This nearly constant barrage of merciless shooting in schools and shopping centers preceded by shootings for decades through out our whole country has been very painful for me to digest. has aroused painful memories in my history,
When I was 15 years old I was give a 22 rifle for my birthday, I never shot that gun or any other gun since that time except for the two years I was in the US Army. I was worried that somehow my precious little sister Ruthie would somehow find the gun and somehow be wounded so I took extreme steps to break down the gun into all its parts and hid them all over the house and the bullets in the car.
One day my dad asked me where all the parts were hidden. I was so proud when he asked me that because I thought he was going to pleased because I was being so careful. About the same time the same uncle in AZ was getting married. in Tucson, AZ, I went to Tucson where I was born from Coronado, CA where I was born to take part in the wedding,
While I was visiting in AZ my Dad or Daddy as I called him, he put the gun together to his temple and shot himself. As you would expect I was devastated.I went home back to Conrado and had to begin dealing with all the shame and guilt from having my dearly loved dad shooting himself with the gun I handed to him a week or two earlier. Of course as I grew up I realized I had no responsibility at all in his death. But I was just a boy back then it the whole thing was a very heavy load.
At the funeral for my dad as the service ended everyone filed past the casket to say goodbye, As I walked past I wanted to touche him for the last time I reacted out to touch his his hand, I was so shocked to feel how very cold his hand was,
As time moved on I tried desperately to realize the truth every told me. daddy died when he was 55 years old when he died, As I approached by fifty third I had some sort of dread about being 53 years old. The dread was not there all day every day but an odd kind of subliminal thought went through my mind.bullet silently silently sort of quietly moved up my arm toward my head then it disappeared. never came near my head, That thought was very upsetting to me.
Finally I went to a small room in my church and force my self to think slowly through how the imaginary bullet hit my head.The I moved the imaginary bullet distorted its shape as it penetrated the bone of my temple, I was weeping and sobbing every millisecond that passed. I worked the bullet a tenth of an inch at a time though my head and out through the temple on the other side. It left a smallish hole on each side of my head, The whole was small and round in my imaginary head. The whole process took maybe 45 minutes.
I do not suggest that anyone do what I did. It scares me that did it. Only God knows the chance I took with my mental heath but I was desperate. It did end the pain of an imaginary bullet constantly moving down my arm toward my head,
If my dad had used an ar15 combat rifles to kill himself I never would have reach out to lovingly touch his hand because in committing suicide I would never have had the courage to touch his hand because he would have demolished most of his head off and demolished head and scattered his brain all over th room in which he died t would have never had the courage to be near the horrendous mess that was left of his head,
Now we come to why I wrote this essay, I wanted to find a way to feel even a tiny bit the destruction done to the tender bodies of the of the small, soft bodies of the young kids who died in Texas a few days ago.. I feel like I owe it to them to face the way they actually died,
George Caywood 