My father’s death (his suicide)

It’s hard to believe that 17 years have passed since my dad died but they have.  He died on May 13, 1997; I was 26 years old at the time, recently married and devastated beyond words.  I talk about Dad’s death a little in Hear I AM and am currently writing something else that I’ll soon share more broadly and that is focusing specifically on the way that Dad died.  He committed suicide–and in the bedroom in which I spent most of my hours from the time I was a 5 year-old little girl until the time I was an 18 year-old young woman.

There is a freshness to certain types of loss.  Even though years and years may be between you and them, it still feels some days like it just happened.  I’ve heard many people say this about their parents, and I certainly feel this way about my dad.  I have a little memory box that I keep in the bottom of my master bedroom closet, and it’s full of things that remind me of my dad.  The last ball cap he ever wore is in that box, and it still smells just like him (very masculine with just a little hint of horses and hay).  I never knew that something like that would mean so very much to me.  Yes, it’s hard to believe, even after all these years, that Dad is gone; and it’s especially hard to believe that it all happened the way that it did.   

Suicide is something that really needs to be talked about, especially in the Church.  God’s people are not immune to it.  It was so very difficult for me to find any level of healing after Dad’s death because I felt estranged from God and the Church.  With the Church, sometimes (but only rarely) was it what people said or did but it was instead a vibe, it was an unspoken culture, that put me off and made me feel as if there was no place where I fit.  “Real” Christians don’t do such things this vibe echoed over and over again in my head. 

As hard as cancer was, Dad’s death was much harder.  Though I couldn’t see it at the time, I can see now that God was there; he was there with my dad and he was there with me in the aftermath.   I just wish I had realized back then how very present God was.  It certainly would have changed things.  We don’t get to change the past though, at least not in the ways that we sometimes wish; but, we do get to choose to be grateful that we survived it and that we were able to learn something from it. 

One of the most amazing things I learned is that “death” (even when it involves suicide) is not final.  I believe that my dad is very much alive (and probably having more fun with my friend Jane right now than I can possibly even fathom).  And I am so very thankful that I had Dad in my life for as many years as I did.  He was with me for many milestones; he taught me how to ride my first horse (and held me when I fell off of it), he saw me graduate from college (the first time), he walked me down the aisle, he saw me buy my first house, and he even gave me my first dog (the first one for whom I was ever solely responsible).  Many people don’t even come close to getting a dad to do such things with down here.  So, yes, I’m most grateful. 

And I’m also still hurt.  I woke up this morning remembering the day I got the “news.”  I was teaching a Spanish class and was unexpectedly called to the office.  Looking back today, I remember now that the students didn’t seem to think it was funny, and this was unusual since high school students do generally chuckle when their teacher gets “called in.”  It’s almost like they sensed something big had happened.  My husband was waiting for me in the office of my boss, and we were quickly taken to a private conference room.  Telling me what had happened was probably the hardest thing my husband had ever done.  He had gotten a call at his office from the paramedics who had arrived at the “scene” first, and they had asked him to find Tommy’s daughter right away.  Well, I was found and then quickly lost in a way that I didn’t think I would ever be able to come back from.  I still miss Dad so very much, and I still so wish that his storyline had been different.  I feel like I would have done most anything to make it different. 

Another thing I learned through Dad’s death, though, was that my story is the only one that I can live out down here.  Dad had his own story, and there’s only so much that I could have done to change that.  And all I can say now, all these years later, is that I loved him no matter what and I still do–and I believe that God loved him that way too and He still does; and through the hurt, that’s what I have to hang on to today and every other day forward.