refocusing and the naked truth

So I spent the last 3 months avoiding writing the entry that I said I would, last post. Part of it was that I lost the will to continue writing. Another part of it was depression weighing hard on me, not so much due to the content of this entry but due to life doing what it does best: handing out unexpected, and mostly unwanted, surprises… of the financial kind. I’ve not been able to put any money back since I’ve moved in with my girlfriend but that’s a topic for a different entry. Suffice it to say, I’ve not had the opportunities to save like I thought I would. The biggest reason for my absence was the confrontation of my father’s death. Not that I haven’t been confronting it on a regular basis since he passed. On some days it’s harder to acknowledge than on others.

My father’s death was a suicide.

Most of my friends know only that my father passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. There is a sizable number of them who do know the truth but far more have been kept in the dark as it’s not a pleasant topic to talk about. I’m sure some of them have suspected there’s more to the story; they’re not a dumb lot. Thankfully many of them have not bothered to act on their suspicions. What would one really say when asking for confirmation of that nature? And that’s fine by me, I don’t really want to talk about it… but I need to.

His suicide came to a surprise to everyone… I guess suicides are often a surprise except to those who have been in the company of ill people, of the mental nature. Those of deep depression, or rather those around individuals with deep depression are probably not surprised to hear of the suicidal death of that individual. They probably see it as more of an inevitability than a possibility. But my father, while I knew he was going through some tough times, surprised us all when he decided to take a shotgun with him to the back yard of his home one Sunday afternoon, presumably held it under his chin and pulled the trigger. Yeah, not pulling any punches with this. My poor mother, who minutes earlier had seen my father standing in the back yard through the door and actually made eye contact with him but failed to recognize the difference between a water hose gun and the pistol grip of a remmington shotgun, bore witness to the aftermath. She saw his mangled face; still has nightmares about it… probably will for the rest of her life. My girlfriend, who had met me out there after I started my way out (thankfully I was with a friend at the time who drove me to my parent’s house as I was in no shape to do that myself) saw his feet laying in the grass. I was spared any physical confrontation of my father’s death… the police, the paramedics, neighbors and my girlfriend kept me from that painful sight. My mother has it burned in her mind. My sister had to endure a 6 hour drive back home before she could be confronted with reality. I’m not sure who had it worse between her and myself.

There was a brown spot of dead grass where I believe my father’s head had come to rest. The police or the paramedics used some kind of chemical that "cleaned up" any remains that they could not pick up or was too small to bother with. Also, one of my parent’s good friends had cleaned what he could of the back yard and patio but you could still smell the stench of death piggy backing on the occasional passing breeze. We would go out to have a smoke, sometimes mother would come out too for the company. She commented on it a few times, how she could still smell something. In time the smell faded and the brown spot turned green once more. Today, if you didn’t know anything had happened you wouldn’t be able to tell where the brown spot was. I can still find it. A patch of clover has grown in the same spot. Guess it was the only thing ready to occupy that patch of ground. I’m sure there’s some bit of irony or coincidence with that but it’s lost on me at the moment.

I’ve had a difficult time with my father’s suicide. My mother and my sister have been far more visibly upset about it than I have. I’ve gone to counseling for it, not because I needed an outlet for it but because I felt I wasn’t going through all the stages of grieving that I should be. That’s what an education in psychology will do to you. I stopped going to it at the turn of the new year, felt that it wasn’t really doing anything for me. One time I asked the counselor what she thought of me, if there was cause for concern over how I was handling his death. All she could tell me is that different people go through grieving differently. This I already knew. So much for all that text book knowledge.

I believe my relative stoicism towards my father’s death is partially due to me not being ready to accept that my father left this world the way he did. Here was a man who instilled in me all my ideas of honor and integrity, tempered by other factors once I left the house but they all started at home and with him. And then he takes this cowardly exit and expected me (us) to understand why he did it. He left notes, many notes. Some of them were the typical suicide notes, others were notes jotted down on scraps of paper. It was almost like seeing how his thoughts were flowing by these small, one line notes. "Lost interest in everything", "hate my job", "hands around my wife’s neck"… he wrote that one down twice. In an ugly incident that was out of character for him, he had lost his cool during an argument with my mother (who does have a knack for exacerbating an argument though that’s not justification for his actions) and had placed his hands around her neck. I don’t think he actually squeezed as I’m sure he realized what he was doing was terribly wrong and not him. That was probably what set the final months of his life in motion. He knew he was no longer the man he once was; that he had become a bitter shell of the person he once was and far removed from whom he wanted to be. I’m not so sure I could live with myself having done something like that to someone I love. As you can imagine, it adds a different twist to this sad tale; another layer of complexity to consider when taking it all in.

At the time of his death he was set to retire a week later.

My mother’s friends were a godsend during this time. As many as 10 of them were in the house helping out as best they could. That meant cooking, cleaning, bringing in supplies and just listening. My friends as well as my sister’s friends all came too to help out in whatever way they could. It was actually a very heartwarming experience to see so many people come together to help us. Gives me hope for the world. One thing I could not swallow, not even from my mother and sister, was the notion that my father is in heaven. My father was saved a few years ago just before he under went abdominal surgery (which I don’t think he ever fully recovered from as he had far less strength afterwards… probably another contributing factor to his decision), something he would later confide to me was more to put my mom at peace than the salvation of his soul. Still, he had accepted Jesus Christ as his savior. But he took his own life. Suicides are an interesting mix. People of faith want to believe that even in suicide their loved ones are with God. If you’re a true believer then you know that suicide is a ticket to hell. My mother and my sister, both Christians, have mentioned

many times how they know he’s looking down on them. Myself, an agnostic, knows that to believe in faith is to believe in my father’s damnation. It is not the reason why I’m an agnostic but it most certainly is pushing me more into the extreme end of it. Religion is a curiosity that will always perplex me. This incident just reinforces that notion but I digress (an entry for another time). I guess it helps them to believe he’s in heaven though I’m sure that somewhere in the back of their minds they struggle with his suicide and the notion that giving themselves fully to their faith means he’s not in heaven. As for myself, I could never believe in something that condemns my father’s last action on this planet to an eternity of torture. Even before his passing I didn’t put much credence in the idea of religion. I sure as hell don’t now.

As I eluded to in one of my previous entries, my world is forever painted differently. I don’t see things the same way as I used to. My patience and tolerance for things that bother me is even shorter now. I just don’t look at the world with "ok" eyes. I’m saddened, depressed, lethargic, apathetic and borderline anhedonic. I have lost a lot of interest in the things that used to interest me. I know it’s clinical depression setting in on me… something I need to address soon before I let it consume me as it did my father.

I wish I could have seen him one last time. I make no qualms about could I have saved him if I had. He had already made his mind up and there was nothing any of us could have done to stop it. But I would have liked to hear his voice, in person, one last time.