I came back from the gym this morning to find my street surrounded with yellow police tape and crawling with cops. The medical examiner arrived shortly thereafter with detectives and everything. I started snooping around to see what was going on and found that in the common area right behind our house there was police tape surrounding a dead body. I quickly learned it was my neighbor (and also friend), Mike.
Mike and I were buddies. He would always talk to me about cars, guns, and more. In fact, just last week he was over at my house having me clean his guns for him. He said at his age (68) he was having a hard time taking the guns apart to clean them.
He also told me last week he had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimers and had started forgetting things as well as fighting a lot with his wife due to confusion and anger from the disease. He mentioned that during one of the fights he had with his wife, he told her he was going to take his gun and go shoot him self.
Fast forward to today and that’s exactly what he did. I saw his body laying there lifeless, he had shot himself in the head.
Many things crossed my mind, but surprisingly the first thing I thought to myself was that if I was in his shoes I would have done the exact same thing. This guy had to have some serious courage to actually pull that trigger. Most people would have ended up in a memory care facility with a expensive monthly bill and caretakers to wipe their ass and bathe them while they slowly forgot everything. Talk about the worst possible way to die.
So while this is very saddening, I don’t blame him for what he did one bit. Only God can judge this man, and being the strong Christian that he is, I know he’s in a better place now.
In any case, what a hell of a morning it’s been so far.
Rest In Peace, Mike!
Mike and I were buddies. He would always talk to me about cars, guns, and more. In fact, just last week he was over at my house having me clean his guns for him. He said at his age (68) he was having a hard time taking the guns apart to clean them.
He also told me last week he had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimers and had started forgetting things as well as fighting a lot with his wife due to confusion and anger from the disease. He mentioned that during one of the fights he had with his wife, he told her he was going to take his gun and go shoot him self.
Fast forward to today and that’s exactly what he did. I saw his body laying there lifeless, he had shot himself in the head.
Many things crossed my mind, but surprisingly the first thing I thought to myself was that if I was in his shoes I would have done the exact same thing. This guy had to have some serious courage to actually pull that trigger. Most people would have ended up in a memory care facility with a expensive monthly bill and caretakers to wipe their ass and bathe them while they slowly forgot everything. Talk about the worst possible way to die.
So while this is very saddening, I don’t blame him for what he did one bit. Only God can judge this man, and being the strong Christian that he is, I know he’s in a better place now.
In any case, what a hell of a morning it’s been so far.
Rest In Peace, Mike!