Poppy

The thing about earthquakes is that there's never really any warning before they're about to happen, and so the pain is instantaneous. Our minds by default go into shock, shutting out all feeling and reception, unable know what to do. I've learned that minimizing the pain through repression only makes matters worse and the healthiest way of dealing with the aftermath is to face it without judgement or resistance.

My father ended his life last Saturday. No one had any idea, though I suppose that's how it usually is, right? With the week I've taken off of work I've had quite a fair share of sadness. It's been a roller coaster ride, where I'll be remembering how happy things used to be, then I'll remember that my father is no longer around. I can't share these moments with him. He can't share his moments with me.




What drove him to do it? I'll never have a definitive answer. He never wanted to 'burden' anyone else with his issues. The last thing he ever did was rely on anyone besides himself. So many letdowns in his life, it must have hardened his heart, yet not enough to make him cold. It's cliche to say to your dad that he's the best in the world, and yet I can't help but expressing that I feel he was. Maybe it's because he was the best dad for me specifically, since we're from the same tree. He had to have known some of my thought processes and feelings since he had them too, and I do the same with my older son.

I can't imagine the pain he was in to have done this to himself. I can't imagine his thoughts as I told him a month ago that I longed to see him, especially for his birthday, that I loved him very much. It's only in the last year or so that I've been able to really express to him my appreciation to him. How much pain had he been in when hearing me say this to him, being alone with his dark thoughts? He couldn't let me down and tell me the problems in his life. The demands he made of himself were too high, and he feared so much how his close family would view him after learning about his mistakes. So much guilt. So much pain. So much loneliness.

My father and I never seemed to cope very well with my mother's passing. It was mostly just us trying to move on the best we could, and inside we both felt like hell. I know it, we were fooling each other and ourselves. We never spoke at length to each other about it, because neither of us really wanted to.

From what I know, this year he began a new life in a new town. He cut down on his drinking and apparently only went to the bar a total of three times in the past few months. So go figure, the few times he had some beer he apparently got caught by the police. The irony. He used to drink like a fish while driving, with a small cooler next to his seat at all times. One time when returning to a party during the day, I went ahead and chugged down just about every beer in there before he got a chance to get to them, just so we'd have a safe drive back home. I vomited like crazy once we got home and was dizzy for hours, but I cared about my father too much to let anything like that happen to him.

I have lots and lots more to say about this, though I don't think it's fair to myself or anyone else to spend 100,000 words on a single blog entry, so instead I'll continue writing about it outside of this, and perhaps in different ways.

- Ether