying his emotions after a dismal start in life eventually led him to me and my kids, who he took as his own.
Meanwhile, on 8.9.19, the night after I’d discovered he’d made his final decision to “put the monster down” and purchased the Springfield he used, he’d written an email to my daughter and me with the song “One Thousand Apologies” attached, but never sent it. I found it in his drafts while sifting through the wreckage months later. He’d always said this band wrote the soundtrack to his life, and they did.
For the record, I have long since forgiven him for the crimes against our humanity that he / “the monster” committed against me and my daughter. I’m thankful beyond words for all the delicate and NOT so delicate ways their music has helped me understand what may have been going on inside his broken mind and soul, and for the closure I’ve found in so MANY of their song lyrics. I hope he’s resting in peace.
He got here red and wrinkled … scared and cryin’ … then she took him up and held him to her breast … and he sure was glad to get what mama offered. Then he went to sleep and put his fears to rest. It didn’t seem to matter what he needed, he could always count on mama to supply, and regardless of the sleep she might be losin’, he always found a twinkle in her eye. There ought to be a hall of fame for mamas … Creation’s most unique and precious pearls … and Heaven help us always to remember that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.
What if on the day he got here, “red and wrinkled … scared and cryin'”, she took one look at him and said, “No thanks. I’ll pass.” Then, instead of holding him to her breast and putting his fears to rest, she either literally or metaphorically threw him away?
Lol! “There ought to be a hall of fame for mamas?” Yup. There sure as HEAVEN should be. Likewise, should there be a picture of every one of those “mother THINGS and MONSTERS” in the Hall Of SHAME as placeholders until they get to ACTUAL hell.
Through it all, though, I can honestly say that while there was once a time in my life when I truly didn’t know when the pain was gonna stop, I just kept working on it, all the while never knowing when the floor was gonna drop again. I stepped gently … softly … carefully.
At so many points, and even still sometimes on a day like this, managing all these emotions has just felt like putting up sails in a storm, and the many efforts I’ve made keep toppling me over. And while it’s true that all the ways I once used to cope only made me feel worse, those days are long gone. God? How do I maintain all this control? In the hardest of times, I just stay in my body … see through my own eyes … feel my beating heart … and breathe. Breathe. BREATHE!
Maybe what happened six years ago this night was always meant for me. Maybe tomorrow morning will be, too. Either way, I’ll remain steadfast in my role … my control … the only thing I ever really need to do is just … breathe.
When the nights grew cold but our blood ran warm and everything we’d touched just seemed to melt away and leave us alone, no one understood the noises in our head but US. Such a simple melody playing over and over again. But why would we wanna blend in when we are drenched in gold? Never far, never out of reach, the embers in the dark lay quiet … burning just beneath. Isolated … complicated … we found a way to make it out alive (and not feel so alone)!
These days, when I look at you, I see that you’re just like me … a misfit runaway with gold plating underneath. I love you, Gia, and literally couldn’t be any prouder to call you “daughter” if I tried.
Although the album it was born from wasn’t released until this day—a few months after Zack’s suicide—and thus I couldn’t actually use it at his funeral, “Godspeed” is perhaps one of the most epic songs of not just MY life, but all of yours as well … except that you might not know it yet. For those of you who don’t know who Alter Bridge is, or the meaning behind the song:
“Godspeed” is the fourth track featured on their latest studio album, Walk the Sky, which was released on Napalm Records. The lyrics are profound and compelling and they hit the listener like a shot in the heart. Anybody who has ever lost anybody special in their lives can relate to its raw and authentic lyrics. It is upbeat and mid-tempo and it allows the band to carry their message across. The tune feels like a celebration of an influential person’s life. Lead guitarist Mark Tremonti wrote “Godspeed” in loving memory of his late dear friend, Seth Luker, and the song was so personal to him that it has struck a chord with their fans and listeners from all over the world. In a post on his social media pages, Tremonti praised Luker for being “the best” and “pure class.” Front-man Myles Kennedy allows his rich, harking voice to capture the essence of the lyrics of “Godspeed.” It is a controlled, soothing and captivating vocal performance, all in one. “Farewell, godspeed, and goodbye, you have lived and you have changed all our lives, cast away our regrets and all our fears, just like, like you did when you were here” Kennedy sings in the chorus. Overall, “Godspeed” is a fitting tribute by Mark Tremonti to his late friend, and Myles Kennedy and the rest of the band simply knock it out of the ballpark; moreover, it is a powerful song about living with loss and healing. Listeners should have a Kleenex box nearby as it deserves to be enjoyed for its beauty and melancholy. Each time this journalist listens to this song, it feels like it was written for him in memory of his best friend as well, and that goes to show the power of Alter Bridge’s songwriting and storytelling, and the message embedded in their music. “Godspeed” garners an A+ rating, and it ought to be released as a single at some point in the near future since it is bound to have a positive impact on people’s lives.
If you’ve never heard it, please listen to it now. It’s a powerful song that people from all walks of life need in their repertoire—a tribute to the profound impact one person’s life can have on another, and a reminder that music can sometimes help us find a little of the peaceful closure we need when someone we love has departed.
Of course, I love anything Alter Bridge—but every time I hear this one … and I play it almost daily … all I can do is look to the sky, smile, and thank GOD that we got to walk the EARTH with that king of ours at our six for the beautiful season we got to have him. Do I miss him? Yes. Do I still cry sometimes? Umm … YUP! Believe it or not, though, every single tear I’ve shed has been as big a gift as all of the pain.
The number of bittersweet birthdays we’ve had to celebrate without him here.
Even still, although the death certificate says “FOUND AUGUST 23, 2019,” those of us who knew him best know that he began dying a slow and painful death on the very day he was born. It was the moment of both his birth and his “unbecoming.” Fortunately, I have it on good authority that both “the creature” that birthed then dumped my husbandand his “siblings” do, indeed, read my posts. In that regard, I have yet another heartfelt message:
He lost himself into the night, and he flew higher than he had ever, but still felt small. You clipped his wings … he fell from flight to open water and floated farther away from himself. He swam in the wakes of imposters just to feel what it was like to pretend. There were no dreams in his waves … only monsters … and the monsters were his only friends. They’re all that he was in the end but NEVER really was or ever will be. Eyes in the dead still water. He tried, but it pushed back harder. Cauterized and atrophied … you were his unbecoming. He put knives in the backs of martyrs and left our lives in the burning fodder. Cauterized and atrophied … you were our unbecoming. I found him drifted out to sea. It was automatic, now it’s telepathic. I always knew him. They laughed as he searched for a harbor and pointed to where your halo was supposed to be, but any light in your eyes had been squandered. There was no angel in you … were his unbecoming. He waited for his metamorphosis, but all that’s left is the change that could never be. Selfish fate … YOU made him this. Now, under the water he’ll wait.
