After living for 50 sun spins and counting, I have separated my lifetime into eras. At one point in time I worked a lot in music, my music industry era. Early 2000’s in Seattle were quite a time in music history, and someone who wrote about it well was a music journalist I met during that era, my friend Travis.

When Travis contacted me, I had heard about the deaths of his parents through his social media mentioning of it, but of course we hadn’t seen each other for years, I wasn’t in the know as to what happened. I just knew such a close double loss, had to be crushing. Then I got an email asking to share his story and my heart sunk. You never want to know someone you care about joins this club, and also –  you are immediately drawn to be of support.

On the day of his session, as we walked up the stairs Travis said “So it’s at least been 15 years since we’ve seen each other right?…” It was so funny I immediately denied it but he was right. Social media is this weird time capsule that makes us feel like we still “Know” and “See” people that we haven’t SEEN in sometimes decades. It can start to feel almost parasocial with someone you once shared spaces with for years.

As he started telling me his story, about his parents’ love and 45 year marriage he said, “I’m an only child.”

BOOOOF my heart felt kicked. I am the mother of an only child. The minute we can connect to someone’s pain within a similar heart space – feels like a zoom in. He lost both of his parents, at the same time. And in that one instant, Travis, my friend from 15 years ago who wrote about cool northwest bands, was also a little guy, who’s two parents were his whole family! It had always been the 3 of them. 

I will let Travis tell the rest of his story. Please use care managing your own blooms as you read further. I feel like I have taken out anything that could be too hard on peoples blooms around these topics, but everyone’s wounds are different. To be simple, listen to your blooms please. 

TRAVIS

My parents were married for 45 years. Happily married. They fell in love as teenagers. My dad was in the military, I am an only child. My dad had a very contentious relationship with his father. My dad was the definition of rebellious. 

There was no history of violence between my parents. Everything felt “normal”. My parents lived in the same house my whole life until 1998. In 2021 my father was diagnosed with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, is a long-term lung disease that makes breathing difficult). They told him he had a good 5 years before he would have to live with an oxygen tank. 

This all started during COVID, so only my mom could go to the doctor with him. I sent them with a huge list of questions and a tape recorder to get any information they had for him.

He was diagnosed and got meds. Then March of 2022 I got a text from my dad that said he needed me to come to the house. I didn’t get texts like that from  him so I went there right away, bracing myself for the worst. 

He had gotten into a spiral about various worries, he had lost his job, he was 65 with no money coming in, and losing his physical abilities quickly. He kept talking in circles saying he didn’t know how to get out of it. That he didn’t know what to do. I offered to help but he just kept making it a bigger stress than it needed to be. My mom was getting caught up in it as well, almost to the point of hysteria. 

I didn’t talk to them for a few days and then called them. My mom said my dad wasn’t good. That he had taken himself to the doctor, thinking he was having a COPD attack. I went to her to try to calm her down. She said all he would do is pace. Pacing all day and night. We didn’t know where he went, which doctor so we just had to wait for him to get home. 

He got home finally and said all was good, but I could tell it wasn’t. He was given prednisone for his COPD and zoloft for his anxiety. He said he wanted to work on his truck, so I stayed and helped him. Then I left. 

The next day was my 44th birthday. We had pizza and beer with them, which turned out to be their last meal. Dad was still talking in loops about everything, jumping to conclusions about things while we kept trying to convince him we would be there to help him. I went home then at 2am I got a call from my mom saying she needed me to come to the house. She said she needed me to talk to dad. 

“He wasn’t happy to see me, asking her why she dragged me into it. But it was always just the 3 of us. If they were going through hell, I wanted to go through hell with them.“

Dad was still in his loop of anxiety and worry. At one point he left the room we were in, and my mom looked at me with a “get him out of that room” look in her eyes. We got him into another room and I texted my wife to call 911. I told her to say there was a man in distress with firearms in the home. 

The police showed up, which wasn’t good. My dad was very anti-authority. I told him he would either have to come out and talk to the cops or go to the hospital. I told the police he was having a reaction to his medicine. They wanted to talk about the firearms. I said they were in the house but that we were getting ready to leave, he had agreed to the hospital. So they left. 

We went to Swedish, and because of COVID only one of us could go back. My mom was in no state to be with my dad. So I went back with him. They did the standard questions and told him to stop taking his meds and that he was having an acute reaction to stress. 

They gave him meds and waited for 30 minutes to see if it helped. If we wanted to wait to speak to a social worker the wait could be several hours, or we could go to the local mental health clinic first thing in the morning. He and I were fighting, the whole experience was extremely intense. I really wanted him to punch me, because maybe then they would make him stay. 

I knew it was a bad idea to leave the hospital but staying would make him more angry. I also had some guilt for calling 911, so I agreed to take them home. I stayed over, till about 8:30am. Drove home so my family could use the car. Told my parents to get some rest, none of us had slept. I said I’d be back around 2pm and we’d go to the clinic. He lucidly told me ok. Thats the last time I saw them alive. 

