Wednesday came with a call that Joey’s body had been received at the morgue in Tooele.  We have not seen him.  Our minds and hearts keep saying this is some grave mistake.  There is no way our kind fun loving child took his life.

We walked down the stairs to the basement of the morgue physically shaking from the adrenaline that has been keeping us up right for days.   I felt a cold sweat come over me as I walked down the hall towards the room where my child’s cold dead body laid in wait.

Nothing can prepare you for this.  No moment from conception to birth to breast feeding to eating solid foods to walking to talking to going to school to growing up over the years can even begin to create a place where seeing your child’s lifeless body is ok.

This is NOT OK.  Trace, Carlie, TJ and I walked into the room together.   Someone made a feral sound of pure anguish.  I don’t know if it was one of us or all of us at the sight of Joey on the table with a white sheet pulled to just below his chin.

I felt like someone stole all the breath from my lungs.  I walked to his side and touched his hair, his beautiful thick hair.  Oh my beautiful baby boy is dead…. This really is real.  He really took his life.  He really isn’t coming home EVER again.  HOW CAN THIS BE?

I knew he shot himself in the chest (Yes, I understand now that in suicide safe talk we are not suppose to share the method.  Sorry, this is a literal account of what happened so this fact remains.)  I knew that bones from his arms, legs, hips were donated.  I knew his eyes were gone.  I knew a full autopsy had been performed.  Even knowing all of this he had a nick on the top of his left ear.  I didn’t want him to be hurt.  I couldn’t stand the thought of him in pain.  My logical mind said this was absurd.  My mamma’s heart was being shattered into a million pieces.

We touched his face and hair, we cried deeper and harder then we had cried in the days before.  We held onto each other while we stood over the lifeless form of one of our own.  Trace, TJ and I finally made our way out of the room letting Carlie have some time alone with her baby brother.

I wanted to stay, I wanted him to sit up, open his eyes and for this to all have been some bad dream.  Talk about leaving your heart while you walked away.

My brother Jeremiah drove us, thank goodness.  We went to the police station to pick up his phone.  My talented Aunt Taylor was putting together a video for him and needed another song.  We opened Joey’s recently played list and “Baby Come Back” by Player came on.

Talk about starting the water works back up.  I knew this was the song for his video.  Oh how I wanted my baby back.  There really was something in everything about him.

“All day long, wearing a mask of false bravado
Trying to keep up the smile that hides a tear
But as the sun goes down, I get that empty feeling again
How I wish to God that you were here