6# Into a Well of Darkness

The next day I awoke with every intention of being positive - I realized that I couldn't help my son if I did not work on my own emotional health - but knowing and doing are two different things. I went into his room to clean - so he could get a fresh start when he got home and also to search for clues - hints of what nightmare led me to this day. I found more clues than I could handle - a poem he wrote the night of the attempt about darkness, death and hopelessness. In his passbooks from school I read a trail of breadcrumbs into madness - a year before the only entries were about schoolwork or girls - he even answered most of the interesting fact questions at the bottom of the pages - but then bit by bit disturbing images and dark song lyrics began to arise - tons of allusions to every drug under the sun and to insanity and death. I fell apart again - my good attention drained out as I sat on my son's floor. My mother called about then and hearing despair in my voice tried to comfort, to encourage - she told me that I needed to be a light in the darkness - that my son was living in total darkness right now and that I was his only hope for light - that light always overcome darkness and that I must pick myself up again. Somehow I did get off that floor - I didn't get much cleaning done - but I did get in the shower and get ready to travel to the hospital - wringing light out of the deepest part of my soul - hoping it would be enough to fight the darkness I knew I would be facing. To Be Cont.