moon scars

The scar that cuts a sliver moon through Beach's right eyebrow.  The one that kisses the edge of her eyelid and thankfully shoots away from her eye.  The one with whiteness and crinkle that shines and puckers when she is dehydrated.  That scar.  It is from the scope of the 30-30.

The 30-30 used in a successful suicide.  Now if you know anything about guns then you might be wondering how a rifle could be used.

John was a master carpenter.  He was the man who taught BC.  A teacher, a second father, a brother. 

At the end of his life, alone, mostly broke, and suffer from undertreated, chronic pain he crafted the most beautiful last piece he would ever create: a wooden rig to hold the rifle so he could die in his own home, in his own chair.

The day John ended his life BC and I stood together in the room with John's empty body waiting from the police to come.  BC's father was the one who found him.  It was supposed to be BC but in a small gracious twist of fate BC's father had gotten there first.  He called us.  We came.  We read his last wishes, followed the instructions. Then we called the police.

Both John and my sister Wendi left us behind as the custodians of their lives and their deaths. When my sister died I cleaned out her apartment.  I hauled her life out in garbage bags. John's affairs were more complicated than that.

His house became BC's work. Left behind for him to finish what John had started.  All of John's belongings became ours including the 30-30 and his suicide note. 

John was an only child who never had children of his own.  We sold his house.  We donated his chair.  We handed all his genealogy off to the church.

I believe in gun control. Strong, Australian gun control.  I believe my child's life trumps a civilian's request to house deadly weapons like toys and trophies. 

And I believe in death with dignity more commonly known as physician-assisted suicide.  I believe inaction carries the same moral sentence as action.  I believe in ending needless suffering with medical grace.

Almost all that was my sister's is now gone but the 30-30 in its usefulness to BC lives on.  He throws it over his shoulder and carries it through the woods.  I can't imagine what he thinks as he feels the weight of it pressing against his back. It's impossible to understand.  

Beach says sometimes she has dreams where she talks to John.  Although she was little the two of them always had a unique bond. 

His gun kissed her marking her for life. But it left her whole, let her off with a warning. When it kissed John, it marked him for death. Ending his pain through pain. 

It is the only gun I don't hate.