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They found my son collapsed in the median on West Ina near Oracle on June 12. No ID. No wallet. Just a phone. That鈥檚 how the hospital reached me 鈥� because even in the middle of that, some part of him still pointed to me.

He was 31.

I鈥檝e written about him before. About the group 蜜聊直播. About the placements. About how hard it is to keep someone alive when the system built to help them is always disappearing beneath your feet. I said once that the word 鈥減laced鈥� felt like a miracle. Now the word is 鈥渃remated.鈥�

Gage didn鈥檛 die because he was schizophrenic. He died because the only thing that ever quieted his symptoms was methamphetamine. And the last time he tried to quiet them, it killed him.

No one should judge that. Not if they鈥檝e never seen what it鈥檚 like to live in a mind that will not let you rest. There were times Gage believed terrible things were happening to his family. That we were being tortured, hurt, silenced. These visions overtook him. He would become frozen, unreachable, sometimes catatonic. Afterward, he鈥檇 often say he felt responsible for not being able to protect us. The guilt stayed with him longer than the delusion did.

He wasn鈥檛 weak. He was hunted. Every waking hour of his life. And he still made it 31 years.

I have his suitcase here. The one he brought with him to his last transitional placement. Zipped and untouched. He left it behind. I don鈥檛 think he meant to take it. I think he knew he was going back to being homeless. I haven鈥檛 opened it. Not because I don鈥檛 care what鈥檚 inside. Because I do, it鈥檚 the last thing he touched before disappearing for the last time.

Schizophrenia isn鈥檛 rare. Not when you count the families it fractures. Not when you count the parents who become legal guardians just to get a say in their child鈥檚 care. Not when you count the ones who die like this 鈥� quietly, in medians and alleyways and holding cells.

The NIH spends more on sleep research than it does on schizophrenia. Cancer funding outpaces it tenfold. Cardiovascular disease, even more. And yet people with schizophrenia die 20 to 30 years earlier than average. The Standardized Mortality Ratio for schizophrenia is between 2.5 and 3.7 鈥� meaning it kills at rates higher than most cancers, and far higher than heart disease. But the research dollars don鈥檛 follow because the people it kills are mostly poor. Mostly disenfranchised. Mostly invisible. They don鈥檛 vote in blocs. They don鈥檛 fund campaigns. And so they are left to die 鈥� quietly, predictably, off-budget.

And what little infrastructure exists is being stripped. Medicaid. Housing support. Case management. All on the chopping block鈥攔epackaged as reforms. You won鈥檛 hear the word 鈥渁bolish.鈥� You鈥檒l hear 鈥渇iscal streamlining.鈥�

I had lunch with him the day before he died. I was suspicious he was not taking his meds, and the place he was staying did not monitor this. But he was clearer than usual. No pharmacological fog. Just the unfiltered shape of him. He talked like someone already leaving. Not in a dramatic way 鈥� just already gone.

I鈥檝e been told Gage鈥檚 death was an overdose. I know. But that鈥檚 not what killed him. What killed him was every single failed discharge, every budget line crossed out, every politician who said the market would take care of it.

What killed him was a culture that treats suffering as spectacle. That thinks meth is a choice. That thinks love is enough.

It isn鈥檛.

I鈥檓 not blaming. I鈥檓 reporting.

My son is dead.

He didn鈥檛 overdose because he wanted to get high. He overdosed because meth was the only thing that made the voices stop. It did what nothing else could.

People talk about closure. There isn鈥檛 any.

There鈥檚 just the space he left. And the days that keep happening anyway.

In a world that watched him and tens of thousands like him suffer and called it inevitable.