Seeing him lay there was devastating. Not because he was suffering but rather it made me look bad, it ruined my reputation. It was embarrassing and I hated him for that. With each ping of the oxygen tank, the anger inside me multiplied. As my eyes remained locked onto the monitor, aside the hospital bed, my throat ran dry and my mind began to run. How had I let this happen? Why me? And why my son? How had I let my son do this to himself? I raised him better than this. As my thoughts jumped around in my head unorganized like airplanes flying with no destination, the hospital nurses periodically walked in and out of the small 10 by 10, white walled, 4th story, depressing hospital room. The nurses wore their scrubs and gloves. The gloves, after a while of hearing the nurses take them on and off, began to really piss me off. God, I hated those stupid gloves. The nurses, every so often, with their obnoxious gloves and all, nonchalantly checked if my son Jonathon was okay and alive. They didn’t really care about my son, and I can’t say I blame them. To the nurses, my son was just a patient. To me, my son was just a waste. A waste of a human who was in and out of prison, rehab, and therapy. A waste of my money and my time. A knock on the door brought me back to reality. The doctor stood in the doorway with a smile, as if he were mocking me and making fun of my son and how he had failed me and said, “Mr. Conner, I must change the oxygen tank, can you give me a hand?” I helped him, reluctantly, but I helped him. I didn’t see the point, it was too late. My son was going to die; it was just a matter of days. As we replaced Jonathon’s source of life, with a new 68 oz., grey canister, with a green top, the doctor once again smirked and said, “Easy as that. If you need anything Mr. Conner, let me know.” How embarrassing I thought, I’m now being pitied all because of my son, Jonathon, and his waste of a life. I eventually took my seat at the foot of the hospital bed, took two big gulps of water, and stared back at my son. It was at this moment, I knew this emergency room visit was the final battle, in which drugs reached a victory in the war of sobriety. My 26 year old son was inching his last breath and I sat there with nothing but anger and disgust towards him.
My ex-wife Jenny and I had two kids, Jonathon and Chris. Jenny was a long-legged, blonde who was stuck up and more about than anyone I had ever met in my life. Our family of four lived just outside the city, in a rather big, thanks to me, brick house. I worked hard to bless my family with everything they could possibly need. And I was doing a great job. I played college baseball at the University of Illinois and later went on to play 13 long seasons for the Chicago White Sox. I was a long-relief pitcher and still hold the major league record for career holds. My college years were incredible. I was once given three hundred dollars a week, for about a 6 month period of time, from one of the school boosters to serve as extra spending money to keep me happy. I had a surplus of girls at my doorstep every night. The sex was incredible. I had a different girl every night and it seemed like each time, the girl only got better. I recall, once when a party broke out across the street from my college dorm, I was the life of the party. We had just finished a game, and so I had to show my face at the party. With my jersey still on, dirt, grass stains, and all, I walked into the s*** show of the party. I was the center of attention. I loved the attention. I always have.
My ex-wife Jenny was big on family. So big that she designated Sundays to family, this was a moral sin against how I was raised. To me, Sundays were for naps and football, not family. After my family returned from mass around noon like clockwork every Sunday, I would be laying on the couch watching TV or napping. I did not go to church. I did not believe in God. I just don’t understand how a man in the sky deserves credit for what I have done and accomplished. The fact that I didn’t believe in God caused a lot of screaming matches in our house. My ex-wife was delusional and completely ignorant to what really life was about. Life was about success, money, and position and she could never wrap her small, uniformed, infant mind around that. Jenny would always b**** at me. She never had a reason or relevant argument. I swear, if it was her job to b**** and complain, she’d be the most successful person on this planet. I hated her obnoxious, raspy voice when she yelled. I hated her soft, shaky voice when she cried, and it made it worse that she cried uncontrollably for no reason. Jenny was a pain in the ass. Jenny was constantly on because I didn’t spend enough time with the kids. I am still not sure what they complained about, I worked so hard so that they could have everything they would want or need. I loved success. I always have.
