I know this probably isn’t the best place to vent but I really need an outlet, please forgive me. I arrived home early from work today preparing for a hunting trip. I had just taken my suit coat off and tossed my keys on the kitchen table when I heard a series of blood curdling screams coming from across the street. I glanced out the living room window to see my neighbor running back and forth between the garage and her house frantically, screaming and then crying. I went outside and crossed the street making my way up the long, steep driveway. I saw her husband in the garage and asked him what was wrong. I felt my skin grow cold as I noticed that his skin was gray and his lips were blue. His eyes bulged out partially, magnified by the thick glasses he always wore. It was then I realized he was suspended about a foot off the garage floor with a cord around his neck. He was dead. She had come home; opened the garage door to find her husband of 41 years hanging from the garage ceiling. I stood there staring at my neighbor for several heartbeats trying to convince my mind that what I was seeing was a trick, an illusion. It wasn’t. Another scream snapped me from my morbid trance and I went inside the house. My neighbor was in tears screaming “Oh my God,” and then speaking in rapid Portuguese. I had my cell phone in my pocket and managed to call 9-1-1 and then simply held this poor woman as she cried and cried and cried, constantly asking me “Why, why, oh why did he do this? Forty-one years… Why did he do this?” I didn’t have any answers. I asked if there was somebody I could call. She gave me her cell phone and told me to call Peter and Lisa, her children. She could barely talk and was hyperventilating in between shrieks and tears. I saw their names on the electronic phone book. These were two calls I dreaded making, I would have to tell two people their father was dead; why was I doing this? I looked over at her and gently touched her frail shoulder. A woman’s voice answered the phone and I identified myself and simply said that I had some sad news, her father had passed away and that I was with Lela and she needed to come to the house immediately. I didn’t think the time was appropriate to get into the messy details. I felt her tears and heard her voice crack. She asked to speak to her Mother, and I handed Lela the phone. The old woman was still too upset and anguished to speak. I took the phone back and Lisa was now crying; I told her I’d called the police and would remain with her mother until they arrived. I repeated the same morbid phone call to Peter and as I hung up the phone a sickening thought occurred to me; there were going to be kids getting off a school bus in about ten minutes and the body was clearly visible from the street if one looked directly into the garage. I had to go back out to the garage and manually shut the door, walking by the hanging deceased. I prayed for the police to hurry up get here. At this point another neighbor had wandered over, Pauline from two houses down. She was busy providing Lela with what little comfort she could while I waited by the front door for the police. After what seemed like an eternity three police cars and an ambulance finally arrived. Now every neighbor stuck their heads out the front doors and every passing car had to slow down. The circus had begun. The police tried asking Lela questions but she was too upset to answer anything; her world had just come careening into a brick wall, her life just took a sudden detour down a tragic road that would change the course of her life, forever. The police asked me several questions, took my name and number etc. Thankfully, her daughter lived nearby and came into the house, a few minutes later another family friend arrived, no doubt called by Lisa en route. Pauline and I made a discreet exit; Lela needed her loved ones now, I’d done all I can. I’m sitting her at my keyboard and all I can hear are her words, “Why” over and over again, I keep seeing her husband, the proud man who always had the greenest lawn and the neatest shrubs and always a smile for everyone, hanging lifeless from that rope. Why. Why aren’t I crying, why aren’t I riddled with hideous remorse over the sights I saw? I was calm and almost unphased. Why is it that I can’t seem to find any emotion over the events of this afternoon, why the fuck am I still numb? A man died and I saw his body, I held his weeping widow and forever impacted his children with one phone call. Why don’t I feel anything except this guilt over feeling nothing? All of a sudden life isn’t so funny. | 
