BLACK AND WHITE

This was different from when Andrew first got sick. Then he had dismissed his consideration of suicide. When I asked if he had considered suicide he said he could “never do that to you and Dad”.  

While Andrew spent the last week of his life at our house I never asked him about suicide. Looking back at that week it seems like there were many clues that Andrew was at risk that I didn't pick up on.

I believe we were all well intentioned and were doing the best we could with a difficult situation. Explicitly our goal, that is John, myself and Andrew, was always trying to improve things for Andrew.

This may actually have  been the outcome depending on how you view the afterlife. Andrew said, in his note to us, that he needed peace and wanted to set his love free and I feel like he did that.

         In some way our family dynamic implicitly and largely unconsciously, supported  the actual outcome of Andrew’s early death, for better or worse.The further I move away from Andrew’s suicide the less black and white life and death become.  In many ways I do not feel like Andrew is gone. It seems he is around me most of the time.