This is my day

To my family, friends and Elizabeth (Liza)....

What you have found must have been quite a shock.  I can only say I'm sorry....and I'm not sorry.  The past year has not been easy.  In fact, it's been pure hell.  Which is why, I don't know if hell could be any worse.  I didn't think it would come to this.  I didn't think it would get this bad. But it did. And I know that you guys will be asking me the question "why"? 

In order to answer that question, I have to go back to the beginning of it all.

When mom and dad died, and i had to live with Gram.  I was only 12.  That's how old Damon would have been.  Gram did her best by me, it couldn't have been easy, with me out at all hours of the night.  She would worry and I didn't care, at the time.  I don't think I ever really understood that my parents would never come back.  I acted like I was on a summer break, just visiting.  So I would leave her house and not come home.  Gram thought that I was out drinking with my friends or hanging out with girls when really, I was in the Colt Canyon hills, sitting there, listening to my portable cassette player, most nights.  I used to sit there for hours and watch the sun go down, then lie back in the dirt and look up at the sky.  Hours were like seconds and next thing I knew, it would be way past midnight and I'd hurry home.  Sometimes 'gram' was awake, but most times, she'd find some way to sleep.  I don't know how she put up with me, keeping me in school, makng me lunches and dinner, while working at Foodmart, sometimes for 12 hours. I owed a lot to her.  But she died too.  I think that's when something inside me died. 
She was the last person that I had in the world and she left me too.  I was 17. 

As some of you know, I didn't graduate.  When Gram died, she didn't own her house and I couldn't pay for it.  I locked myself inside and ate whatever I could find until they finally threw me out.  Aunt Cillie, thank you for taking me in at that time.  I know you had 5 boys to feed and I only added another mouth to feed.  Well, I lived there with my aunt for a few months, but then I could see her welcome fade, even though she never said a word, I could see how hard it was for her.  I turned 18 and Aunt Cillie baked me a $2.00 cake, I still remember that cake.  I moved out about a week after that.

I pretty much wandered around our small town, asking people here and there if I could stay with them, making sure I only stayed a few weeks or less at a time.  Sometimes, I would wish that mom and dad had given me  an older brother or sister, so that I at least would be abandoned with him or her.  I hated the feeling that I was the only one that I had.  Many times, I went up to that same Canyon and find one of the steep drops, and stand as close to the edge as I could.  I waited for the courage to step off the edge and end that loneliness that stayed with me up to this final day. Something kept me from doing it.....

So one day I was walking downtown, bored, and not sure of where I would sleep that night, when I saw this angel crossing the street by the library.  I was feeling particularly brave so I ran across the street and stopped this beautiful creature.  That was you Elizabeth.  I have always told you that I remember CLEARLY what you were wearing.  You were dressed in those blue jeans you loved, a pink tank top that had all that lace on the front and your pink flip flops.  You have always looked great in pink.
I couldn't let you get away Liza....
I married you exactly 3 months after we met.  That was 16 years ago, or would have been.

When I was married and had somebody that I belonged to, things were different.  I was motivated.  I was happy.  I had a laugh like Santa Claus, like Ramy would say.  Little by little, things got better.  Liza took me with nothing, Her dad, James, let us live in his travel trailer that he kept behind his house.  It was in this trailer that I was the happiest I could ever have been.  It was because I had this woman that thought that I was worth something and I did not have ONE SINGLE FEAR that she would leave me alone in this world.  We spent our days watching t.v.  Liza loved that lady Liza Minalti (I still forget her name) who sang in those cheesy movies.  And her her mom was Dorothy in 'the Wizard of Oz', I remember you told me all that, Liza.  And that's how I began to call you Liza.  Because you would sing like her, exactly like her.  We planned to see her once a few years ago, I thnk she was in Vegas.  We didn't go.

Being with Liza made me think of the future.  I wanted the house, the car, the kids, and the office job.  James helped me out with that and got me a job at the Electric Company he worked at.  I basically cleaned up, cut some wires, insulated here and there, helping James out.  I remember the time that James got a live wire and shocked the hell out of himself.  His hands, face and hairs were singed badly.  His eardrums burst and they said if he had not been thrown back, a little more of the shock would have killed him.  Liza, you wanted me to quit because you were so scared and I had wanted to be an electrician.

But I worked and worked and soon, again with the help of papa James, we got our house.  It was a tiny wreck of a house, but there was only me and Liza.  That was until she told me she was pregnant with our first baby.  I cannot tell you the complete JOY that I felt, when I found out that Damon was coming.  Of course, we didn't know he was Damon at the time.  He was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, beating my wedding day with Liza.  When I first held him I knew for sure, I'd never be alone again.
Almost 3 years later, little Raymond (Ramy) came along.  Damon was jealous but eventually warmed up to his precious little brother.  And like before, Ramy's birth surpassed Damon and Liza.  I didn't know that I could just continue to get happier and happier, but there I was.

