There are very few personal experiences in my life that stick out as being life-changing. Sure, you have moments that once they happen, your life won’t ever be the same. That’s not what I mean, though. By life-changing, I mean a specific moment in your life that after it goes by, your life changes dramatically, for better or for worse. These moments you’ll never forget, mostly because you never stop thinking about them. They are always on your mind, and they have definitely formed you into the person that you are today. Of these moments, one really sticks out in my mind.
This memory takes me back to middle school, when my life was about as low as it could ever be. I was a kid that never fit in, whose life seemed so unimportant to everyone. I grew up in a family of four children, raised by a single mom who worked so hard to support the four of us. My older brothers were always the troublemaking type, and were in a few close calls with the law over it. My sister was the youngest, a year and a half younger than me and she was the only girl; naturally, she got most of the attention from my mother. So, even while I was at home, I always felt like the outsider, the middle child.
I guess you could say that my issues were petty; now that I look back on them, some of them were. I wanted more attention from my mother, the only parent I had left. I hated school for all of the wrong reasons. My brothers never gave up an opportunity to humiliate me, and I constantly fought with my sister. I did have some legitimate issues, though. I was suffering from depression, and I was extremely self-conscious about myself. Also, I was just diagnosed with a petit mal seizure disorder in which I would randomly blank out for 20-30 seconds, which made me open to even more humiliation from my peers. I felt like I could trust nobody in the world, and I felt truly and absolutely alone.
By the end of my eighth grade year, things hadn’t improved much. High school was approaching, which was making me more nervous than ever. My mother had met a new guy, and he had moved into our home. He was an alcoholic, so he was always going into rages and I was constantly fighting with him. My brothers had both moved out of the house, but my oldest brother, Kevin, was always around and he still loved to torment me. I guess you could call it a love-hate relationship: we loved to hate each other, and we hardly ever got along. Don’t get me wrong, we did have some good times, just not very often.
June 3rd, 2006 was just an average Saturday. My mother, Kevin, and my second oldest brother, Jacob, had all gone down to the local tavern to have a good time and sing karaoke. I invited two of my closest buddies to come over and stay the night with me. All was good, and the three of us grabbed some blankets and fell asleep on our large trampoline outside under the stars. We woke up in the middle of the night, our bodies shivering because it was slightly chilly. We grabbed up our blankets and went into the house. None of us anticipated what we would wake up to the next morning.
June 4th, 2006 was definitely not an average Sunday. It is a day that will always be engraved in my head. The first thing I remember from that day was my mom blasting my door open, coming in and roughly shaking me to wake up. “JD, you need to wake up right now. I need to talk to you in the living room. Tell your friends to stay in the room.” I clearly remember the fear and anxiety her words, and I was immediately startled awake. I jumped out of bed, instructed Tommy and Bryce to stay in the room, and went directly to the living room. There, I found my family in hysterics and I found out what had happened. My mom was on the phone with the police department, and I had heard what happened: Kevin had hung himself in our garage. He had taken his own life. The police department informed us that they and a coroner were on their way, and that we were to avoid disturbing the scene.
Jake was passed out on the couch, in a deep slumber from drinking so much the night before. When he finally awoke, he ran out to the garage. We all followed him, trying to stop him. There we seen him, his cell phone lay at his feet in four different pieces. His first instinct was to hug Kevin, and he yelled, “We have to cut him down! We can’t just let him hang there!” I had never seen Jake feel so weak and powerless until that day. He had always been this headstrong, emotionless individual to me.
When the police finally arrived, they lowered him down and the coroner took him away. My family and I just sat there, all gathered around outside, sobbing and absolutely shocked. We knew that Kevin had been having relationship issues with his girlfriend, but we were still confused; there was no note, no clue of what led to this. Kevin had been having a great time the night before at the bar, singing karaoke with his friends and letting all of his worries slip away for the time being.
To this day, I still look back and see how Kevin’s death affected our family. He left behind his two beautiful children that would now go through life without their daddy. I have never seen so much sadness in my mother’s eyes until after Kevin died. Everyone always tells stories of how great of a person they thought Kevin was. Even I, after Kevin died, realized how important he was in my life. Even though we had a love-hate relationship, he was still my brother and I loved him. I think, through some roundabout way, he was trying to make me into a stronger individual by making my life tougher.
Since Kevin’s death, my outlook on life changed a lot. I realized that I had to be grateful for what I had because I could lose it at any time. I’m always there to help people when they need it, and I try my best to make sure that people have a good life. I know what I have in my life, and for the most part, I’m now comfortable with it; other people, though, have issues in their life that they need help with. I finally made my decision on what I wanted to do in life: I decided that a career in the criminal justice field was right for me. I want to help people, and I want to make a difference. I’m always there to lend an ear to somebody who needs someone to listen, and I’m willing to give advice when they need it. I’ve made it my priority to be that person that helps them through their troubles, because I’ve seen what can happen when a person feels so alone and so helpless that they must turn to taking their own life.
