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Just a few months ago our friend John shot himself. We all called him Photon b/c boy could that guy dance in the club. He lived with us for a few months after our first daughter was born. He taught my boys how to dance and play video games and stuff. He was always a very emotional guy...things seemed to affect him more than most men. He fell in love easily....always looking for something that would make him feel whole, I guess, but it was just one disappointment after another. The last one was the straw that broke the camels' back. He came over a week or so before he did it. He and my husband had a falling out a year or two before and we hadn't seen much of him, but when he came over and talked about the girl he was heartbroken over this time, we tried to talk to him and give him hope, and we extended an open invitation for him to come over anytime. He was staying with another couple, two of our good friends then, Tubbs and Sue, who live just 5 or 6 miles away, so he said he would stop by more. Now I wonder if he was saying goodbye...not only to us, but our kids, that called him "Uncle Photon" and loved him. The day he did it was the weekend of Livestock, which is a big music festival they throw down here. The girl had left him, saying she would be right back, and never showed up. Tubbs was at the house with him, but Tubbs is the opposite, a very un-emotional guy, and he just couldn't take it, and he came over here and hung with us until he had to go pick Sue up at 11pm. When they got home, they found him on the lawn. He had gotten Tubbs' gun, and shot himself in the yard. He left a note for them, saying he was sorry. We found out the next morning. We picked up another close friend and went over there to extend our support to Tubbs and Sue, who naturally felt guilty....for leaving him there alone, for not realizing he was suicidal and taking the gun out of the house, you know, everything. When we got there, I went to walk up to the front door, and there was still pieces of him in the yard. I started to panic-sometimes I have anxiety attacks...I get dizzy and I can't breathe. I just didn't expect my last sight of him to be his brains in the grass, and it didn't seem real until that moment when I couldn't keep reality at arm's length anymore. We had to explain to our kids what happened.....those kids have lost far too many people in the last two years...two grandmothers, my son lost his father, and an uncle....the second uncle in four years. I still cry about it, I am right now, in fact. Why didn't we know? I know it's natural to feel that way, but I am very intuitive, and though I knew he was in a depression....I just didn't think he had no idea how much we all loved him, and would miss him.
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