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Page 3 of 3
Were you hoping we'd find you and stop you? I will never know any of your thoughts other than what you wrote to us. All else is still a mystery and we will never know it all, not in this life anyway.
Sometimes, when I think of your journey, I imagine different scenarios as you drove to your final destination. I imagine you're determined and sure; I imagine you're confused and unsure but unable to turn back and have to explain; I imagine you're wondering why no one is stopping you from doing this at all! I torture myself sometimes thinking you may have thought we didn't care enough to find you in time.
All the days of your journey there, Bruce, we went crazy trying to find you, praying for your safety and waiting for your phone call to tell us where you were and that you were okay. After your abandoned car was discovered nine days later, it took three more days to find you, or what was left of you-- your lifeless, broken body that was so badly decaying they would not let me see you.
I begged, Bruce! I pleaded! I demanded that it was my right to hold you, kiss you good-bye, one last time, but they kept saying "No" with a myriad of reasons they felt were in my best interest. They were so emphatic, so unswerving, that I eventually became apprehensive and scared and gave up. But their deciding for me, invalidated me as a mother who had the right to see her son's remains and say good-bye to more than the air, crying out my love and prayers for your peace to the heavens, having you just disappear from my eyes forever. I know they were reacting to my overwrought emotional state and doing what they believed best for me at that point. But they were wrong. It was wrong.
I should have just crashed through those doors to you, instead of giving up. You were my own child, so much a part of me, and then you're suddenly dead. And I'm expected to hear the facts from strangers and turn around and just go back home! To them, it was over for me, it was just the beginning of my life without you in it, traumatic and unreal. There was no closure for me. And the most frustrating thing was that you were just on the other side of the door, just yards away. But no one was listening to me. I felt very much alone in it all and it was a bitter experience.
I begged for something to connect with you, and they cut a piece of your T-shirt, washed it and gave it to me. It was one of your own tie-dyes, turquoise and purple. I shared little pieces of it with the family like they do with relics from a saint. And until your ashes were shipped to me, it was all we had to make it real.
Months later, I requested all the police and coroner reports and the few personal effects they still had at the police station. I read everything trying to reclaim a connection to you and your final hours. I felt driven to know everything I could to be a part to understand to experience. I needed to go through that process desperately. All your essence and all my memories are deep inside of me and will be forever. I needed to connect the dots and fill in as many blanks as I could, like trying to solve a mystery. Of course, so many parts are still missing, but I have come to terms with that and accept what I'll never know and that I cannot change the past.
I believe we are all in some way responsible for yours and countless others deaths from the homophobic attitudes that our society in general embraces, to my own failure to have provided a proper sexual education beyond the boundaries of heterosexual love; and including detrimental comments or jokes you would have been exposed to by those you knew, who did not know they were affecting you. And yet, it could've had the opposite effect. You might have loved yourself enough anyway to come out fighting and not giving a damn how people reacted to you. At your age, though, usually what others think of us is how we think of ourselves because we see ourselves through other's eyes. I just keep wishing you didn't give a damn, Bruce.
Bruce, you would've had all the people who truly counted behind you. I know you never felt this way about yourself, but you were truly wonderful and totally lovable. Oh why could you not tell someone?
I try and try to understand your reasoning and decision, but I can't help but think if you had come out, talked about your feelings and fears, and understood our love was unconditional, I think that you would have accepted yourself. We could've faced any obstacles together. But keeping it locked up inside like that, you had no support, no one to dispel your imagined worries or understand your concerns.
You know, Bruce, I've heard more than once from helping professionals that no one could have changed your mind if you were determined to die. Well, I guess that's true given that we didn't know what was going on in your mind. But if only I'd sensed what it was strongly enough to speak to you, I believe you'd still be alive. I regret not having more insight. I believe you would have wanted to go on living if you knew all the people you cared about said: "So what. Big deal. It doesn't matter to us, we love you and nothing can change that." I believe that we all could've made a difference, Bruce. Knowing you, knowing how very much like me you were, I believe that.
Just twenty-one, you'd hardly tasted life. All the human experiences that are beautiful, joyful, enriching, so many opportunities to grow and experience whatever you desired, all impossible now.
There are no words to adequately express how very much I miss you.
Sometimes, I look up at the sky and imagine you're out there somewhere, surrounded by all love in the universe, feeling the inner peace you so fervently longed for in your human life. Another dimension, but close to me. I look for you in my dreams. I feel you in the awesome beauty of nature sky, water, trees, flowers, birds flying free your spirit is everywhere lovely. I am so grateful for having had you for any time at all.
Thank you for choosing me to be your mom, dearest Bruce, for all the love and caring your generous, gentle heart gave so well to me. I'm so proud to have been your mom. You brought me great joy, and I thank you for all the times you made me feel so loved and special and important to you. Every tender moment, your warmth, smiles, hugs and kisses, the laughter and fun treasured! All the precious cards you wrote so touchingly cherished! No matter where you are, in whatever form, in whatever dimension, you're here in my heart for me. Be at peace in the light and wait for me.
Bruce and his mom
Spirit, boundless and free
Part of the universe
A star in the night
Forever a part of God's mystical plan
With all my love forever,
Mom
Roz Michaels
next: A Price Too High
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