It Is Like Air

It is like air. The only way I seem to be able to describe it. Air. The death. The almost death. It is a very real thing that I can't seem to get a concrete connection to. It didn’t happen to me, but it did. No more, no less. The same, just different.

I don’t even know where the emotion began. First, there was recognition, not of it, but of something. Then there was a slow awareness. Then the note. Here comes full on recognition, the kind that is unbelievable. This is NOT happening. But you only allow yourself to suspend belief very temporarily because you realize you are the only one who can do anything to change the situation. So I question. What have you done? What did you take? How many? Can you stay awake?

It’s amazing how quickly instinct steps in and takes over. I have never made a 911 call yet' it was my next step. Very calmly, very steadily. I make the call. After two rings I hear a voice, the most calming, compassionate, and safe voice I have ever heard. I tell her what she needs to know, but all I want is to cry. All I want is for her to tell me everything will be OK. I suddenly want to tell her my life story. She asks to stay on the line with me until I hear sirens. I pace, she tells me they are on their way, very close, it won't be much longer. I believe her. I have to. I need to. And they arrive.

The instant intrusion and confusion is a bright light. So many strangers at once, all in one room. They are talking to him. They are asking him questions. He seems vaguely coherent, but what about me. Someone talk to me! I need interaction, I need solace, I need comfort, and I need HIM!!!! But he isn’t here. He’s there, with them and their questions and their tools. I need to stay moving. I quickly get his license and his health insurance card. This is all I can think to do. I keep calling home. I need my parents. Why don’t they answer? Why don’t they answer? Why don’t they answer? Where is everyone? I need them. I call and I call and I call and I call. No one.

Everyone leaves and one officer says that she will take me to the hospital, that I should not drive myself. I promise her that I will contact a friend and that they will take me. I am now holding two phones, both dialing different numbers simultaneously trying to find help. No one will answer. It is 2:00 a.m. It hits me, there is someone I can call to wake my parents. But I don’t know her number. He does, he has it in his phone, programmed. I go searching everywhere for his phone while still trying to wake anyone up. Finally, someone picks up. She says she will be there in 10 minutes. I still can't find his phone. My parents still don’t know. I call his phone to track it. It is ringing and I find it in a hidden pocket in a jacket. It is still ringing and I can't get to it, I can't find a way to open this pocket. There are so many fucking pockets! I am losing it now. I can't keep it together. I am ripping his jacket. I left my phone calling while I was trying to get the phone that his phone recorded everything I did. I was screaming. I was ripping at the jacket. I was crying. This would be something he would hear in the next days to come.

I call her and she answers. I tell her that he is in the hospital and my parents aren’t picking up their phone. She knows exactly what to do. She will take care of it. Then my friend arrives. We are in the car and moving fast. I call his doctor and tell him what he took. He says to not worry, it isn’t a lethal dose. This should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. The feeling is so new. I have experienced loss and death. This wasn’t like that. Was it terror? Fear? Denial? To this day I can't say. I am unable to give it a color or a name. What about a sound? All I come up with is fluttering wind. That doesn’t sound right, does it? That doesn’t seem very fitting with the heavy situation. Or is it that heavy? Yes. It is.

The hospital is comical. Ridiculous. I have to sneak my friend in with me because only one person is allowed at a time. He is lying there, not sure what is happening, not sure where he is. No one attends to him. I feel exhaustion setting in because I know that I will now have to run herd on the staff to get things taken care of. I will have to run herd on him to keep him awake, whether it is for my sake or his. My parents call. They know and they are on there way. They live 60 minutes away. My mother tells me she will be there 45. I believe her. I hear it in her voice.

They didn't pump his stomach. They used charcoal to absorb the drugs in the stomach. It is my job to make him drink the charcoal. Slowly, but surely, I get it down him. He keeps talking and makes no sense. Drifts from one thing to another. I have never seen him this way. It is the drugs, yes, but in this kind of state is frightening. No one talks about that part of suicide and overdoses. Why don’t they? To see a loved one in an altered state is, well, altering. Where are my parents? Ah, right there. Here they are. I will be OK. For now.