The hospital was abandoned now. The visiting hours were over and only the graveyard shift nurses, receptionists, and a few parents that were staying that night with their kids, remained. I was one of those parents, unfortunately. My luxurious sleeping quarters for the night was a green, sofa-like chair. I could feel one of the springs in the cushion going up my ass and one stabbing my back, preparing to pierce my skin. I couldn’t sleep and it was going to be a long night.  
My youngest son Chris was in the driver’s seat of his own life. Chris was a high school senior and at the top of his class. He was an intelligent kid with dirty blonde hair and glasses. Chris loved to fly under the radar. I’m still convinced he is a virgin. Along with his innocence, Chris retained his quietness from his childhood. There were times when Jenny, Jonathon, and I would be in the room having a conversation or argument, and we would not even realizing that Chris was in the room. Jenny always said he was quiet because I scared him, but I’m convinced he is just jealous of his older brother. Jonathon was blessed with my athletic ability and grew up with all the friends while Chris struggled to ask someone to be his lab partner. Jenny always felt bad for Chris, but it’s not Jonathon’s fault he was gifted. Even if Chris was gifted with just half of my abilities, he would be damn good. That wasn’t the case though, Chris got nothing. Chris and I really had nothing in common, so I just kind of let him go and let him do him. He is my son and I love him, but I couldn’t get attached to him. I knew I would raise a bright kid like Chris. I’ve always raised my kids the best. I always have.
The medical cart was being pushed down the hallway, by a fat intern with the nametag that read “David”.  David was short, probably no more than 5’8. But boy was he dark. Had it been night, David would have gone unseen by the hospital workers, goers, and visitors. The only way people would have recognized that David was there was by the cart that screeched as it went down the hallway. The screech and click that occurred after each of the four wheels rolled over a new tile, really pissed me off and served as my makeshift alarm clock. Jonathon was still lying there, lifeless, but alive.
My second marriage was about as much of a success as the first one. Long story short: Women are crazy. I am not even sure why I tried to get married again. Jenny sucked the life out of me for 9 years. And following that up with another 3 years with Kim, I was exhausted. This divorce was different though. It was different because I had actually taken a few days to think about how this was affecting my boys. I worried that the loss of their mother no longer in their life and the changes would hurt them or cause them harm in some way. I really thought hard about it, for my boys deserved better than that. They deserved better than having two mothers walk out of their life. I finally came to the conclusion that my boys would just have to grow up and get over it and that it probably didn’t affect them at all, I’m sure they hardly cared or noticed. If I could get over it and work through it, so could they. I was strong and could handle adversity. I did a great job with handling a challenge. I always have.
I hated to admit it, but Jonathon was a better athlete than me, and definitely a better pitcher. He had scholarships to almost every school in the country and was even drafted out of high school. But Jonathon shoved the first thorn of our relationship into my side when he told me; he didn’t and wasn’t going to play baseball anymore. He said he was burnt out and was tired of living out my dream for him and not his own. I was furious. He turned away a free college education and a chance to make money playing professional baseball. That night was the first night I laid hands on Jonathon. The first of many. He pissed me off so much. I wanted to kill him. He would come home some nights and I would just go at him. He was throwing his life away. I can recall one such instance in which Jonathon came home with his girlfriend after they went out to dinner and from the second I heard his voice, I wasn’t having it. I hit him. Punch after punch, he continued to take it. He didn’t even defend himself, which only made me angrier. “F***ing punch me, you piece of s***,” I would shout, taunting him to hit me back. I strangled him. As his face would turn red and then lose all the color completely, Chris ran out from his room, just in time to pry me off of my oldest son. Jonathon was lucky, I could have killed him. I wanted to kill him. He was a textbook definition of a f*** up and he was ruining our family. As Jonathon continued our battles and fights, Jenny and Chris played defense for him. I never understood why Jonathon never hit me or fought back. What a f***ing coward. My kids no I will always be able to kick their ass and I always will show them what a real man is. I never lost a fight. He deserved every beating that he took. I always hit Jonathon. I always have.
