[This section remains as one of only a few parts of this site not written to my father.]
On the morning of Monday, August 22, 2011, my brother called me around 10am to let me know that our father, 61, was dead. I was already on the road, going to pick up a friend for breakfast. I kept driving. For two and a half hours, the time it took me to get to my father’s house, I drove through many emotions. I cursed and screamed, I thought about how he had outsmarted us, and of course, I cried. My plan was to go there and scoop my brother up, get him away from the house, and bring him back to my place. But by the time I arrived, there were already about 15 people at the house, including family friends, my dad’s wife and her parents, professional friends of my father, and his office staff. His siblings and their families drove in, and my mother (always a very close friend and parental partner with Pop) and her sisters drove many hours to get to us. People brought food, hugs, and their sympathies for us and sadness for my father. It was hard to be sad while seeing all the love that people had for my dad, and seeing that people loved us just because we came from him.
The next day, I had a counseling appointment, and one of the suggestions my counselor made was to take some time to write Papa a letter, sign it, seal it in an envelope and either burn or bury it. However, I knew that being ADD, I would never be able to write a letter that I could feel was complete. I would think back and say, “oh, I forgot to say this or that or tell him those stories we heard about him.” So, I decided to start this blog as an ongoing letter to him. We used to talk on the phone a few nights a week. This is a way that I still get to talk to him, and when things come up for me or my family, I can tell him about them.
He wanted to be cremated, and didn’t want a service, so my brother and I decided to have a gathering in his memory on Friday. Some 200 people came to be with us, to give their condolences, mourn his death, and celebrate his life and the person that he was.
I feel the need to explain my view on suicide. I’ve never had a death this close in the family before, and I haven’t experienced a very close friend or relative deciding to take his/her life. Coming from within it and dealing with it personally has changed my perspective in some ways, but I have mostly held true to my view. People will often say, and have said to me, “suicide is the most selfish act.” I can understand their viewpoint, but I disagree. My father was not a selfish man while living and there’s no reason his death should be any different. Generally, I don’t have a problem with suicide. I don’t feel that life should be a prison to someone, and I don’t think that someone else (or even a higher being) should always be the one to decide when it is time to go. Sometimes, a person reaches a very desperate breaking point, and feels that enough is enough.
Don’t get me wrong, though, I am not a morbid person or “pro-suicide” by any means. That is to say, I believe that all possible options should be exhausted first! I would wish for someone who feels suicidal to seek counseling, medication, and if needed stay in a facility until well and better able to cope with one’s current life situation. Sadly, not everyone has the agency for these options, and in my father’s case, even if they do have the resources, not everyone is open to counseling. My father had never dealt with a deep depression in his life before, and he said to me (exactly one week prior), “I’m not used to this. If I was, I could be stronger.” I told him that his depression was temporary, even if it didn’t seem to be, and that we would get him some help, and he could get better and be his normal, positive self. He decided to wait a week and see where he was, and asked us (my brother, his brothers and sisters, and me) to bear with him for a week. Unfortunately, another Sunday rolled around, and his sorrow consumed him, and this time, defeated him.
People’s reactions have been varied. Many people in my hometown have bluntly asked me, “how’d he do it?” Rumors have been spread that he shot himself, overdosed on sleeping pills, etc. He did not believe in owning a gun, and he did not take prescription medication to sleep. He had been having trouble sleeping for over a year. People where I live have not typically been so blunt, and have just shown their sympathy without asking questions. Some have said to me what a selfish act suicide is. Many have opened their hearts and asked me to call them if I ever want to talk or want company. Some have shied from discussing it at all. When you tell someone that a loved one has taken his/her life, people feel strange or pity you or think that the person must have just “been a loser.”
My dad was an alcoholic, but a highly functional one. He was not the kind of alcoholic that is either glamorized or chaotically shown in media. He had a very successful law practice for over 30 years, and he was a genuinely good person. He smiled a lot, cracked corny jokes, and believed in a good force on the world. He was an avid UNC fan, as it was his college for both undergraduate and law school. Though he did not believe in a Christian God, he lived his life in a way that was moral, treating others kindly and always striving to do the right thing. Over the past two years, he endured prostate cancer and recovery, a foot surgery, and sciatic nerve problems which put his leg in constant pain and caused him to limp when walking. He also had a fall that he didn’t share with us, and it caused (what I think may have been) a brain injury or early onset Alzheimer’s. His mother died of Alzheimer’s, and he was very afraid of ending up the same way, and he didn’t want to ever go to a nursing home.
Though I’ve tried, I cannot fully articulate the personal relationship I have been fortunate to have with my father. I can say these things. I had known him for 27 years, and we were friends for about the latter 10 of those years. As a child, I always strove for his approval and pride. Upon turning 18, I came out to him and reached out for us to get to know one another better. As an adult, I further became very proud of him, and we became very close. In the past several years, we had been comrades, and could speak very frankly with one another. I am very much like him, in ways that I have always been and am still discovering. We had an understanding, and fully accepted one another, forgiving each other of petty flaws in order to see one another in light of our whole selves. I feel very lucky that I was able to know him at all, but especially on these levels, as his child and as his friend.
Papa often said that his primary goal in life was to raise children, and educate them in such a way that they would benefit the world by being part of it. He believed he did that, but since he felt his job was done, he lost his passion for life. I can only speculate what he must have felt, and I assume a large list of feelings for him, but what has made the most sense to me is that he might have thought, “my kids are old enough that they’ll be okay, and if I continue to live, I would look forward to more health problems and probably a painful death.” I think he felt he had lived a full life, and he wanted to die in his sleep. This was the way he was able to have control of his death. Also, this upsets people, but in his mind, I think he partly died for us. I cannot bear to think that he felt like a burden to us, or even felt like he was going to be a hassle to deal with, but he might have felt that way.
If I could talk to him again, I would tell him that I wish he would have held on a little longer. I would tell him that I could have taken off work, and come to hold his hand, and driven him to counseling appointments, cried with him, laughed with him, and helped him through such difficult feelings. I would tell him that I love him and am so proud of the person he was. I will never know if it would have done any good, but I know that I would have done anything for him to still be in this world. For a chance to hug him again, I would do anything.
My world will never be like it was when he was alive. This event has broken my life into two parts: the part before my father died, and the part after his death. Even things that are the same, like my surroundings, are different to me now. I will never forget, and I won’t be the same again, but eventually, I’ll be okay. We all will be okay.
My grieving process will take different forms, but I haven’t been angry with him, even though I know it is okay to be. In both a metaphorical and tangible way, I have lost a huge part of my foundation, and this blog keeps me grounded. It helps me compartmentalize my pain and keep my sadness from being unmanageable when I work and go through my life doing the things I have to do. Still, my mourning has been less about the effects of my father’s death on me, and more about the sadness that he must have felt. I think of happy memories and funny stories he told us over and over. I look at photographs of him. When I hear jokes that he would have liked, I think of him. When I need to cry, I allow myself to cry, and when I need to talk to him, I write to him here.
When I stop writing so frequently, I plan to print these letters and bind them together. Eventually, I may (possibly) try to get them published to offer comfort and support to others dealing with a similar life event.
To Papa with Love 