I went to sleep and woke up to a call from my mom at noon. She said she didn’t know what we were going to do. I told her I would be there at 2pm to get them and she said ok.

I got to their place at 2pm, the door was locked, which wasn’t abnormal. Their cars were in the driveway. I let myself in and began to look for them. I saw my dad on the floor, just his arm and dropped my jacket running out of the house. I let out a guttural scream and collapsed in my wife’s arms. I called 911 to report a suicide, my dads. The woman on the phone asked where my mom was. Oh shit, my mom.

I went in to look for her, when suddenly a cop pulled me out and he went in to find her. He came back out and told me she was also deceased. He said there was no sign of physical trauma, but that my mom had “experienced an episode” and it had been too much for her.

I was in so much shock, as I tried to piece the story together – the police started to investigate it as a crime scene. The first 24 hours I told myself that my mom had a heart attack and my dad took his life because he couldn’t take it. 

The next day I got a call around 5pm from the county medical examiner’s office. He told me my fathers death was self-inflicted, and that’s what it will say on his death certificate. Then he said “And your mothers will say: homicide.” I was in shock.

“I like to think he knew she wouldn’t be ok without him. It was his final act of love. I don’t know if that’s why, there was no note. They were a unit. Just like that, 45 years ends.“

The aftermath is interesting. As an only child, it was all left to me. But I couldn’t have done any of it without my amazing support system. I had to clear out their house, have estate sales and deal with their debt. I knew what to do. I didn’t really process for months. I was very dissociative for a while. 

I took family medical leave, during that time I did a lot of healing. Started to see a therapist, went on a solo trip. Really started to work on myself. A lot of the aftermath involved wanting to build connections with other people. Spending a lot of time with my family. Not taking it for granted. 

I did EMDR therapy and it was like an out of body experience. You feel it and have a physical reaction, or at least I did. I could feel it in my knees and my hands were shaking. My therapist explained it like the trauma was coming out of my body. 

I might have the opportunity to meet with members of the board at Swedish hospital and tell them my story of what happened, in an effort to encourage them to staff social workers 24-7 to help in situations like my dad’s. I thought doing this project would get me ready for that vulnerable space. Doing it first with a friend. 

I want people to know how important it is to just show up. I wanted to go hide when this happened, but I had people that depended on me. People tell me I’m so strong, but I just did what needed to be done in those moments. 

“I am amazed at what I did, I’m not good at trauma situations at all. It’s why I quit journalism. To see myself come out stronger and wiser on the other side of it is remarkable. That’s what I want people to take away from this. You would be amazed at what you are capable of in those moments.”

If this story can help someone see a person handle a story as terrible as this one, they can get through theirs too. – Travis 

Closing Photographers Notes

It took me some time to figure out the best way to write this piece. It was imperative I share Travis’s story honestly, while also honoring his parents memory, and not create content for trauma tourists who want all the details, but not stay for the care. Keeping the boundaries and requests of Travis and his family, and making sure the story also is shared in a way that shares the truth in the hopes that others may find hope in it.

I can’t stress the importance of hearing and normalizing these sometimes uncomfortable and scary stories about mental health and the systemic problems we are dealing with in healthcare on so many levels. Getting these terrible and scary things out of our bodies and into a space they can be held with others while we process them, feels vital to our health right now and always. 

So many of the stories that are shared through the portraits in this project are ones of a broken medical system that failed someone. The very same one we entrust to the well-being of ourselves and everyone we love, if we have the privilege of accessing it at all. The ripples of the layers of mental health issues men and specifically men in the military  – not getting the treatment or care needed, for all different layers of reasons – are felt widely. The way the patriarchy has tried to erase men’s need for vulnerability and mental health care, and how now in turn we are seeing the irreparable damage that neglect has done, all the way up to our very heads of government, and the trickle down effects in stories like Travis’s. 

Right now, more than ever, it has become vital to have safe spaces to share these stories. The level of grief continues to rise, across the world. Getting the stories from our own unprocessed traumas, OUT of our bodies into spaces where they can be moved thru and validated – feels essential for survival.

This communication with Travis reminded me that we truly don’t ever know what people may be going through. How do you KNOW someone? You care. You show them safe behaviors. Curiosity instead of criticism. You also are able to talk about your hard things, and aren’t afraid of vulnerability in others. To be able to show we care by taking care of our OWN blooms around difficult topics, before letting them touch the wound of another person. In doing that we become someone that can witness difficult things in a supportive way for those around us. 

If this story hit you in a difficult way, or has left you tender or feeling blooms arise, I wish you softness and grace with yourself. I wish you the patience to dig gently underneath the roots of those feelings, in order to find the gems that could be hiding under there. It’s in how we move after the discomfort that so many things come to light. 

Travis, thank you so much for trusting me with your story and portraits. I am so grateful that you reached out and even more, for your honesty. I am honored to have you in this project.

– M