13* Tuesday

     Today is Tuesday, it is the day of the week I wish would never come.The day of the week that Kenny died. I stopped counting the weeks after 30something weeks passed, around that time I stopped keeping track of time all together. Some days I awake and am surprised that it is summer.Although there have been many events and happenings sometimes it feels like no time has passed at all. There are days when I have no idea the month or the day or the date. A part of my mind is still in another time. Stuck in a time that no longer exists.There are mornings I awake and I think life is what it used to be and then I see the reminders that Kenny is gone and the agonizing pain paralyzes me again. No one can come close to comprehending the pain-> that saying is bitterly true. It's the kind of pain that hits me from nowhere, no warning what-so-ever and knocks me to my feet. I double over and wail for minutes at a time with blurriness surrounding me and I have to rock back and forth to keep myself from going crazy.That can go on for hours, and has on many,many days since that horrible day that Kenny left us.
   I remember that day so well--the last burnt images in my brain. The last full day I remember. The day it happened. Tuesday, November 29,2011. Kenny slept in till 10am because his classes started at 1pm. I checked in on him around 9am (as was my habit, quietly opening his door, peeking in his room to see if he was still in bed sleeping. I did that on most days because I used to wake up much earlier than him. Shortly after he awoke, he came into the kitchen. He sat in his usual chair, the one closest to the hutch. He was a little hungry and he ate cereal; possibly Honey Bunches of Oats-that was his favorite but I'm not entirely sure. I recall, later thinking "cereal was his last meal, what a lousy last meal" and "at least he ate the last piece of pumpkin pie last night". A person can have really strange thoughts during a traumatic episode. I call the day of and surrounding days of Kenny's suicide "the Crisis'. Anyway as he ate cereal I urged him to have something else, I think I got him to add trail mix to it ( I always felt guilty when he ate only cereal before school). I drank coffee and we talked like every other morning. He said he didn't want to go to school, it was getting close to the end of the semester so I asked if he would miss anything important. He said no, so I said he should stay home. I thought that was his plan-to take the day off and hang at home. That would have been so much better that him leaving. After he ate, he went to his room where his brother, Vincent joined him. They were playing a video game or watching videos on his laptop, a typical activity before school.
   I wasn't feeling well so I was sitting on the couch and was surprised when Kenny came into the living room fully dressed with his hat and sweat jacket on. He asked for a dollar, which he sometimes did when he took the bus instead of driving. There were days when he didn't want to deal with the parking, so perfectly understandable! I mentioned that I thought he was staying home and he mumbled he'd changed his mind- hmmm... I wonder why. Well that's something I haven't thought about. Too late now. So he hurriedly went to the door without giving me a hug. I noticed he didn't have his backpack on and I said "Hey kiddo, what about your backpack?" He was in between the wood door and the screen door, one half-opened and one half-closed. He gave me an unusual grin, not quite a smile but not quite a smirk either, and said "Goodbye mom" and closed both doors. He was gone quick as a flash. Those were the last words he ever said to me.
           to be continued.............too many tears to write



 Element of the day (day 13)
#5) B-Boron (nonmetal solid): Beneficial to full health, or thought to be for plants and animals
Discovered in 1808 by Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac & L.J Thenard, France & Sir Humphry Davy, England. A rare nonmetal element. Used extensively in fire-retardants, soaps and detergents, soldering and welding, in making glass, flares and fireworks, cosmetics, plastics, paints, fertilizers, adhesives, and numerous other uses.
Chiefly found in evaporate minerals, such as ulexite and kernite, mined in the USA, Chile and Argentina, and colemanite, mined in Turkey and the USA. Other boron-bearing minerals include borax, and datorlite.