We got the call late Tuesday that Joey’s body would be released by the Medical Examiner’s office the next morning.  I spoke to the Mortuary about seeing Joey and if we wanted to dress him and such.  I told them to call me once he arrived and then we would go from there.  When they called he said they had done a full autopsy and taken a lot of bones.  I told him we didn’t want to dress him.  There is no way I wanted to have a final impression of my son feeling sagging limbs due to missing parts we donated.

Trace, Carlie, TJ and I went together to see Joey.  My brother Jeremiah drove us.  What a wicked thing to have to do.

There is nothing from the moment of conception, the moment when you first feel life flutter inside you, nothing for all the nights you stayed awake holding him when his ears hurt, nothing for all the hours, days and years you have loved and cared for your child that can prepare you to stand over their cold dead body in the basement of a morgue.

To say it was hard, terrible, horrific or brutal doesn’t come close to what it felt like to now fully grasp this was real.  This was really my pup, this is really Joey.  He really shot himself in the chest and ended his life.  The need to touch him to will his eyes to open and for him to sit up and make a joke was overwhelming.  I stood still while anguish and disbelief rolled over me.  Sobs were wretched from deep inside us as we stood together looking at his lifeless body.

The white sheet covered him up to his neck.  Here before us was all of his six foot one and a half inches of our beautiful baby boy.  As I looked at his freckles, his bushy eye brows, touched his face and put my fingers through this handsome thick hair my heart shattered into a thousand pieces.  How, why, NO played over and over in my mind.

He had a nick on the top of his left ear.  I know that sounds so stupid.  It totally bothered me.  I didn’t want to think he hurt, that something caused him pain.  Then I thought here I am standing over my dead son who I know has a hole in his chest from a gun shot wound, whose eyes are gone, whose bones in his arms, legs and hips are missing.  Who isn’t breathing and doesn’t need a gosh dang thing any more and I am worried about a nick on his ear!

This was one of first of many moments where my thoughts and feelings felt fragmented.  I soon realized that my organized mind that likes to make sense of everything could not make sense of this so I needed other ‘details’ to grab onto.  In that agonizing moment of standing with my dead child I needed to worry if it hurt when he nicked his ear, if it happened when he collapsed after the gun shot or was it a result from the autopsy…… Part of me thought my gosh who cares.  Well, I care this is my baby.

We cried our eyes dry.  Trace, TJ and I left the room so Carlie could be alone with Joey.  She had been in town the last several days and spent so much time with him.  It was deeply shocking on so many levels that he didn’t want to live.  Standing there looking at him you could almost hear his voice, his laugh, him asking for new razors and making fun of the ‘veggie’ spaghetti Carlie and I had for dinner Sunday night.  Was that just three days ago?  It felt like a life time.

I asked if his fingerprints could be captured for us.  I wanted to have those while he was still here.  In hind sight I wish we would have gotten a casting of his hands.  Why isn’t there a hey your kid is dead and you are going to cremate him so do you want to do any of these things before he is turned to ash check list?  My gosh you can hire a handy man, a seam stress, a plumber, a roofer, a wedding planner.  Where is the death planner?  I could have done well with one or a hundred less things to think about.

A new level of pain and numbness followed us up the steps out of the Mortuary.