{Words To “Unbecoming” Adapted by The Real Cat Williamson}
With that, despite the tone of not just this post, but the many other bitter “Real Cat” rants, know that every time I think about you crying all those crock-of-shit-o-dile tears over that Zack of SHIT “brother” of yours, I laugh—then smile—knowing that the day he was born was among our greatest gifts and treasures … NOT YOURS … because you threw the gift of “him” the fuck away like actual living garbage and left him behind in the proverbial trash can of his life. So here’s wishing all you rat-bastard motherfuckers a very heartfelt birthday truth bomb: YOU were his “unbecoming,” starting on this day that he was born. May you twist and turn tonight as you are reminded, yet again, of all the October 5ths gone by that you FORGOT the fuck about him while he was still here for you to remember him.
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.
As we begin Mental Illness Awareness Week today, I’m reminded once again of exactly why Rocky IV is one of my truly favorite movies:
Rocky IV is my favorite, because in my mind I have always felt it’s been “me against the Devil” in both the brightest and darkest moments of my life, and he’s the one always saying to me, “I MUST BREAK YOU”! Yet, I absolutely refuse to let him take me down!
I mean, seriously, people! There’s a reason why Heaven reigns from above and hell only thinks it’s reigning from below. And while I’ve never been one to say I’m better than anyone—meaning any mortal human with warm blood running through their veins—I do believe that I’m way fucking better than many “things.” The devil and all his vices—pain, suffering, anguish, and self-loathing—are below me and can all literally kiss my ass.
I WIN!
THEY LOSE!
C’mon, people! Put on those bloodied and torn gloves and FIGHT like a GLORIOUS bastard! The past is the past! It’s over! It’s gone! There’s NO point in going back there. There IS no easy way out of this, and there’s NO present like the time you have right in front of your fists! Also? Unless your arms are attached to your back, the last time I checked, punches only land going FORWARD!
With that … BYE, mental illness! It’s me, CAT! Looks like YOU’RE beneath me, too! So come at me again, bruh. I dare you! Momma NEVER takes her gloves off now, soooo:
🎶
“Baby, baby, I have shed my skin, and I know how it feels inside to be walkin’ down an endless road not knowin’ if I’m dead or alive. But some things were worth fightin’ for, and that feeling will NEVER die. So, I’m not askin’ for another chance … I’M JUST TAKING IT and PUNCHING TODAY IN THE FACE!”
🎶
“Cat, what does that even MEAN?” Oh, yah! “Punching today in the face” is a “Wheelchair Dad” thing. I won’t go much into it because I really want you to click the link below and discover what it means for yourself.Suffice it to say, though, Dan and Andrea Kotter and their six beautiful babies—who I recently stumbled across on social media—have managed to truly “punctuate” and inspire me in a profound way.
With that, it seems only fitting that I tribute one of my muses, Franz Kafka, the anomalous writer from Prague whose words lit a fire in me that still burns a century later. Much like Zack, he left this world tragically unaware of how powerful his legacy would become, much less that he’d eventually be regarded as one of the most influential literary figures of the 20th century. He published only a handful of his work while alive because he didn’t believe it worthy. His dear friend and literary executor, Max Brod, disregarded Kafka’s directive that his unfinished works be destroyed and published them instead. Had Brod honored that final wish, the full trajectory and longevity of Kafka’s legacy might never have been realized.
To call something “Kafkaesque” is to describe the absurd and surreal – if not nightmarish and disorienting – words that in so many ways define my own existence. I could wax poetic about everything Kafka, but perhaps these words sum him up best:
Franz Kafka is regarded as one of the greatest literary figures in recent history. He is known for his uniquely dark, disorienting, and surreal writing style, a style and quality so particular to him, that anything that resembles it has come to be known and referred to as “Kafkaesque”.
No one will ever know what really happened in our home in the months before he swallowed that bullet. To say that demonic insanity besieged us wouldn’t give credence to the monster that overtook his mind and tried to devour my daughter during its reign of unholy terror. She ended up hitting a wall in the wake of her trauma two weeks before her sophomore year’s end, such that the school opted to early release and excuse her from final exams so we could tend to her fragile psyche. In lieu of finals, her literature teacher asked her to write a personal memoir without knowing fully why the school had negated her exams in the first place, but once she became aware that writing a memoir could be the worst possible thing for her under the circumstances, she had her write an essay about her favorite book instead.
I had no idea she’d read “The Metamorphosis” after his suicide. She knew Kafka was my favorite writer, and she knew it was the last book he’d listened to nineteen days before he left. While trying to make sense of both her parents, she then—also unbeknownst to me—wrote her essay about “the invisible monster”:
How Do YouFight An Invisible Enemy?
YOU GIVE IT A FACE!
(Written By Gia Embach)
Since the beginning of time or existence itself, for living things big or small, life is marked with a common anguish: To live is to suffer. Over time, however, as humanity has specifically thrust itself into problems of its own device, it’s tried desperately to put incomprehensible ideas or situations into a box so as to minimize the pain and anxiety that fester in the face of the unknown or difficult.
Anguish was arguably never more prevalent than throughout the duration of World War I. The largest, bloodiest, most destructive war the world had yet seen, with such horrors as to reduce the social order and beliefs to rubble in a similar manner to the physical world around people all over the world. During the uneasy postwar years, this society of confused and angry people confided in Czech-born writer Franz Kafka.
His stories almost always depict characters who are in eerie situations they can neither comprehend nor escape from. While this idea of using the imagination to comprehend the uncomfortable and incomprehensible world of emotions and psychology was precious to those living during the postwar years, his message still rings true today, as people still find the comprehension of the human mind to be incredibly difficult and laborious. Through allegorical works of literature and art, artists and writers allow others, and themselves, to understand feelings and situations that would otherwise be terrifying or unfathomable to bring comfort that stems from a shared discomfort.
The Metamorphosis begins with Gregor Samsa awaking in his bed only to find himself transformed into a large cockroach or other bug-like vermin. Gregor becomes increasingly dreary after looking out the window to all the rain and darkness and decides to give in to the pull of sleep calling to him. His new body, however, won’t let him lay comfortably, so he tries desperately to fling himself on his side to rest, only to fall on his armored back, forced to look at his grotesque abdomen and thin, scrambling legs. His mind then drifts to the dread he feels for his stressful job, the importance of sleep, so he begins focusing on the mundane issues in his life that still take precedence over his terrifying condition. His family worriedly knock on his door attempting to converse with him and wondering what the matter is, as Gregor has always been a dutiful worker and had never missed a day of work in his life. Gregor comes to find that he is unable to communicate with human speech and struggles to converse with his worried family on the other side of the wooden door which he soon finds he is unable to open, only doing so after great difficulty.
