Since I haven't posted in a while because I've been too damned busy I figured I'd ping to say I'm alive.

For some reason I started thinking about my uncle, and now that I look over at the journal entries, I realize I never mentioned it here, so for anyone who didn't hear about Christmas break last year I'll enlighten you...

To make a long story short, my uncle and his new wife had been having issues. A sad story with two young girls... Two days after arriving back home in Montana, we had heard that they were getting a divorce. This troubled everyone very much, we all sent him our warmest wishes, knowing the holidays would never be the same for him, and that his two daughters would be growing up in a split home. We didn't realize, this wasn't going to be the worst news we got this holiday...

Almost a week later, literally the day we arrived back in Oregon I found a message on our answering machine. I was the only one home so I answered it. I heard my grandmother's voice crying and upset saying "Call me. Just... Just call me". In the back of my mind, I had a bad feeling this was something to do with my uncle and his wife. I quickly called my father's cell phone and told him he needs to call his mother immediately, it's an emergency.

Almost 1 hour later, my father comes home from work, a stern look on his face. I catch him as he's going upstairs, and that's when he told me. "Neil went home and killed himself..." I can't begin to describe the shock I felt in that moment. I was stunned. I truly had no reaction, I was simply shocked. my uncle had committed suicide. Leaving behind two beautiful little girls who needed their father for stability in their lives. I sat there that whole day in sheer silence... until my mother came home.

My father had an interesting way of dealing with the situation, like me, I don't think he know how to process the loss of his brother. I think he was simply in shock like me, he actually went back to work in his home office. So when my mother came home, I had to be the one to tell her. I always invariable am the one who apparently delivers bad news.

For those of you who don't know, my grandfather also committed suicide. He was a manic depressive, and shot himself in the head. The irony is that my uncle blamed himself for his father's death as a child. He had to go through many years of counseling and therapy to get beyond that, and now, he had done it to himself in the exact same manner.

I'm not asking for sympathy, I'm not asking for a pat on the back. I'm not even asking that you care. I'm writing about what I thought about tonight. The images that even as I type this out, make me cry.