As of this afternoon around 3pm, the parking sign on Summer Street in Peterborough, New Hampshire, which had been missing the apostrophe indicating a contraction, had been corrected.
It embarrassed my brother, me pulling the Sharpie marker out of my pocket and striding up to the sign. Ours was a family who operated without boldness, and acts which drew attention were frowned upon: looking at a map to find out where you were, or laughing out loud. And it would only get worse for him, as I planned on openly admiring the beautiful architectural details of the buildings on nearby Grove Street after we finished what was turned out to be a delicious lunch of country ham with mashed potatoes followed by apple pie kissed with the perfect amount of cinnamon.
I like flying over New Hampshire. The countryside looks pockmarked with wetness courtesy of glacial action (or so I posit to myself, ever the romantic). Peterborough's small river was no different than the others flowing through any other tiny New England downtown. The river today was just one more spot on the growing list of places soon marked, in my head, as another place where my brother might jump to his death. Like our great-grandmother, my brother was pulled to places where he might jump and end his life...powerlessly drawn like a bee to a succulent honeysuckle flower. Our great-grannie threw herself out the large front window of her farmhouse's third story—I imagine her sprawled, thin-limbed on the dewy grass of the large front lawn and surrounded by the somber, more-grave-than normal faces I've seen in my grandmother's old photos.
With suicide a theme in my family—a gift seemingly intent to keep on giving—is it any wonder I end up with a suicidal mentee? Is this the type of person I should rightly be charged with saving? Time will tell if the answer is unequivocally yes, or unequivocally no.
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