Emerging from his room, his family and the Chief Clerc are shocked by his appearance and he is soundly scolded by the Chief Clerk. Gregor retreats to his room, injuring himself in the process, and remains isolated inside. He comes to find that his little sister, Grete, attentively looks after him, bringing him fresh food that is unappealing to Gregor despite his hunger. The next morning, he is brought rotting food which he devours ravenously. From his room, Gregor overhears his family’s troubles. His guilt and shame only grow as he listens to his family try to figure out how they will make enough money to support each other, as Gregor is unable to provide for them now. Overwhelmed with sadness and guilt, he returns to his isolation for a few weeks, and Grete slowly but surely becomes less caring for Gregor, and increasingly upset and impatient at her brother’s need for care. When he finally gets enough courage to leave his room, his sister finds him in the kitchen, disturbed. A month later, his mother offers to take the furniture out of his room, so he can crawl more comfortably in his room, however Gregor wishes to hold on to the furniture, keeping himself connected to his humanity, to the familiarity of the Gregor before he woke up that fateful morning as a giant bug. Gregor eventually puts himself upside down on his ceiling, above a painting in his room, the sight of which causes his mother to faint, and his father returns home to find Gregor outside his room once again, only to pelt him with apples, seriously injuring him as he flees back to his room. Gregor takes another month to heal. His family has become exhausted from working and decide to house some loggers for extra income. Later, as Gregor is drawn out by the beautiful sound of a violin, the sight of him disgusts the loggers, causing them to leave without paying rent, so his once gentle and compassionate sister now states that the bug is not really Gregor and has ruined their lives. Returning to his room, he thinks fondly of his family before he dies. His body is found, and his family carries on happily without him as they discuss their plans for the future.
Although there are many interpretations of this eerie tale, I believe it is an allegory for depression and the damage it causes to not only the one who suffers from it, but also those around them. The first time I read it, I was immediately fond of Gregor. In him, I found that sense of comfort that I had mentioned before. Comparing his experience with depression to mine allowed me to feel less alone. Like me, even simple tasks for him such as getting out of bed or talking became excruciatingly difficult and it exhausted him to venture from the safety of the safe, cold comfort and isolation of his room Thinking that someone who was alive over 100 years ago had the same exact feelings that I’ve had made me feel less ashamed of my illness.
In another mirror of my mind, Gregor’s mind drifts to his worries and anxieties about the future and all the little things that could go wrong. Been there! Done that! No matter how long you have depression or how “well” you handle it, there are always things on your mind. They’re like an invisible bag of rocks dragging behind your feet that make your legs tire quickly and your entire body feel incredibly heavy. Each time Gregor tried to reach out and become himself again, he was treated with disgust, disdain, and impatience, reminding him time and again why he had hidden himself away in the first place. To those living in a world outside of a disease festering inside one’s brain, there are no rocks and no issues, there’s just laziness and distraction. “They’re not trying enough” or “They’re being dramatic”.
Grete, who at first gave Gregor aid with love, soon drifted away. When you suffer from depression, it can be hard for others to love and care for you, so when you are living as a creature you yourself can hardly look at without disgust, how COULD you accept any help? Depression tells you that you aren’t worth it and you don’t deserve it. If your symptoms themselves don’t push people away, you will. Giving yourself excuses to be alone, hoping that if you sabotage the good things enough, you might begin to feel like your feelings are valid, but that is a rare thing to come to believe. Then, just like Gregor, you soon find that reaching out only gets you hurt again, and you fully realize all that you no longer have. At this point, a person with depression will respond in a variety of ways. Some seethe with a burning anger, others protect themselves with an icy numbness, and others drown themselves in tears. In other cases, like Gregor, he simply allows himself to fade away. He felt ashamed, guilty, impossible to deal with. The harsh words of others twisting the steel blade he had dug into his chest deeper. He thinks of those who shunned him with love, understanding that nobody could love a monster. He thinks of them and dies, utterly and completely alone.
The Metamorphosis was the last thing my father read before he lost his battle with his own invisible enemy … his “bug”. While literature like Kafka’s does indeed offer comfort, nothing can cover the harsh and bitter reality of mental illness. Only the luckiest ones, and these warriors are far and few between, survive the battle against the hidden enemy. Many, like Gregor and my father, slowly fade away, isolating themselves until death to keep those they love from the harm they know they cause.
The truth of the matter is this: human beings are far from being able to comprehend the human mind in its best form and are further still from understanding a mind that is damaged. However, through people like Kafka, who cut these incredible issues into tiny, more manageable pieces, we can all come to understand it a little better. Those who suffer, can come to understand their suffering. Those who don’t share that same, complex kind of pain, come to understand it. When people understand something so horrible and terrifying, it slowly falls apart as it’s being chipped away like a block of marble until something beautiful and heroic remains.
In closing, I feel it is imperative to appreciate the gift that art can give to humanity: the ability to comprehend the incomprehensible, the ability to look at ourselves as works in progress rather than vermin, and the ability to unite people of all walks of life together in an often-forgotten fact. Once we strip away our flesh and everything of this Earth, each of us has a soul that is broken, and each of our souls, whether we acknowledge it or not, has a burning desire to be loved. That fact can only be nurtured and accepted through people like Kafka who aren’t afraid to brave the nightmares of existing, people who shine lights in darkness so others can see light.
Of all the things she could have written, what are the chances she’d pen something so poignant after having being excused from writing a personal memoir at all? Can you feel the absurdity? Can you fathom the surrealism? Can you appreciate this cosmic kick in the face of that demon bug that’s infested the minds of far too many Gregors to count? FUCK YOU, “popular monster”! You may have obliterated, disintegrated, and annihilated my husband and tried to take my daughter, but you will NOT feast upon another soul in my haloif it takes my last breath to keep you underfoot. I’ve FOUND my way out of your web, you fucking LIAR and miserable CHEATER.
I’ve fallen IN LOVE
with NOT falling apart!
HAPPY 500TH DIARY ENTRY TO ME! May you rest eternally, Zachariah and Franz—two of the very few mortal men who reached the depths of my soul. You may be gone, but you’ll never be forgotten, nor will the countless ways you both inspired my metamorphosis. And last, but never least, thank you from my bursting heart to my Mona Lisa, my angel of a daughter, for helping me finally find the words I’d been searching for to honor my favorite beetle.
If you or someone you love is battling an invisible monster, PLEASE reach out for help! The “SAMHSA National Helpline” is a FREE, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.
While I’m sure there are a fair number of people who feel this way but aren’t as willing to openly admit it, I believe there should be absolutely NO mercy, grace, or forgiveness for the “mother THINGS” that (not “who”) mindfully cause or allow grave harm to a child of their own womb.
Judge not others lest ye be judged!
(Matthew 7:1-3)
Yet are the THINGS capable of inflicting harm upon their children even “human” at all—and therefore subject to God’s disdain for judging them or wishing them actual hell?
