It's Sunday. I couldn't sleep but just stayed in bed. I desperately wanted to sleep hoping I would see Alexander in a vision but to no avail. Jeff got up to get ready for church so I got up too, totally drained physically and emotionally. I barely remember showering and getting dressed. The next thing I know I'm lying on the closet floor and Jeff is there asking if I'm alright and very shaken. I can't stop crying and I desperately want my son back - I would gladly switch places with Alex if I only could. Jeff goes to get my son, Adam, and they help me to the bed. All I can do is lay there and cry. Adam stays there with me and rubs my back trying to comfort me. Here I am, his father, lying there like a child. He calls his brother, Aaron, to see when he's coming over. When he arrives he comes to my room. They both make sure I'm alright and tell me I need to eat something. We go downstairs and I have coffee and a piece of left over egg bake and a huge vitamin that Adam and his wife want me to take.
This evening is my family's Christmas . . . it was postponed because Mom got the flu the week before. I don't feel up to going and have decided the stay home.
My son's girlfriend calls and says she has Alex's clothes but can't find his dress shoes so has his work boots or tennis shoes and a few other things we might want to display at the wake. She told me her mom went in the home with her grandparents but wasn't supposed to be there but she told her mom where to look for stuff. Her mom then gets on the phone and gives me directions to her home and says I can pick up Alex's things there. I tell her we'll be there in the afternoon after Jeff gets back from church. I call the funeral home to make sure someone will be there when we drop Alex's clothes off.
When we get to the girlfriends mothers house they let us in the entry to get Alex's things. Her mother then proceeds to tell me about the engagement again and then my son's girlfriend takes out her cell phone and shows me a picture of the rings "they had all but picked up". Now, if I can't afford the rings she shows me, how could Alex? I say nothing but politely say, "Ohhh". The picture she showed me looked like she snapped a photo out of a catalog or it was a picture from the web on her cell phone - it was nothing more.
Again, her mother says how worried she is about her daughter - she hasn't showered or slept or changed clothes since Alex died. She then tells me she's going first thing in the morning to get the things from the police. I'm thinking to myself, you have no right to get any of Alex's things, but I just say, "OK". She tells me Alex pretty much bled out and that the whole bathroom had to be gutted out to the studs . . . the BCA took everything.
My son's girlfriend asks if she can read something she wrote at the funeral and I just say it would need to be approved by the priest.
His girlfriend said she would be coming to our family Christmas even though Alex couldn't make it. She felt she should be there for the both of them. She had an appointment to get her tattoo that afternoon first and then would go the the family Christmas. She helped carry Alex's things out to the truck, we hugged and said see you later and I told her to shower and she would feel better.
Jeff and I dropped the things off at the funeral home. I called my son's mother to tell her what the girlfriends' mother had said about getting the things from the police and she gets angry. I give her the name of a police officer and phone number so she can call.
Well, I didn't plan on going to the family Christmas but I did just to hear my son's girlfriend's story again . . . she never showed up. My son's mother calls and says she may be late for the appointment with the priest in the morning because she is going to be at the police station before the girlfriend's mother.
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