Beautiful Zach

Time to Share, 

YOU SHOULD NEVER JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER!!

To those that may not know this, I lost my Beautiful Nephew to Suicide in July of 2012. But he was not just my nephew, I was 10 years old when he was born, I remember every minute of my Sister's labor and the experience of waiting on his birth, I watched this baby, this nephew, the little brother I always wanted grow up to be the man he was, the man I was very proud to call my nephew Zach. In fact the redhead in my Facebook Cover picture is who I am referring to, I made this collage from all the pictures I collected after he took his own life. This was not the first time he tried either, the first time he was 17 years old and I got the call in the middle of the night to come get him from the hospital because he had slit his wrist, thank GOD he came to his senses and called for help. This nephew of mine was what I referred to as a Tortured Soul, he had many bad experiences in he life and one of the most tragic was with me. We shared this nightmare our entire lives, unfortunately it affected him alot worse than it did me. I was older (16) Zach was only 6 and he didn't get the proper care a little boy should have gotten after witnessing what he did. He became a drug abuser, a criminal, he was in and out of prison for most of his teen and adult life. But through it all he had the biggest heart and just wanted to find love with someone. This only really happened for him once in is life (LOVE) and a month after his 40th birthday he took a look at his life and how little he had and decided to end it, we don't know all the facts because he didn't leave a note, but we know he was very drunk when he decided to shot himself. I know that my niece will forever be tortured with the memory of finding him. So when I say I have experienced losing a loved one to Suicide, I mean sooo much more than just losing him. I was there when the coroners office came and carried him out of his apartment, I was there when the detectives questioned us about why or where he got this gun. I was there to help clean up his apartment and decide how to divide up his property. I was there to plan his funeral and help pay for it because his Mother was on the other side of the world and couldn't be there. I will never forget the feeling I experienced when my other Sister called me at work to tell me what had happened, and how I broke down in a conference room while my co-workers could hear me crying thru the walls. I was there when we had to tell his Mother and Father what he did, I was there when I had to step up for my Son,, his best friend and plan this for him, because my Son couldn't cope with this tragedy. I was there to watch my niece who is like a little sister to me suffer, because she couldn't sleep, every time she closed her eyes, she saw the man she protected and watched over all her life, laying in his own blood. As I write this I am surrounded by memories of him, his urn is across the room from me, his screenplay he was writing is in a box on the floor not 3 feet away from me. I plan to sort it out and hopefully get it into book form to honor him and his memory one day. Every light switch and outlet in my house he replaced, and the countless other projects he helped me with when I bought my fixer upper of a home. 

Zach

I write this mainly because I wanted to share something that happened to me 3 months ago. You see I got a message on my facebook page from a Author that had published his own book and he didn't know how to promote this book so he was just going blog to blog trying to get people to read his book. Now knowing what I have just told you, you can only imagine what I must have thought when I saw what the title to this book was.

The Coolest Way to Kill Yourself by Nicholas Tanek. I'm not tagging him on purpose, because I am not doing this to promote his book per say, but to show some people out there that may not understand this title, or who may be offended by it, that if I can get past it and read it and Love it!! I think they need to try and understand his reasons and not be so quick to judge or hate. I admit I did judge, but once I took a closer look I found that I made the best decision in reading this book because it has changed my life in ways I cannot describe.

This Author engaged me in a way that I couldn't turn him away, so I read the synopsis and I became very curious about this book, you see, what I learned after reading this book was that 'The Coolest Way to Kill Yourself' is a metaphor, no one actually kills them selves in this book. The title was not meant to be Inconsiderate to those that have lost loved ones to Suicide, It was a term that the main character in his book would often use when she was referring to their relationship, their kind of LOVE, It was the coolest way to kill yourself, to love, to experience what they had together. What I discovered about myself and about this book, this Author who I now call a very dear friend, I hope for life, is that he wrote this book about his life, about his journey from a selfish teenager to a very indulgent adult. This book about Music, depression, drug abuse, and ultimately getting a second chance at love and experiencing the most open and honest, without shame, love with a woman that understood him and all his Kinky ways. As I read about his many struggles in life and how he dealt with them and how he overcame them. It made me look at my own life and how I handled many of the same experiences, although not to the same extreme that Nicholas did. This book is by far the best book I have read since I started reading again a couple of years ago. It's not for everyone, I am sure there are some that won't agree with me, but I tell you the ones I have recommended to read this book, love it and I would love it, if they would comment or like this post to testify to that. And so I say to those that may Judge or are offended by the title, I know for a fact that it was never the intent of the Author to do that, he was only speaking from his heart and that was or is the Truth. A Creative man wrote a book about true events and due to the nature of his Book, there could be no other title. It is what it is... Nicholas Tanek is the Coolest Guy and I Love his Soul.