I really CAN forgive anyone for just about anything, and as God is my witness, I HAVE! But I’ll just keep 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 keep asking for “forgiveness” for not being too excited about the idea of “mercy for the merciless”.
Just to be clear, I’m not talking about selfish, inattentive, unprepared, immature mothers who are truly oblivious to the damage they cause their children. Been there, done that, and trust me when I say that we are a collective wrecking ball crew to our own. I may be sanctimonious at times, but I’m not even gonna try and deny my own regrettable crimes against my children. I wear the hearts of two children on my sleeve who are still navigating the wreckage my former tragic mothering and weak mental health caused them, such that any shame or guilt I’ve suffered for not having done better sooner is well-deserved. Have they forgiven me? Yes. Have I forgiven myself? Yes. Have they forgotten? Absolutely NOPE, nor shall they ever, and nor shall I. If they have to remember everything, then why should I be afforded the luxury of “I FUCKED UP MY KIDS AMNESIA”?
That being said, if, like me, you have fucked up your kids but are able to acknowledge, account, and atone for it, indeed I believe there is mercy and grace to be found. Owning up to my parenting flubs and “remembering everything” with them is what keeps me growing forward as a stronger, wiser, and healthier mom who is determined to break the generations of cyclically egregious parenting on my tree. Let’s face it, people, you can’t fix something you don’t think is broken, and that includes ourselves. De-NILE was for little baby Moses, my friends, and in a basket I am not.
Meanwhile, I am talking about the seriously life-altering and mind-bending crimes committed against children at the hands of “mothers” that NO CHILD deserves to suffer through. Here are just a few that come to mind:
🤮 Throwing them in the trash or just leaving them out in the freezing fucking cold on a curb or a doorstep!
🤮 Murdering them, drowning them, choking them, burning them, burying them alive, locking them in closets, caging or chaining them up like animals, starving them, or “sticking stuff” in places stuff isn’t supposed to be stuck in them!
🤮 Coat-hanger SLAUGHTERING them or letting a medically sanctioned hitman SHANK them late-term in utero through their already formed tiny skulls, beating hearts, seeing eyes, hearing ears, and feeling spinal cords!
None of these horrors are forgivable to me, and even a crocodile mommy instinctively knows better than to intentionally torment a life she bears in such detestable ways. Look, there’s NO such thing as a perfect mom, because after all, most of us are only human. But sooner or later, even the worst of us wrecking ball mommies can grow up, take a sobering look at the body count on the battlefield of our children’s lives and the failed flights we caused, APOLOGIZE, move on, then just do fucking BETTER!
It is my avid prayer that these THINGS will eventually be dealt with accordingly and made to pay for their crimes against the humanity they made and BROKE! I can’t imagine that God will take such travesties lightly, as when He blessed women with a womb, it would seem that He did so with the intention of populating the world, NOT destroying it. I literally have no sympathy whatsoever for “things” posing as “people” that deliberately and intentionally violate, traumatize, or cause harm to actual human beings without remorse.
I’ll never forget the day in 2016 when my secretly crumbling husband, whose own mother THING discarded him, heard it for the first time while we were driving. The stoic tears that fell from his eyes in that moment still haunt me. After that, he would play it often and always said it made him think about the “IT” that birthed him. Now, I’m not saying that every child of a mother THING grows up to be a monster, but the truth is many do. I’m also not saying that my husband was a monster, but in the end there was a monster living inside his head that he felt he had to stop from hurting us any further, and thus the bullet to his head.
Dear Mothers:
Remember … WE CREATED THEM! They are pieces of what we are. We’re their Sun, their Moon, their Earth, their stars, and the actual air they breathe. We make them. We can break them. Be mindful of the power that you wield!
Are YOU a mother THING? If so, here’s hoping that the fate you meet is far greater than anything you ever did to one of your own. Also? YOU’RE FUCKING GROSS! Are you the child of a mother THING? YOU DIDN’T DESERVE THAT! Just because everyone isn’t as openly angry at the THING that was supposed to love you more than her own life itself, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t thought of, cared for, prayed over, and deeply loved by more mothers than you will ever know. Don’t you DARE let yourself be defined by the monster that brought you into this world or think for one minute that God didn’t see that.
MONSTER
Under the knife I surrendered. The innocence yours to consume. You cut it away and you filled me up with hate. Into the silence you sent me. Into the fire consumed. You thought I’d forget, but it’s always in my head. You’re the pulse in my veins. You’re the war that I wage. Can you change me? Can you change me? You’re the love that I hate. You’re the drug that I take. Will you cage me? Will you cage me? You’re the pulse in my veins. You’re the war that I wage. Can you change me? Can you change me from the monster you made me? The monster you made me? This is the world you’ve created. The product of what I’ve become. My soul and my youth? Seems it’s all for you to use. If I could take back the moment I’d let you get under my skin. Relent or resist? Seems the monster always wins. You’re the pulse in my veins. You’re the war that I wage. Can you change me? Can you change me? You’re the love that I hate. You’re the drug that I take. Will you cage me? Will you cage me? You’re the pulse in my veins. You’re the war that I wage. Can you change me? Can you change me from the monster you made me? From the monster you made me? My heart’s an artifice, a decoy soul. I lift you up and then I let you go. I’ve made an art of digging shallow holes. I’ll drop the darkness in and watch it grow. Who knew the emptiness could be so cold? I’ve lost the parts of me that make me whole. I am the darkness. I’m a monster. {Starset}
Ain’t it funny how things happen? I mean, c’mon, people … do any of you still only believe in random coincidence?
As I’m sitting here writing this, I’m yummily wrapped up in one of the king’sgrey sweaters that, on any other given Monday, would have traveled in Gia’s backpack to her dad’s house. But for the fact that I just happened to be doing laundry last night instead of on my regularly scheduled Sunday, it wouldn’t have been here to greet me this morning when I decided to make it a “grey day” and stay home to enjoy the peaceful oblivion of my happily solitary existence.
Meanwhile, I popped onto Instagram earlier today only to find that while I was busy “queening” around the castle in one of the best grey highs I’ve had in months, the universe had delivered yet another powerful Death Punch moment. Today marked the release of the official “Brighter Side Of Grey” video:
It’s hard to believe that our last record “F8” came out over 2 years ago in the beginning of 2020, born into the whirlwind of events that dominated our lives and will echo into the rest of our history. Those of you intimately familiar with that album, now know how some of F8’s dystopian lyrics became rather prophetic. Brighter Side of Grey was an important song on that record, but especially personal to Ivan (who’s the only parent in the band). It is a more than fitting commentary to what’s going on in the world that probably needs a good reminder right about now that we are here only for second, a tiny blip on the flow of time… not just as individuals but as an entire species.It took a trillion conditions to be just right for human life to exist in this Universe, yet it takes just one to go terribly wrong and make it all disappear. This song also serves as the perfect bridge to our new album we just finished this week, which generally revolves around similar existential questions. It’s incredible how much we don’t understand about our own existence, yet everyone’s relationship with the concept of death permeates, even orients their entire lives. Can’t wait to share it… enjoy this video and stay tuned for new music and big tour announcements in the very near future!
