And there they were. Out in the open. The words I had feared hearing since I was a child. My darkest nightmare was coming true. I began to crumble. As I headed toward the ground, my roommate and good friend Shawntelle rushed in the door. She pushed Brandon aside and crossed the room just in time to catch me.

So many times I have tried to articulate how I felt at that moment. Being that I’m now nearly twenty thousand words into this epistle, I figure it won’t hurt to try one more time.

Time seemed to move in slow motion, but at the same time rushed past me in triple time. Ice and fire swirled around in my brain simultaneously. My veins filled with concrete, and my muscles had turned to liquid. The world stopped moving completely, and I was stuck in that one moment interminably.

The details get a bit fuzzy, but I remember going back into Dan’s bedroom and telling him what had happened. I vaguely remember getting dressed and getting in the car with Shawntelle.

The only thing I remember about the ride from Dan’s apartment to my parents’ house was the song that was playing. In the tape player was the single of the old eighties song, “Electric Blue.” Since it was the only song on the tape, it kept looping and looping, playing and playing. I haven’t listened to that song since that day.

As we turned into the neighborhood where my parents lived, all I remember thinking was, please, God, please don’t let her body still be there, please, please, please, please. As we pulled up to the house, two police cars, a fire engine and an ambulance were parked on the curb in front of the house. I knew her body was still inside.

I still had been unable to cry. I couldn’t feel much of anything. When I walked in the front door, my family was all sitting in the living room right off the foyer. I saw my dad sitting there. When he saw me, he stood up and I ran into his arms. The moment, I mean the fraction of a second it took for my dad’s arms to envelop me, everything snapped back into focus, and my world was color again. It was like dropping an ice cube into a pan of boiling water. I began to sob. My heart broke down to levels of grief I never thought I could feel. My dad just kept saying in my ear, “it’s over. It’s over.”

I held my family and we cried together. The finality of all this came rushing in with the sun through the windows.

The paramedics were still in the other room examining my mom’s body. Any time there is a death at home; the room is automatically labeled a crime scene until law enforcement clears it. Evidently, by the time I got there, they had already been in there with her for nearly an hour.

My dad was making phone calls to friends and family, letting them know what had happened.

Shawntelle and I went outside to have a cigarette. For some reason I can’t explain, I was terrified to go outside. The sky literally felt heavy. I was afraid to look up for fear of what I might see. I expected it to come raining down on my head like Chicken Little. I remember finally mustering up the courage to look up, and just like a child, I imagined I could see teeny tiny people walking around in the clouds. Silly, but I remember doing that. Shawntelle and I sat on the back porch, smoking and not really talking. I looked up and she had tears streaming down her face. She looked helpless. We didn’t talk the entire time we were outside.

We went back inside, and what I saw made my blood boil. The neighbor, Robyn (who many of you are familiar with from the letter I wrote to her that I posted here a couple times) had rushed down the street to see what all the hubbub was about. That woman, who was one of the worst offenders in the Yard Sale Debacle, the woman who had done nothing but spread acidic gossip about my family all over the ward for years, was standing in the foyer and hugging my little brother. I wish to Christ I had said something. But, being my typical non-confrontational self, all I could do was grit my teeth and bite my tongue. My dad eventually asked her to leave.

The day wore on. More phone calls, more visits. The casseroles and cold cuts started rolling in. The last thing I could do was eat. It was all I could do to keep my empty, acidic stomach from dancing the conga inside my body.

That evening the cavalcade of family began coming in from out of town, beginning with my favorite aunt, my mom’s closest sister, Suzanne. Suzanne had been a rock for our family as long as I could remember. She supported my mom unconditionally through everything that had happened. She was like a second mother to me and my brother and sister.

I went to the airport with my sister and brother to pick her up. She came off the plane and when she saw us, broke into tears. She hugged us all and just said, “we’ll get through this together.” And I knew she meant it.

I actually have that album by Icehouse, Man of Colours. Love that song . . .been ages since I've listened to it.

Still reading. Hope you are handling the emotional roller coaster you must be on well. Even if it is always there in our minds, it is often hard to re-live it.