Davey (not his real name) remembered it had been a dry, sunny fall day in El Paso the day he left for boot camp in San Diego. The war had ended, but his father David Sr., a veteran, was still proud of Davey, though he could not say it, and no tear rolled down from the corner of one of his father’s dark deep-set eyes, set in the very indigenous face of many border natives. I remember Davey’s father, a stoic man with a quiet, emotionless face chiseled in stone. What his father had said, as he gave his son a firm handshake, was, “My life as a son of immigrants was pretty chaotic. I never got to have much of a plan for my life, I just had to react to the opportunities that fell in front of me from time to time. And my parents? When my folks came to the U.S., their only plan was to do whatever it took to put food on the table for their children—that became my plan as well.” Davey wished he had said to his father more than forty years ago, “Papá, thank you. You taught me how to plan.”

       Davey was as All-American as you or I,

or anyone you or I have ever known. Short-

cropped jet black hair, now graying. Dark

brown eyes. Dark skin that somehow gets

darker in the sun. A face that looks more

Native American than European (even

though a DNA test showed that Davey was

50% Spanish). His American English spoken

with only the slightest of a Mexican accent,

his American Spanish spoken with a slight

American accent. Yes, he was an “All-

American” lad. Married once, to his high

school sweetheart. Two grown children,

one with a college degree, both very successful at work (though both are now divorced sharing custody). Like most young people of his age back in the 1970s, college was never part of Davey’s plan. The oldest son of a large working-class family, Davey decided to join the U.S. Navy right out of high school. He was not sure why he joined the navy; he had never even seen the ocean, nor did he know how to swim (the same was true when my father joined the navy in 1944). Oddly enough for a military man, at home Davey was never one to look for a fight. But he was not the kind of person who would back down from defending himself or his family members if it was necessary. 

       David Sr. had served during the Korean War era while Davey had served during the Vietnam War era; neither was ever deployed to a war zone; that was just pure luck. But there was one major difference between son and father when it came to military service. During the Korean War, David Sr. prepared for life afterward by working for the “kitchen police” (back in the day, that’s what American "Mexicans" were good for). Davey, on the other hand, was able to become a police officer. A police officer who did not unnecessarily rough up suspects. A police officer who actually never fired his gun, not in the navy, nor during his long career afterward.

*

       “I find myself more and more out of it…” Davey told the woman sitting across the desk from him.         “But sometimes I can’t even tell if I’m in or out of it. My mind is chaos.”

       “You said you used to be quite a partier.”

       “I’d get pretty crazy when I was deployed away from my wife. Didn’t go to Nam. So I didn’t come home with a monkey on my back. Didn’t hang with prostitutes like a lot of sailors, so I didn’t bring home a disease. But yes, I did really tie one in once in a while. And even after I had settled down and the kids came, I’d still get really crazy once in a while. I was really lucky. Sandy (not her name) is great with the kids. With me too.”

       “Like the time you ended up in the emergency room.”

       “I can’t believe I did that,” Davey said in a low voice. “What would my kids have thought if their dad had died from a coke overdose? I have the squeaky-cleanest kids you can imagine, they do not even swear. I used to worry so much about them making bad choices. What a dummy I was!”

       “You’ve done a lot of good in your life…in spite of the lapses. Try to get closer to 

your kids. Let them help you. But I’m not going to gloss over your situation. You hurt your brain. The symptoms are undeniable. Some people can get away with abusing their brains, they are lucky. Some people cannot. Anyway, at your age you can retire. Do you like to fish? Golf? Watch sports? Take trips? Maybe start taking cruises now and then with the missus. You also have grandkids now.”

       “I hate the thought of retirement. Worse than that, I hate these periods when I have to take a leave day, when I just can’t sort myself out, when I just sit home in a daze. At least working allows me to not think about myself.”

       “Be realistic. You have always been good at creating a plan. Let’s create a plan. We don’t have good meds for your condition. But we will do the best we can.”

*

       “That’s the wife pulling up,” one officer cried out to her partner. “She’s the one who called to report that her husband had not come home after a trip to the store. Said she put a GPS on his truck.” 

       She was at the vehicle where Davey’s body was slumped over the steering wheel; the other officer was using the radio. He called out,“She said he was retiring soon. Early onset dementia. My father’s starting to get a little whacky. But my dad’s twenty years older than this guy.”

       “It’s one clean shot to the head”, she called out. “Stop and talk to the wife. She can’t come here.”

*

       My wife and I were having lunch the other day with two friends, one of which is a 

counseling psychologist. We mentioned Davey. Betty (not her name) works with mostly vets and their families. 

       “Sorry to hear that,” Betty says. “One of the guys is really messed up. Just came home. His mother thinks he is planning to kill himself. You know what she said to me?”

       Pause.

       “‘At least he seems to finally have a plan.”

*

       Outside a Catholic Church in El Paso—which looks a lot like the church seen at the end of the movie Captain Fantastic (the film’s ending was filmed in Las Cruces and is the story of how a middle-aged husband and the couple’s children cope with the severe mental illness of a wife and mother).

“I just can’t believe it,” she said, “Davey said he was going to the store to buy some things. But I knew he had already bought those things. I turned on the GPS and when he didn’t come back, I went looking for him…I had this plan…”

       My sister whispered something to me like,“I guess he was going crazy, wasn’t he?”

       “But obviously he wasn’t crazy yet; he was still able to create a plan in the growing chaos,” I replied.

       “At least the diagnosis got poor Davey a proper church burial.”

*

       At one time, the Roman Catholic Church denied the victims of suicide and their families church burials because suicide is a “mortal sin.” Thus, both the victim and the family were eternally punished. However, Davey was lucky; the suicide of a clinically-diagnosed victim is no longer defined as “suicide.” Be thankful for tiny changes in human dogmas. And even though no plan is guaranteed, always have a plan…to get help with your problems.