In case you still haven’t gotten the memo, this isn’t just another song, and grey isn’t just a color. “The Brighter Side Of Grey” is an entire mindset and way of life for me:
Grey is not just a color to me – IT’S EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN! It’s the grace I’ve received that is so undeserved yet given to me anyway by The One who has never loved me with black and white conditions. He “takes the best parts of me and locks them away without the key” and I know that He is never far away. He’s the Light that shines ahead of my journey and dilutes the blackness of the abyss into the most beautiful shades of grey. For more than four decades, I lived a black and white existence with no room for the forlorn grey I knew I needed but didn’t know how to connect with. As I look back at this picture now, I’m filled with the most unbelievable solace you can imagine. It reminds me of just how far I’ve come, that it was always supposed to be this way, and there is always a “Brighter Side Of Grey”. I’m not gonna lie … it is now my final wish that when it’s time for me to move along, this is the last song I hear as they bid me farewell.
I could keep going on about the grey of it all, but honestly, I’m so done writing about it.
Now, I just want to live in it.
I want to sit back, relax, and inhale all my life nuggets of goodness.
Today is a good day in the music world, people. Not just for the factions of knuckleheads like me who’ve been anxiously waiting for this video, but likewise for anyone who sees it, hears the words, and really bites into its sobering and bittersweet message.
This life we’re living really is just a blip, and yes, the lights will go down. So do everything in your power to make sure that when that door closes behind you for the very last time, you leave a light on for your people—not just a darkened void. That’s how you’ll become “nothing, everything, and ALL of it” and leave this place better than you found it.
The Shawshank Redemption was Zack’s favorite movie of all time. To him, it screamed “hope” in every circumstance. And despite the obviously tragic ending, trust me when I tell you that he tried not to literally lose his mind and fall apart the way he did. Ironically, we watched it together for probably the twentieth time the weekend before he died, and he cried the whole way through it. Looking back, I know in my heart that, as he was watching it for the very last time, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to hang on much longer, and that all the “hope” he had tried so hard to find was fast coming to a screeching halt. We’d talked incessantly about what he was feeling in his heart and mind, and towards the end, he just kept saying it felt like he was trapped inside a prison. Five nights later, he was gone.
In here is where it makes the most sense … you need it so you don’t forget … that there are places in the world that aren’t made out of stone … that there’s something inside that they can’t get to … they can’t touch … it’s yours … hope.
Having done a little investigating, I was able to speak with one of the first responders at the scene the morning of August 23rd, who was kind enough to answer some of the questions I needed answers to. He said that when they found him, the car was still running, and the opera music playing inside was so loud they could hear it through the windows. I can’t know for certain what Zack was listening to at the end. But knowing him, I have often imagined it was his favorite musical masterpiece of all, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro—the music from his favorite scene in the movie:
Here’s the thing …
There are so many questions I’ll never have answers to, and even more things I’ll never understand. Only God and Zack know what was going through his mind while he was alone in that car during those last dark hours, minutes, and seconds. Even if it’s true that I will see him again in another place and time, and even if I do get to meet God one day, there is still no assurance that ponderings such as these will be part of the conversations to be had—much less that I’ll even know I once pondered them at all. In “the opera scene,” Red said …
I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. I like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it.
Likewise, I have no idea what Zack was really thinking about—or “listening to”—in the very last seconds of his life. I never will. But I’d like to think …
He was thinking about something so beautiful it just couldn’t be expressed in words. That despite how badly his heart was aching, perhaps he could still see a Light at the end of the very dark tunnel his life on Earth had become—and maybe that Light was the last bit of “hope” he was clinging to.
On a beautiful Wednesday afternoon exactly one year ago today, “the music wheel of destiny” stopped my world—and my heart—and sent me straight into the breakdown lane of one of the busiest highways in Dallas so that I could literally “cry my eyes out.” It was as if Zach were singing this beautifully haunting melody to me, my daughter, and my son in a message from “The Brighter Side of Grey“—where, in our hearts, we know he finally is. If you haven’t ever heard this song by Five Finger Death Punch, I cannot urge you enough to listen to it, especially if you are at odds with yourself over the legacy you are going to be leaving behind for your own children and loved ones.
Today I celebrate!
TODAY I’M THANKFUL!
Today I’ll stay grey, just like the sky in Dallas as I write this, because if I’ve learned anything in my “fifty-ONE-derful” years of life, it’s that life really ISN’T a game—it’s a song. And I fully intend to enjoy every single chord until I reach The Brighter Side of every fucked-up, twisted moment of my absurd and beautiful life.
Since COVID crashed our concert last year, Gia still hasn’t read the letter Zach wrote before he left. She knows this song exists, but she isn’t allowed to listen to it until she can first hear Ivan Moody sing it live on stage. That will be the night I finally let her read the words he wrote to her “in case he was gone tomorrow.” PLEASE listen to this song, my friends. It may just change the trajectory of your own legacy and how you look at “grey” forever.
Some days I rise with all the words I need to say just pouring out of my soul, and often because of a dream. Like today, which would have been our 10th wedding anniversary. It’s been just over a year on this road I never planned to travel, and though I knew it was fast approaching, I also knew it would be a major turning point in my final ascent out of the darkness and into The Light. Let me tell you how my beautifully shattered life works …
To begin, indeed, I dreamt last night, but not before closing my eyes to the ethereal sound of my daughter and her crew’s Halloween shenanigans up above. Lol. Did I ever tell you that one of the very few flaws with Williamson Manor is that Gia’s theatre and game rooms are directly above my bedroom? YUP! They are! As it turns out, though, it’s not a flaw at all! Believe it or not, especially in these last 438 days, those echoes of stomping, laughing, and chaos into the wee hours of so many nights are but a lullaby to me. It’s why he built this home “from the ground up,” and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Knowing she’s here, happy, safe, and whole is one of the realities that comforts me the most.
Damnit, I’ve digressed. Where was I? Oh, my dream! I was front row center at a Five Finger Death Punch show, but instead of a traditional concert venue, it was an intimate gathering where Ivan was singing to me:
The widow’s life ticks out like clockwork … a thousand tears she’s cried a hundred times before. But now that he is gone, she’s ready to move on …
As he was singing, a single tear fell from his eye, but it wasn’t Ivan’s face I was seeing. It was Zack’s face on Ivan’s body holding that legendary “tuning fork mic stand” of his in one hand, while reaching out to me with the other like a muse calling out to her daughter. He was practicing “the great alchemy,” just like he always does, and delivered a message from The Cosmos straight to my heart and soul. It was the most absurdly beautiful insanity imaginable! In the dream, I was thinking to myself, “This HAS to mean something, but what?”
