While I seem comfortable with the fact that I am going to die now, when I was first given this information it hit me hard. When faced with one’s own demise the life you lived flashes through your eyes and every single thing you did, didn’t do, wished to do, hoped to do, dreamed to do etc becomes a searing ember in your mind. That ember continues to be fed by the wind of constant self deprecation until the ember is a full blown fire. Some crack under the pressure. They kill themselves unable to face the fact that they are living failures who never reached the heights they had set for themselves as children.

I too, was one of these people. I had a gun in my mouth, a .45 my father bought me when I turned 18 as a symbol of becoming a man. Its done nothing but collect dust and sat in a closet for all these years while I let life decide where I was to go. This morning, however, after I got home, I dusted off that gun and pressed it to my head. I cocked the hammer and said my prayers, apologies, and squeezed…