Surviving The Crash

Chapter 1

Darkest Of Days

IN THE DARKEST days of 2016, I recall times when I wasn’t sure if I would be able to carry on. Thoughts of all the things in my life that were once important were simply gone. At times, I was in a place where I felt like there was nothing left to do; nothing left to live for. I had no reason left to carry on. More than once while driving down the
highway, I considered veering into the next lane to meet the semi that was coming towards me head-on.

Those overwhelming thoughts started crossing my mind with evergreater intensity. A head-on crash with a semi would end it all. I would not have to face the daily dread. I would close my eyes and imagine the semi crashing through the front of my Impala, ramming the engine right through me. Squashing me completely. Tears would roll down my face as I contemplated what the end would look like for me in great detail. With a full tank of gas and traveling at 160 km per hour, I was sure it would be quick and painless.

Part of me gave thought to the fact that I would then get to cross over to the other side and see the loved ones that had gone before me. My two kids, Sage and Hudson, were what kept me in check.
2 Surviving The Crash Thinking of them always brought me back to my senses in mind and
spirit. I could not possibly bring myself to go through with ending my own life and leave my kids without a dad! That just was not going to happen. It certainly scared the shit out of me when I had such intense, negative thoughts of self-harm.

I had given lots of thought to how those I left behind would cope without me. I knew there was plenty of life insurance to go around to make sure that my family’s needs would all be met, and the rest just
wouldn’t matter. Oh, how hard those days were!

There were days I didn’t eat and nights I didn’t sleep. Hours, days, and weeks when I didn’t care much to be alive. I found some solace in a few things, one of which was music. I came across a few songs that really struck a nerve with me and hit home with some of the things I was feeling and going through. I was consistently playing songs about heaven or loss or tragedy on my phone. Dancing in the sky was playing daily for quite some time.

I had lost a very good friend of mine in 2005 when he was killed in an underground mining accident at the mine that he and I worked at. In 2006, my dad passed away from a heart attack just shy of 57 years old. In 2010, a friend of mine committed suicide. None of these three events came close to preparing me for losing four of my family members at the same time. The devastation was unbearable.

I was simply at a loss, with no direction as to how to move forward or carry on. Since I was not sleeping during the night, I found myself scrolling through social media on my phone. I ended up coming into
contact with others that were going through similar things in their lives and were also up at all hours.

Those 3 am conversations in the middle of the night were what saved me. Rather than shutting down and closing off my feelings, I instead decided that I would start to talk about it. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the more I shared how I was feeling, both negative and positive, the more I started to understand that it was helping me.

So, I continued to do more.