Then, I woke up and I KNEW!
In order to fully appreciate where I’m going with this, you must understand that I am led solely by intuition and feelings. Call me a spiritualist. Call me a “good witch.” Call me a “practical magician.” Call me whatever in actual Heaven or Hell that you want. It’s my truth, and it’s never gonna change:
In everything there is a meaning, in every moment a message, and something means everything, even if it’s nothing!
Am I bat-shit effing crazy? Perhaps I am. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter, and let me tell you why: What if I’m RIGHT? What if it’s true? What if the Cosmos really is speaking to me? What if it really is Zack communicating with us through the fog and the crows and the lights in the bathroom? That, my friends, is the “crazy” blind faith that costs me nothing but gains me everything! Sooner or later, I, too, will cross on over, and either I’m right or I am wrong about everything I believe. Meanwhile, just after waking from that most ethereal dream, this was right beside my bed. It’s nothing, really. Nothing at all. Just one of Gia’s bracelets that either Good Cat or Bad Cat must have found and deposited at the exact spot my foot hit the ground. “C’mon, Cat, it’s just a bracelet.” Ya think? But why did it show up in the “endless” twist of “F8” that way? Hmm?
So, with that …
Ten years ago today, I kissed a frog who turned into a king. Five years ago today, that king turned me into a princess. Today I woke up from a dream on the edge of literal “eternity.” With that, I was reminded of the endless joy he brought to my life that I get to keep until it’s my time to see the brighter side of grey. There will never be a day that I’m not eternally grateful for the true love and immeasurable gifts he left me with, not the least of which is the fire he lit in my soul that will light my way through every darkness. Loving that man changed my life forever, so it’s no wonder that losing him has done the same.
Today is the day!
I think it’s finally time for me to start moving on, whatever that actually means, and I’ve asked God to just keep leading my way. My heart is completely open to anything and everything, but as for now I’ll just keep inhaling every moment one precious breath at a time and holding each one in for as long as possible, for I know full well that every time I exhale, I’ll be making the space for whatever is out there waiting for me. Knowing God the way I do, the chances are high that whatever it is will be extraordinary. In the meantime, win, lose, or draw, this is the beautiful picture of me that I’m always going to love the most and the “me” I’m going to punctuate the world with!
Happy anniversary, Zachariah, my love. I don’t mind you hanging with us as long as you feel it’s necessary, but hey—don’t wait for me here. I’ll be there soon enough!
CROSSING OVER
All perched alone he sits there broken. An eldered man with storm clouds setting in his eyes. He counts the sands of time – remembering days gone by. It seemed like yesterday before it washed away. Hey, don’t wait for me there – just find your own way. Hey, don’t wait for me there – ’cause I’ll be there soon enough. The widow’s life ticks out like clockwork. A thousand tears she’s cried a hundred times before. But now that he is gone, she’s ready to move on. It all just fell away – it seems like yesterday. {Five Finger Death Punch}
No, just kidding. But seriously. Today is my birthday … “Fifty-ONE-Derful” years old! Indeed, I am “FIFTY-ONE-DERFUL”! With that, I want to share something special that happened in my cosmos in the last 24 hours. As I’m writing this, I’ve got “Butterfly Kisses” playing in the background, and yes, I’m in tears …
It’s probably not much of a surprise to anyone that, depending on which moment you’d have asked, I either was or wasn’t looking forward to celebrating myself this year. Although technically this is my second birthday without him, at this time last year I was just 27 days post “YOU KNOW” and still being severely medicated to actual physical numbness. I am actually considering this to be my first true “birthday without him.”
Happy birthday, me! You’re now a WIDOW!
As I’ve powered down this road no one ever wants to walk and risen so far above all these ashes, there came a point this year when I was determined to CELEBRATE “Fifty-ONE-Derful” in an obnoxiously spectacular way! I’d even gone so far as to ASK for someone to throw me a party, which was so unlike me that there really are no words … except to say that if you know me at all, you know that I don’t like to celebrate my own birthday. In my mind, however, I more than deserved an obnoxious celebration, especially given the fact that my big “FIVE-0” last year was anything but golden! Instead of standing before The Lion Of Lucerne during what was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime he had planned and paid for one full year in advance, I spent the vast majority of that day lying in bed alone just staring at the urn on my nightstand.
But you see, if there was just one thing you should know about my husband, it was that both of our birthdays—mine and Gia’s—were all but national holidays in our home. Not a year went by in the ten years we had him “healthy” that he didn’t pour every ounce of his heart and soul—and whatever resources he had—into making sure that “his girls” were celebrated emphatically for all that we meant to his existence. Keep in mind that until he had “us,” no one really celebrated him on his birthday, and that, my friends, is one of the most painful, tragic truths that still haunts me to this day. That “thing” that gave birth to him didn’t even remember the day he was born.
Keep in mind that I am very much aware that under the circumstances, “birthdays” this year must have stunk for everyone … not just me. COVID-19 crashed all of our parties and celebrations. I was still a little bummed, though, if not downright sorry for myself as I was sulking in my room yesterday just staring at his urn:
Then, I closed my eyes and fell asleep praying to God that I could just zap myself back to two years ago yesterday. THEN IT HAPPENED! It was the birthday gift I never saw coming or knew I was gonna need! In the midst of my nap, in the darkened room with my husband’s ashes beside me, the angel I call daughter had quietly found her way to the side of my bed, adjusted my blanket, and then leaned over to gently kiss my forehead.
As I’ve said so many times before, there are so many parts of this journey we are on that no one will ever truly understand. So many delicate conversations that we have yet to have, and maybe we never will. Things she knows. Things I know. Things we both just have to be okay “knowing” may never be spoken about at all. The complications with Zack’s insanity have forced us to nurture some of each other’s wounds quietly, so her checking on me yesterday the way that she did was the most precious “unspoken” nurturing of all. She didn’t—and still doesn’t—know that I was aware of what she did, but it happened nonetheless.
And just like that, my former worry that I’d never be celebrated again hit the floor in the best way possible … kinda like my heart did when she gifted me with exactly what I needed at exactly the perfect time! Perhaps the greatest irony here is that, even as I’m writing this, she, too, is a little disappointed in herself because she wasn’t able to do anything special for my birthday. Gia, I’m not sure when you’ll finally begin reading this “love letter” I’m writing to you and your brother, but when that day comes, please know THAT I KNOW exactly what you did yesterday when you thought I was asleep! You did do something special for me, if not one of the most special things of my last “Fifty-One-Derful” years. I love you, Mona Lisa, and I see you.
…. when it’s 365 days later and your formerly “shattered heart” has healed in ways you have yet to fathom, such that now, as you’re sifting through the “9 years of joy in his eyes,” you are simply and unspeakably THANKFUL!
