A Family Meeting

"We are having a family meeting."

It is always the family room.  Always.
 It is mid-century modern, lingering redwood scent from ashes in the fireplace.

It is always the weekend.  Always.
My brother sits to my right on our nubby sky blue couch.

And it is always bad news.  Always.
 I wonder if my brother is feeling the same stomach dropping dread?
 Does a black hole open before him as my parents explain the history of depression in our family?

My parents dropped a bomb that afternoon, the concussion of which resonates throughout my life.
 "Your grandfather did not die of a heart attack, he committed suicide."

It is always a gun.  Always.

We have faded photos of my grandfather holding my brother, his face weathered from the New Mexico sun, a laborer from the Great Depression.  You could see it in every line of his face.
I wonder in that moment if he ever held me.  It was Christmas when he left us and I was just a baby.

  "He was so sad and lonely after Grandma divorced him."

My grandfather had been the first to go, but I never knew until that day.  That gun blast resonates through three generations, harming family members in ways he would never have to know.

I am standing on the precipitate.

I carry that day with me.  Always.

A black pit opened before me, the whoosh of updraft beckons me to spread my arms and fall forward.
Maybe forever.

I learned that we can be sad in a way where we no longer want to continue.  That day I learned we can be so alone in our despair that there is no relief except at the end of a gun.

I wonder if it is ok to learn this so young.