I, as I assume many of you, have not had the greatest upbringing. I mostly lived with my grandparents (bless their hearts for all the love and support they gave me) but before that, I lived with them, I I lived with my parents. They were divorced so I flopped from both my mother and father. The one catch with them is they were addicted to pain medication. They were loving and did the best they could, but they were anchored down by their addiction. Skipping a lot of details of my life let’s just jump to 7th grade me at 2010.
At this time, my mother was living with her mom and I and we we’re trying to help her get clean, and it was honestly working. My mom decided to move out to a city close by. (I lived in Wyoming at the time in a small town called Mountain View, she moved about 30 miles west on the boarder of Utah) As the big mama’s boy I was, I wanted to move with her, and of course she agreed to let me come along after my school year was up. The first week was great, we got her moved down and she felt like she had her life coming back together. The weekend after we moved her down I went to stay there because it was the weekend after my birthday. This is where the story takes a turn.
My father shows up at apartment my mom lives in saying he is here to “fix the car”. Being that young,bi really didn’t think anything of it. But I remember my father giving my mom a little baggie of something. Still, as dumb me, didn’t think much of it. He leaves about 30 minutes later and then my mom and I watched a movie (Avatar, the blue alien one. This is a big reason why I don’t like the movie). Later that night, I was playing games and I was hungry so I asked my mom what was there to eat. She was a zombie at this point but she said there was nothing but she will take me to McDonald’s. I agreed, which was stupid because she was very intoxicated. I think I was trying to play dumb I guess, but we get the food and are pulling into the parking lot where she slams the car into a fence. I then yelled at my mom and told her to put it in the lines and park it. Of course a group of people saw us and questioned us, but I didn’t pay them any mind. We got into the apartment and I calmed down and just went back to playing games. When I came back out a couple of hours later my mom was passed out in the same spot I last saw her. I thought she was dead, but when I shook her she did a slight response, but I knew what was going on, so I had to do what I had to do. Call Grandma
Grandma showed up, yelled at my mom and took me away. My mom, raining tears tells me “I love you” and I said “I love you too mom” and that’s was that…
A couple days later, my grandma finds her on the the bathroom floor of the apartment passed away from an OD.
This is my first experience with death, and it pushed me into rock bottom.
Skipping ahead to my sophomore year in highschool, I was a wreak. No friends because I was such a downer, depressed to no end, and just wanting the pain to end. I wake up one morning, no messages from anyone, no one in the house, and nothing from my girlfriend at the time. So that was it, I go grab one of my grandfather’s handguns (which all are supposed to be loaded and they are all in a line on a shelf) at random, put it to my head and pull the trigger.
Nothing…
That was the lowest, yet best moment in my life. At this moment, this crazy feeling of relief hits me like a wave. My mind was finally straight. I put down the gun and realize that I was blessed by someone or something to still be there. I had a chance to make my life better. So, I did. I got my friends back, I built new relationships, and got closer to my friends and family.
Let’s fast forward again to my freshman year of college. Life was honestly good, passing classes, going to concerts and events, not a care in the world… Besides finals, of course. I wake up very early one morning to see that I have 20+ missed calls from my father. Obviously not good.
I call him back and he sobs to me that a very close childhood friend of mine just passed away in a car wreak.
To understand why my dad called, my father and my friends father we’re friends growing up and our families were very close. I even lived with my friends family for a summer. My friend Austin and I were the best of friends. He was the one that taught me how to have fun, how to enjoy the little things in life, how to come out of my shell and face my fears. He is the reason I am who I am and I thank him for that. Ding-dong ditching houses, skating, riding dirt bikes, and swimming in the Green River. We were brothers and even when he moved away we still never grew apart.
At his funeral (and my mom’s also) it was an open casket. For the people who have never been to something like that, it really is hard to see someone you love like that… Not my cup of tea.
My girlfriend at the time made dealing with his death even harder. She got extremely upset that I was not giving her enough attention, but I just wanted to listen to music and remember the good times with him. But I made it through the pain and learned a lot from that experience. Now I was closer to my friends than ever before.
Fast forward to Valentine’s day of 2018. The most recent of my dealings.
I was finishing my last semester of college for my Associates in English. My 21st birthday was coming in April and my dad was extremely excited to take me to the strip club and get me drunk… Yeah, that’s my dad. My dad was always talking to me about it and was making sure I had time off to do so. But this changed very quickly.
At midnight on Valentine’s day, I get a call from my dad’s girlfriend telling me that my dad just passed away…
I rush over to the hospital with my girlfriend now (at the time, only been dating for a couple months) to confirm for myself.
There was my dad’s lifeless body on a cold bed.
Now, I could go on about how awful my dad’s girlfriend was, but I will make it very brief. She was a heroin addict and got my dad hooked on to the drug. Well, the night he passed, he actually was not responding around 9 pm, and she, being scared of all the drugs in the house, called a close family friend of my dad’s and I rather than calling the 911. My dad didn’t get to the hospital until 12… So there is that time frame. This was a very dark time for my sister and I (who, by the way, is one of the greatest people in my life). So here I am now, 21, just moved to Salt Lake City with my girlfriend and am missing my parents more than ever.
I sit and ponder a lot on what they would think of me now. Would they be proud? Would they be happy for me? What would they be doing now? So it comes to this. How my heart handles death.
In the short, it rips It’s self apart to be able to give the ones I lost a piece of me so that I can feel like I have a piece of them with me to share with the world. It’s a loving but painful way to deal with it. I miss everyone a lot. I don’t like to cry or really talk to people about it because people have their own problems and the last thing they need is to hear about my small struggles. But I came on here to share my small story with you guys to let it out because I have missed them a lot and I’m just having a hard time staying happy and making everyone around me happy when. I get jealous when I hear my girlfriend talking to her parents and makes me want to just break down, but I know that’s not fair to her. I just wish I could talk to them again.
Thank you guys for listening and I want to hear what you guys have to say. How do you deal with loss? What are your stories? Anything and everything would be amazing.
Thank you for letting me get this off my chest.
Love,
Levi Hanney
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