I’m thankful for the honor of being one of the ONLY two girls he ever gave his heart to, and that we were his first and last of EVERYTHING:
After realizing how I really felt about Gia as my child and realizing that no one in my life ever felt that for me it hit me that you were the first and only person in my life that ever truly loved me, chose me as THE top priority in their life and fought to help me get over myself but also fought to protect me from anything and everything harmful or defamatory including myself. Even though you didn’t do it for me you brought my daughter in to this world and promoted that relationship that I didn’t even know that I wanted and needed so bad until now. You made me a parent and it turned out that was the greatest thing that ever happened to me next to falling in love with you and your daughter. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for fostering my relationship with Gia and being there for me even when I was impossible to live with. I don’t deserve a lot of the things you have done and been for me and I will always owe you for everything.
This has been all but impossible to digest, and nope, I will never turn a corner or look in any direction and not hear the sounds of their laughter, see the traces of their smiles, or feel the bond that they shared in my atmosphere.
I’m here again, a thousand miles away from You. A broken mess – just scattered pieces of who I am. I tried so hard. Thought I could do this on my own. I’ve lost so much along the way. Then I’ll see Your face – I know I’m finally Yours. I find everything I thought I lost before. You call my name – I come to You in pieces so You can make me whole. I’ve come undone, but You make sense of who I am. Like puzzle pieces in Your eye. Then I’ll see Your face – I know I’m finally Yours. I find everything I thought I lost before. You call my name – I come to You in pieces so You can make me whole! I tried so hard! So hard! {Red}
It was a super early morning as we awoke to a 4:30 a.m. alarm for a 5:00 a.m. departure to her 5:30 a.m. practice. While Gia was getting ready, I popped onto Instagram to find the picture above, which literally hit me like a ton of bricks. You see, just before waking, I’d been enjoying a blissfully enchanted slumber, during which my husband had conveyed a message to me in the most surreal of ways.
It was him. I just know it! I could smell his skin, sense his touch, and feel his breath on my face. While I won’t go into detail—because, believe it or not, there are many things I’ll keep safe inside the most private places of my heart—in this fantasy he had been shadowing me as I moved from one house to another.
He was there … but he wasn’t. I could see him … but I couldn’t. Yet, at every turn I’d made that day, his presence was lingering behind me in a haunting but not frightening way. At the end, what had ’til then only been an eclipse of his presence turned into his physical body. There we both stood tightly embraced with our hands locked together when I asked this most profound question:
I know where you are … I believe it in my heart … but I just NEED to hear you say it. Am I right? Are you There now? WILL I SEE YOU AGAIN SOMEDAY?
I didn’t hear his voice, as he never spoke a word, but, indeed, he communicated in the sacred “1-2-3 hand squeeze” we’d shared during our season. His answer to my question was emphatic: “One squeeze for yes,” not “two squeezes for no,” right on cue to my prompt.
As this first year without him has all but flown by, I’ve made absolute peace with his suicide. The heartbreaking pain of his manytragic truths was so far beyond sobering that it still reduces me to tears to sit with. Unless or until you’ve borne the cross of seeing a person dying out loud in the egregious way that he did, you couldn’t possibly understand the magnitude of relief I felt upon the release of his mortal shackles. He had held on for dear life as long as he possibly could until the day he died, but when the end of his darkness finally settled in, Fate stepped in with the blow.
Still, let’s go back to how this morning with Gia even started. We’d backed out of the garage to find ourselves greeted by a bright orange moon on fire and an ethereal setting in the field that abuts our driveway. We were so connected that it was alarming, but also comforting. The intrinsic conversation that soon unfolded tapped directly into our understandings of “all of this,” yet reached far beyond what our simply dimensioned minds could fathom. She knows what I know, and I know what she knows, which is ALL either of us needs to know. It’s so powerful.
Keep in mind that the first song that cued up when the engine started today was “Remember Everything.” That had to have meant something … I just knew it! Suffice to say, though, that neither of us can listen to it now without being reminded of everything we remember about not just our lives, but Zack’s and Christian’s as well. But here’s where it gets even more interesting. After I’d dropped her off and was headed home, that other song I love to hate found its way to my speakers:
The Tragic Truth.
IT DIDN’T MAKE ME CRY THIS TIME! Instead, I just smiled as I rolled on down the road with my gaze fixed hard into the sky from which I heard his voice serenading me with those tragically truthful words:
It’s the demons I’ve created for myself … the Tragic Truth … it’s hard for me to understand myself, so it has to be hard as hell for you.
All I can tell you is that my intersection with the Cosmos this morning was everything! Even as I write this, I’m smiling again, because while on the surface it may appear that the demons that devoured him won, nothing could be farther from the truth. The rare few of us who really knew him and were honored to both love and be loved by him know a “truth” that is much more beautiful than tragic: HE’S HOME NOW! No more sorrow. No more pain. No more tears. No more aching for the “family” who abandoned the “Zack Of Shit.” No more voices screaming inside his head.
My “circadian life” is so much bigger than I will ever know, and my adventure still isn’t over. All it took was one cryptic message from The Cosmos to remind me, yet again, that I’m an incredibly blessed widow. In case I’ve never said this, let me say it now: I truly believe that I’m God’s favorite daughter, even despite the many circumstances in my life that seem to prove otherwise. For this, I am as eternally grateful as I am for the true and immense love I still feel that continually travels the distance from light years away.
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 your 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 final spin of the wheel that ultimately led not only to his demise, but to the end of the most beautiful chapter of my life. Looking back, I can say the very first hint of change in him was June 5, 2014, because 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 that year. But it wasn’t really until May 12th of the previous year that he started coming apart at the seams. I remember that morning as if it were right now—exactly where he was standing, what he was wearing, the angst on his face, what he was saying, and the tears falling from his eyes. Suffice it to say, Mother’s Day 2019 marked 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, because 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 knew them. The general consensus about all your other Williamsons—the ones you actually managed to want? “They’re selfish, shallow, greedy, social-climbing wannabes 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 what people would say about them, were among 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. Suffice it to say, every Mother’s Day hurt him the most—even more 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. Not a Mother’s Day passed after 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 I understood how deeply he revered my role—not just in his life, but in 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,” had abandoned him for reasons 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—not only to hear the stories of his maternal abandonment and childhood, but to watch, live, and experience the abysmal things his “family” did to him. 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 met any one of them without knowing who they really were, they’d probably be 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 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 not knowing 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 about the things that lived 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—that 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 he never really knew what to do with. So he would tear them up and put them in the garbage as he left the school grounds, watching all the other kids being greeted by their mommies while he walked home to nothing, all alone.
When your “son” was just a boy, he would go to his friends’ birthday parties 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 of 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}
THIS PICTURE. I sketched it in my early 20s using the literal ashes from both my father’s and His ashtrays. At the time, I had no idea what an impact this or any of my 32 Sketches would have on me down the road. Yet as I look at them now, I can’t help but notice that although I was in a very dark place when they were born, something trapped deep inside me was hopeful.
