Surviving Suicide - Part 2

When I decided to tell my father’s story it surely wasn’t because I was looking for sympathy. I wanted people to know, to maybe relate, but mostly I wanted you all to understand. People have very closed minds when it comes to suicide. It is such a taboo. I never really understood why.

The worst part about all this came after it was all done. When the realisation kicked in.

The stress of worrying about all the “if’s” and the “when’s” was finally over. He had really done it. For years, every time the phone would ring after 10pm my heart would skip a beat. Had he done it? Then I would feel worst about it when I would catch myself thinking “no, not this time…” The not knowing “when” aspect was the rough part. I almost felt like a very pregnant woman who can no longer bare the weight (or the wait) and just want “that thing out”. I wanted it to be done. And when it finally happened, oh how I wished I could all undo it.

The night my father died I stayed with my mother at the house. She wanted to stay there because she felt that if she’d left she wouldn’t be able to come back there again.

I made all the dreaded calls to relatives and friends. I was blunt. He was dead. What else was I suppose to say? Once the shock factor had pass, people often inquired about how we were doing, etc. Some had the courage to ask how he died. I would simply say, “He shot himself”.

Because they were living in a village the rumour mill was working full capacity. They had seen the ambulance, the many police cars, etc. so some nosey neighbours just couldn’t resist the temptation. They just had to drop by. Unlike my mother, I don’t care too much about keeping up appearances. I really don’t care what people think, and they seldom do, anyway.

Since my parents had owned and operated a restaurant in the area for a few years, the locals knew them. They had friends among them as well. Or so they thought.

When my father came out of his therapy (that January) his whole demeanour had changed. He wasn’t the same man. Once very aggressive and opinionated he had become this old man awaiting his death. My mother on the other hand has always been the more “lively” of the two. She always loved to have people over, to play games, etc. She enjoyed life and it showed. She had mentioned that some of their friends weren’t visiting as much and it upset her. Even my father would say that he was driving their friends away. When he most needed to be with happy people, with friends, they went MIA.

That night a couple with whom they played cards dropped by. They had heard the news. They seemed like nice people. My mother and I weren’t agreeing about where the funerals should be held. I wanted him back in Montreal where we had lived most of our lives. They had only been there 7 years. They made the mistake of asking me why not in the village? Because when he was alive nobody gave a shit about how he was doing or visiting him. It was so depressing to be around him when he was down like that. That’s why. He was going to be even more depressing now that he was dead. I didn’t want his supposedly friends to fake feeling sorry for him or even worst, us! Fuck them and their fake obligated sympathy.

The lady was a bit offended and said that I had to understand. I told her that I didn’t owe any explanation or understanding to anybody in this village. If people really wanted to see him, they would make their way to the city.

They were the first of many that I would tell off.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I had too many things on my mind. I made my way to the kitchen and wrote a letter to my father and the world. I knew we were about to face some serious criticism and inconsiderate comments. Who are we to judge others? What greater knowledge do we possess or what great truth do we hold, so that we can judge someone? I “borrowed” the following phrase from an e-mail I received following Part 1: “…we must acknowledge that depression sometimes can be a terminal illness.” It is so true, and yet, we, as a society, are in complete denial about it.

One of my dad’s brothers had already said that we were wrong in allowing him to do such a horrible thing. It wasn’t right and we should have had him sent somewhere where he would have been locked up or something. We simply had to force him. I told that uncle that HE had no right to judge us in ANY way since he didn’t live with him nor had he been around for him. It was my father’s decision. Not my mother’s, not mine. His and his alone. It might have been wrong. But who was I to decide that? I had to deal with his death and really didn’t care for the stigma associated with the way he died.

In a way I understood where my uncle was coming from. You see one thing I didn't write in Part 1 is that my dad’s death wish was there since a young age. His first suicide attempt was made when he was 14. He had shot himself in the neck with a .22

In 1992 was the first time when I really confronted him about it. It wasn’t a good moment. I had told him to get over this or to do it, but to stop threatening us with his wanting to die crap. I didn't want to hear about it anymore.

In 1994, he drove his truck into a wooded area near their house, and connected a garden hose to the exhaust pipe. Somebody found him and brought him home, he was unconscious. He was hospitalised after that for 1 month, doing therapy etc. He was even more depressed after that, always saying that he couldn't even kill himself.

From that time on he and I got closer in some ways. We started to talk openly about his wanting to die. Unlike my mother, who's more the type that says if you don't address it should eventually go away, who was more trying to fix things when they couldn't be, or actually didn't want to be. It wasn't always easy, there were a lot of issues, but I did "clean up" everything that I could.

My father was the 15th child of the family. Among those, 3 had also committed suicide and there's 2 that "might of" (they had cancer, and might of taken too many pills...). Depression is running wild on my father’s side, and it is also a part of me. I've never contemplated suicide but I did fight depression.

I'm just grateful I had those 5 extra years with him. I think I would have been really messed up if he would have been successful it in 1992.

For this blog I will translate the letter that I wrote the night he died, and read during his service. A copy of it was also sent with all thank you cards we sent out. I wanted to make sure that everyone was aware of how I felt about my father’s way to go.

I want to address my father and all the people who were lucky enough to know him.

Dad, first of all I want you to know that never I will hold what you did against you. I want to thank you for setting us free. You were aware of our pain like we were of yours. We tried to help you, but you had decided otherwise. Despite all our love, which wasn’t enough, you weren’t feeling right. Despite being a loud mouth, and with your hurtful words at times, despite all that you were a good man. You loved us and would show it regularly, your way, the way you could. ‘Love you dad!

For those of you who don’t understand or accept what he did, it’s simply because you didn’t know him, or at least not that much. I’m not asking you to forgive what he did, but I would rather ask you to accept him for the man he was.

My father loved nature. He was a hunter and his last prey was his despair, that sadness he had deep down in his soul. Like the true hunter that he was, he shot his prey with precision, straight through the heart.

Despite the sadness I feel today, I came to realise, a little too late, how much I loved my old man. He will be missed. He left way too early, but I can only admire his strength and courage because he did it with dignity, like a man!

Mom, it won’t be easy, but dad will help us. He will give us the courage to continue and like you told me, you didn’t completely loose him, I have his bad tempter. You’ll see, we’ll be ok!

Thank you all for coming and offering us your support in this difficult time. I would also like to thank my dad for gathering us all and for loving us.

Goodbye dad, take care, keep an eye on us and never forget that I love you.

I feel that we did deal with it the best way that we could have. My mom still struggles about certain things, because unlike me, she never frankly, openly, talked with him. I guess she always hoped he would change his mind.

I'm not saying it was easy, because it wasn't. So many times I've asked myself what could have been done differently, etc. But a part of me is at peace with it. I did my best and let him decide.

That's all I could do…