The nurses were in a frenzy now. As soon as the monitor called out with one long beep, they went into action. Jonathon’s heart had stop and his pulse was nonexistence. He was dying. They attempted to shock his heart back three or four times but each was unsuccessful and with each second that passed, everyone knew that the end was near. As the doctor and team of nurses threw up a few more hail Marys to save my son’s life, I sat in the chair watching. What I watched that day was really unlike anything else I had ever seen. I watched one 26 year old man, pathetically grasping for his life as five strangers held on for so long. I stayed silent. It was not my place to get in the way or even attempt to talk to my son last time. I had nothing to say to him and it was time. Jonathon Conner passed away due to failure of his vital organs. The failure was from the drugs he had taken only two days before. Twenty- six years and he wasted every second of it.
Jenny was the last person I wanted to be with as I cleaned out Jonathon’s room. I didn’t need to hear her voice or listen to her b****, complain, or cry. I just wanted to throw away everything and be done with it. It was just filling up a room in my house.  It took the two of us a couple of days to go through everything in Jonathon’s room, closet, drawers, bins, and cabinets. He had a lot of s*** for just being a drug addict. Finally, as we were wrapping up the last few boxes and were deciding on what to keep, what to get rid of, what to donate, and what to find use for, we got down to the last box. I had let Jenny go home, partly because I was tired of being around her and partly because I could handle the last box by myself. I opened the box and on top were some of Jonathon’s high school graduation pictures and collages. Underneath that, was his funeral memorial page. It read:
Christian Burial Mass
For
JONATHON W. CONNER
In Loving Memory of a great companion, friend, brother and son.
This was Jonathon’s box but I must have shoved this in their to get it out of the way. After going through some more pictures, old high school notebooks, some old cellphones, and a few of his video games, I reached the bottom of the box. At the bottom of the box, there was one notebook left. This was a hardbound notebook with a black cover that said Jonathon written in whiteout. There was post it notes, and torn pages hanging out stubbornly of the notebook. This notebook stood out to me, so I had to take a look.  After reading a few pages, I had realized this wasn’t just an old school notebook. It was Jonathon’s journal. This was where he wrote down everything. From the f*** you’s to the I love you’s, it was all here. I kept reading. I felt guilty about reading this, but I couldn’t stop. With each turn of the page, I had learned more about my son than I ever had before. Some of the pages had a ton on it. So much that I couldn’t even read it because it was all crammed into one page, but other pages just had short lines or one or two sentences. Some even had a few words. I flipped through and intently read through Jonathon’s journal as if I were looking for some kind of clue to something. I never found any clues, I simply just found myself deeper and deeper into the understanding of my sons depression. I read until one page hit me, this happened to be the last page written in the journal. That one page read:
“Growing up to eventually hate your  childhood role model f***ing sucks. You look up to someone, you sacrifice to be like  them, and what happens? They let you down. They f***ing strangle you. They beat the s*** out of you. He cares more about his alcohol than his children. He ruins to beautiful women’s lives. He is so self-absorbed that he can’t see what he has down to his family. I f***ing hate myself because of him. Some role model huh. Well f*** him. I tried. I tried so hard for him. But I am finished. I can’t take it anymore. If you ever read this you bastard, know this. I love you. I love you so much, I’m shooting up this time for you. Hope I make you proud. See you in Hell.”

It’s been me the whole time. I was the reason. I knew it the whole time as well, I just didn’t want to admit it. I am a raging alcoholic who hasn’t spent a day sober in probably 20 years. My anger, denial, disgust, and incapability of being able to read a situation correctly has all been a direct correlation of my alcoholism. I am a drunk. I am a f***. I am a man unable to hold a marriage or relationship with anyone. It has been me the entire time. The saddest part is, it took me to stumble upon a journal entry of my dead some to finally be true to myself and stop denying the fact of what was really happening. I was the depression. I was the drugs. I was the suicide. I was killing my son. I was what killed my son. And I knew. It was me. I knew it was me the entire time. I always have.