My disease imprisoned me in dichotomous thinking and held me for ransom in the little boxes inside my mind where I stored all my pain and trauma. Before I put it into remission, I was unable to accept people, situations, emotions, or behaviors as anything other than “good or bad,” “right or wrong,” or “one way or the other.” My entire life was black and white with no room for the grey! I had a defensive view of both the positive and negative qualities of myself and everyone else, and there was no way for my broken psyche to allow anything in between to exist in one cohesive space.
They’d “wash their hands of me” when I screwed up or failed to follow the rules, with zero validation or consideration of my feelings. My mind would “split” as I desperately attempted to shield myself from the constant fear of being abandoned, betrayed, or eviscerated by anyone who claimed to love me. While I don’t believe these traumas were inflicted intentionally, they were real nonetheless, as was the effect they had on my psyche.
I’d pre-ordered their new album months ago, had been counting the days until its release, and was stoked to finally get to listen to it cover to cover while running errands today.
Then, when “The Brighter Side of Grey” cued up, I had to pull my car into the breakdown lane as the words began cutting me in all the most bittersweet ways. I couldn’t stop the tears and physical heartache, and literally couldn’t breathe. It was one of the most cathartic, fucked up, and beautiful gifts of my life.
Someday, when it’s time for her to read the letter he wrote but never gave her, I’ll let her hear the song. Knowing God the way I do, I believe that when she’s finally able to receive these most alchemical lyrics of both our lives in conjunction with the most impeccable words a secretly dying father could have possibly written to his daughter, they’ll become as significant a part of her healing as they’ve been of mine.
For more than four decades, I lived a black-and-white existence with no room for the grey I knew I needed but didn’t know how to connect with. The grey is where I found all my truths. As I look back at this picture now, I’m filled with the most unbelievable solace imaginable. It reminds me of just how far I’ve come, that it was always supposed to be this way, and that there’s always a brighter side to all of this bittersweet and beautiful grey. It is now my final wish that when it’s time for me to move along, this is the last song I’ll hear as they bid me farewell.
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.” Suffice it 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 clearly and vividly remember was sitting in a room alone, trying to get ahold of myself and wrap my head around what was happening to my family. Then, just before midnight, I felt it. I had an adrenaline 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 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. This was, in fact, the worst feeling I had ever felt in my life. Thank you for asking, and I apologize if this was a little “heavy.”
My own husband, Zachariah, who I lost to suicide on August 22, 2019. He was the Godsend game changer for me and my two kids, larger than life with a heart of gold, but had been abandoned by the “mother THING” that (not “who”) left him for good at 18 months. While I suppose his father did the best he could with the lack of parenting skills he had, he was then and is still but a child himself, and even managed to leave his son behind in death. Growing up, my husband was left alone frequently from a very young age, and his basic needs were never properly tended to. Eventually, even his siblings discarded him.
The abandonment issues that led to his mental illness were further complicated by the fact that for some unknown reason the “mother” managed 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 his father or 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 haunted him incessantly. This heartless, selfish, and shallow brood of people shattered his heart into pieces that could never be fully put back together.
There were demons living in the hole they burned in 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 some type of psychosis or 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 literally 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 he visited upon her in his final “separated from self” state of mind is beyond comprehension, and one that may take her a lifetime to heal from.
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 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.
Yesterday, I saw a post that really punched me in the face. Yes, that pun was intended. It was a super cool canvas rendition of the fight between Rocky and Ivan Drago, and after having thought about it literally all day and night, this is what I’ve come up with …
Gia and I are huge Rocky fans, as was Zack. Rocky IV is my favorite, because in my mind I have always felt it’s been “me against the Devil” in both the brightest and darkest moments of my life, and he’s the one always saying to me, “I MUST BREAK YOU”! Yet, I refuse to let him take me down!
Ironically, one of my favorite songs, “No Easy Way Out”, is from the Rocky IV soundtrack. The Sunday night before he killed himself, it was playing in the car on our way home from the gym. He was crying as he squeezed my hand three times (“I – Love – You”). Five nights later, he was gone. The mask came off and his fight was over. Meanwhile, I’ve listened to this song on repeat the last 62 days, just thinking, reflecting, remembering, and “wanting to know why”. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter, does it? Zack’s fighting days are done. He lost. Went down. Tapped out. Still, my fighting days are not done yet, ’cause guess what, people? I’M STILL HERE! Am I bloodied and bruised with black eyes, a fat lip, and some scars that are here for the rest of my lifetime? Absolutely!
I really AM God’s favorite daughter! This “risen to power and grace” divine apostrophe I’ve become is all HIS doing, I just know it. There IS no explanation as to why I, too, haven’t taken the easy way out after all of the years of pain and suffering that tried to snuff me out. God just handed me this heavyweight belt I wear for what reason I will never understand. Zero did I earn it … zero do I deserve it … but speaking of great fighters, Jean-Claude Van DAMN I’m honored to have it! It’s the most valuable thing I possess! It cost HIM everything and me NOTHING, other than my completely blind faith in “the process”. Some don’t understand this, and, in fact, may think it’s CRAZY for me to believe in something I can’t see or touch. I can’t see or touch the wind either, but its effects are very real! So, with that, I am Rocky, the devil is Ivan Drago, the God I serve is the referee, and I … am … WINNING!
This is no joke, but last night Gia and I had an encounter with a real angel …
“Cassiel”
I have always believed in angels, and so has she, but this was just surreal. The scariest part is that when we looked into who this “Cassiel” being was, what we found was beyond astonishing! In the accounts we found, he’s not just any angel, you see, but rather, the archangel known for watching the events of the cosmos unfold with little to no interference. He’s the angel of solitude and tears said to preside over the deaths of kings and the patron angel of “all manner of overlooked people,” or those in weakened states, including orphaned children and the downtrodden. Those accounts also associate Cassiel with the planet Saturn, as they do Zazel, a spirit of Saturn described in that lore as preying on the psychologically weak and mentally ill.
In those accounts, Cassiel’s planetary number just happens to be 8, which, turned on its side, is infinity. This wasn’t only Zack’s favorite number, but he was supposed to be getting an infinity tattoo with my name on one end and Gia’s on the other on August 23rd had he not left us. Eight was also his Life Path Number, and Gia and I have been seeing 8s everywhere. Lest we also forget that he made his decision to die on August 8th … “8/8.” Perhaps we’re both insane, but Gia and I are both at home today feeling a bit ethereal in the best possible way.
May the tears he cried for his “family” darken every day of your SELFISH lives and the shadow of his face staring back when you look in your EMPTY mirrors never cease to remind you of the “ZACK OF SHIT” you threw away! THIS is how you “loved”:
To learn more about the lifelong and often irreversible effects on children abandoned by their “mothers”:
