Prologue

Have you ever had that feeling? You know the one. The one where everything and everyone is against you. Like, whatever you touch or look at immediately breaks or turns to shit. Well that was me on March 17th, 2017. My chief, mentor and partner had just committed suicide two weeks earlier, my ex-wife froze my bank accounts and I was sleeping in my car. I had nothing to live for and had too much pride to ask for help. I was physically and emotionally exhausted and could not find a way out. I wrote my suicide note;

To my sons:
You won’t understand, I know this. But please understand that I love you more than anything in the whole world. You are my light in bad times and my sunshine every morning. I’ll be watching over you every minute. Continue to make me proud.

Life is funny, you're on top then you’re under the rock. Financially, emotionally they never coincide. My demons have finally won. The skeletons have become more of me than the person I’m proud of. Let go of me. I’ve shamed many and harmed a few. I hope that in my time I’ve at least made a couple lives better.

Even when the curtain closes for us all, the show will live on. I’ve lived the best life I could but it wasn't good enough. Not for you, not for you and not for anyone. Signing off 10-2 at midnight.

Without hope,
Matthew A Griffin

So there I sat. In an empty parking lot. With an empty heart.

My life flashed before me. A scholarship to a prestigious private high school, all state lacrosse/football player, president of my senior class, US Navy Search and Rescue swimmer, successful undercover police officer….None of it helped me see the value in myself. All the struggles and demons and secrets and lies finally caught up with me.

I remember that day very well. I made up my mind that I was going to leave this earth. I was going to be strong for my boys and take myself out like a wounded animal suffering on the side of the road. Because I WAS wounded. I was hurt. And I was hurting immensely.

I was done. I was tired. I was exhausted. And most of all, I was done with this life. Gazing out the front window, I thought about each of my four sons. “Be tough!” “Be strong!” I kept saying to myself. I was doing this for them. I knew they wouldn’t understand but I couldn’t let them see their dad fail. And all I had done was fail. When the clock read all 0000s, I was going to be strong, I was going to finally have peace! There was something about that midnight hour and the zeros on the clock that felt right.

They say your mind can’t unsee something. I wish I’d known that before I became a police officer because right now all I could see was my lifeless body slumped over the steering wheel — just like so many other suicides I've seen in my career. And I wondered, just for a second, whose mind my body would be burned in when they found me.

Obviously I didn’t pull that trigger. I didn’t make it to midnight. This is my journey and my story about how I came to be on that path. My journey to that moment and my journey from that moment. For me there is only a before and an after. Others before, and after me, did make it to midnight. I feel deeply that there was no one there to tell them what people told me. If you’re one of men or women considering that dark path I hope you’ll wait until you read this book.

I hope that you will embark on this journey with me and you’ll allow me to share my life with you. And by the end of this journey it is my hope that you will know the two things that kept me from making the worst decision of my life.

There is light at the end of the tunnel
&
You are loved