Eventually, we settled down into our happy lives.  I got a management position at Gas-Com and we had money to go to Disneyland, Sea World, and even Hawaii 5 years ago.  I would bring home flowers for my Liza and I took the boys to their baseball and football games.  We had our Super Bowl parties, birthday parties, who knew that this lonely boy would have a family again?

I have thousands upon thousands of memories in my head.  Of each of my boys first laugh, first cry, first word, first game.  Of my wife's laughter, her cries, her smile and her anger.  I have the things we've all built together in my head:  birdhouses, toyboxes, games, and this house.  I could write forever.....

About a  year ago, I was in the office one day, and Jared came in.  He just wanted to talk and asked me about my family.  I said that we were doing good, Damon was star-pitcher in his league and Ramy, of course, was practically all-star in his division.  We were busy with that, or at least Liza was.  She mostly had been taking the boys to their practices.  Being one of the finance managers for my company, I was working a lot.  I went to almost every game though and Liza kept me up to date with how things were going.

Jared told me about a rumor going around that Liza was messing with Coach Jim.  He said that some people had seen them together and the way she was with him, touching his arms, leaning in to him, seemed 'weird'.  Of course, I didn't believe it....at first.  But Jared wasn't the type to gossip.  So I began to open my eyes.  And at first, I didn't see Liza acting weird around Coach, she seemed normal.  But with each day at work, I could see eyes on me, people staring at me like if I was the only one not able to understand the big joke.  I didn't see that I was the joke.  So I made arrangements to take a couple of days off and I followed you, Liza.  And we know what happened from there.

I caught you with that fat shit.  You denied it and denied it, up until the very day that you moved out of our house, to live with him and his 5 kids from how many different mothers.  I didn't kick you out, I didn't even call you a whore,bitch, slut, NOTHING.  I can't believe how calm I was about it.  The night you came for your things, I cried but I kept my voice calm, and I asked you to stay.  I didn't care that you cheated on me Liza.  I didn't care that you ripped my heart from my chest and the pain was wose than my parents dying and worse than my gram dying because I needed you and I thought you'd never leave me.

For about 6 months, I called you, begged you to come home, went to your new job.  You hadn't worked in over 13 years but now you had a new family to care for so you got that cheap job at the casino.  Your fat pig, from what I heard, was abusive to you, forcing you to work, kicking you out, and even carousing out and about on you!  I never once abused you, in fact, I was grateful to you and I loved you!  I heard these things and I raced to your side to get you out of there.  You refused to leave, you never told me why he was better at loving you than I was, and I had to let you go. I went to work, thinking that I would go home and you would be there again, but you weren't.

Then you did the worst...

You brought the boys with their things and said that you had to leave town, and us.  You didn't say where you were moving and you didn't even turn back to see your boys crying for you, their hearts broken into a thousand pieces, like mine..

They had so many questions about you.  They didn't understand why you had to move, or why we couldn't know where you went, though I'm sure it had a lot to do with Coach Jim's financial troubles and his bad reputation catching up with him, or his child support was due.  But you followed him.  I only spoke kind words about you, Liza, I did not once let them see that my heart was about to explode from the pain that you forced onto your sons.  I never thought in a million years that they would suffer like this. Never!

Some time went by, each day we waited for you to be walking down the road, the boys quit baseball, I took leave from work and never went back, we tried to make it without you.  No matter what we did, no matter where we went in the house, we still saw you there.  We smelled you, we heard you Liza.  Damon was no longer the bright boy who would do the 'booty' dance that made you laugh so hard, once upon a time.  And Ramy, barely spoke a word since you left.  Each day was like living in a shrine built for you and we were stuck in it.

Last week, I made a will.  I left everything to my Aunt Cillie and her boys.  I had Damon & Ramy make a memory book for you, they didn't know why they were making it, I just said that it was for when you came home.  The book is in the Damon's first toy box in the shed, Liza.  That's the only thing you may take from this house.  Memories are all that you are allowed.

So today for Father's day, I made the boys a huge pancake,eggs and bacon breakfast.  I made them get dressed and we went out to Hope Lake and fished for a few hours and then we came home.  I put on a movie for us, the boys' favorite movie, X-men.  We watched all the X-men movies and then I placed some crushed sleeping pills in their drinks.  Ramy was out in about 15 minutes, Damon fell asleep after about 45 minutes.  I carried the boys to our bedroom and I got that revolver you always hated.  And I shot them.

I can't see them in pain anymore, Liza.  They had the same look that I probably had when I was their age, when I lost my family.  But I think their pain was deeper beause you didn't die, you just didn't want them.  As for me, you saved me once and then I died again.  I don't mind my life ending now, it was hard to kill my babies.  I am only sorry that it had to happen this way.  I am not sorry to you Liza because you have already moved on to your new life and we were dead to you anyway.  But to my Aunt Cillie, and my cousins, and my friends, and to James, I'm sorry for taking these wonderful boys from you, especially on this day.  But this was my day to do what I felt was right.
                                                                   
                                                                                                                                        Geoffrey