**Content note:** This post includes suicide, the aftermath of a death, and descriptions of a death scene. Please read with care, or skip it if today isn't the day. If you're struggling, you can call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) any time. --- It was a Friday morning at 8am when I got the call I knew was coming. It was my mother on the other end, crying like I had never heard her cry before. She could barely get the words out. When she did, she said, "Your dad is dead." I was 19. My body went into shock, yet disconnected at the same time. He lived in Salem, about an hour away. We turned the corner onto his street and all I saw was ambulances and police cars. Law enforcement was treating it as a homicide, so we weren't able to go in the house. They told us it would be several hours and that we shouldn't be there when they brought him out. One of his employees had found him and positively identified him. So Mom and I went to the piano shop my dad owned, down the street. I remember sitting on the floor, paging my brother, who lived in LA at the time. He wasn't surprised by the news either. Time felt like forever. At 4pm Mom got the call that we could enter the home. The detective warned us about the smell, and that the biohazard company hadn't arrived yet to clear the leftovers, so to speak. We parked and walked up to the door, both with tissues over our mouths and noses. I had never smelled death before. When we entered, the smell was so dense the tissues were instantly saturated, which made it worse than just breathing it in. His Baldwin grandfather clock stood in the entryway. He lived in a Street of Dreams neighborhood, so the house was large. The second floor was just his master bedroom and bathroom, like a penthouse. They had found his body in his walk-in closet. We went to the right, up the stairs. Two sets and a landing. Mom went first. His bedroom looked ransacked, and there were two Colts on his dresser. Mom started to enter the bathroom and I followed. The detectives hadn't said what the damage was, just that he had shot himself. We weren't sure what we were going to see.

I want to talk about something that made me furious. And still does. Mental health in this country isn't treated like health. It's treated like a threat to manage. You reach out for help and you get handed a diagnosis, a pill, and a door closing behind you. The justice system doesn't see a person in crisis. It sees a problem to contain. Jail cells have become the new psych wards. That's not treatment. That's a warehouse. And the pharmaceutical side — they profit off keeping you medicated, not off getting you well. Nobody makes money when you heal. I want to be clear. I'm not a doctor. This is my experience, not medical advice. Still talk to your doctor. Then there's the stigma. The shame that keeps people silent. The idea that needing help means something is wrong with you, instead of something happened to you. Here's mine. As a child, I was told I had a learning disability. Years later, I started thinking something was always wrong with me mentally. So I went to see a psychiatrist. One visit. Less than an hour. And I walked out with Bipolar 2, PTSD — that one the testing did confirm — and whatever medication was new on the market at the time. Years go by. I'm on antidepressants, plus two more prescriptions. Nothing is helping. I see another counselor, another psychiatrist. Off one medication, here come two more. New reports. Now they're not even sure — is it Bipolar 1 or 2? Then I'm diagnosed with psychosis. Currently? Might not even be bipolar. Might be ADHD. I'm not saying this to be dark for the sake of it. I'm saying it because silence is what keeps this system standing. If any of this sounds familiar to you, or to anyone you know who may be suffering — I would love to hear from you. ❤️me🐕‍🦺🙏💯

After Jesus came back to life early on Sunday, he appeared first to Mary from Magdala, from whom he had forced out seven demons. She went and told his friends, who were grieving and crying. They didn't believe her when they heard that he was alive and that she had seen him. Later Jesus appeared to two disciples as they were walking to their home in the country. He did not look as he usually did. They went back and told the others, who did not believe them either. Still later Jesus appeared to the eleven apostles while they were eating. He put them to shame for their unbelief and because they were too stubborn to believe those who had seen him alive. Then Jesus said to them, "So wherever you go in the world, tell everyone the Good News.