I was in 10th grade (2010) and I got a text in class from a friend that had graduated already and worked a mile away from my home saying “your cousin got shot” (my first cousin- he and my uncle lived in the house beside mine) I was confused since my family hadn’t text me or anything so I went to the bathroom and called my mom. She said “everything’s okay I’m about to be at the school to pick you up”. She picks me up with my sister already in the car and says we’re going to the hospital. No one would tell me anything except he was in ICU. Getting there is when his sister had told me he shot him self at 8 that morning. We got to go in with him with they took him off life support. His entire head was wrapped up but there was still blood all over his hands. I held one of them. He was so fucking cold. 25 years old. He had a party the night before (small town so house parties are a big thing) so when I went back to school, some people were raging about being there and seeing him and kinda bragging a little like they were famous for knowing him. No one knew he was my cousin because of the different last names and he being 9 years older. It really fucked me up so my mom pulled me out of school for a few weeks. The shittiest part is we had to pull the carpet up and clean the walls of his room since my uncle couldn’t afford a cleaning service.

3 years before that my aunt (my dads sister, deceased cousins mom) overdosed at a family party (my family kinda consist of alcoholics and drug addicts so it was normal to throw these parties with all of us kids there) Me, my sister, and our other cousin thought she was asleep on the couch the next morning so we sat in the kitchen and ate cereal and went back to the room to watch a movie. When the adults got up they couldn’t wake her up so my uncle threw her in the car and took her to the hospital. That’s when we found out she had overdosed in her sleep. Fucking awful. All fucking awful. I lost a huge part of myself both of those days. I was young when my aunt died and that traumatized me but holding someones cold, lifeless hand who was the only big brother figure I’d ever had really changed the person I was. I dream of them both often.