my dad’s suicide

My dad’s suicide has been fucking me in the head lately.  I’ve been thinking about death way too much.  His death–my eventual death.  My mom’s death.  My spouse’s eventual death.  I’m terrified.

It makes me panic in the night, which interferes with my sleep, so then I panic more.  I hate all that.

grief spiral

You know how grief is a spiral.  We can deal with a huge loss, but we circle back at anniversaries or times of stress, or seemingly at random.  I guess it’s time to return to my dad’s suicide.  It’s spring, and I always feel the veil is thin in spring, like a brighter autumn.

And it’s because of health problems.  His suicide was related to his anxiety.  My anxiety is really bad right now.  I sedated myself three different ways last night and still couldn’t sleep.

I’m sorry I harshly judged the drug use.  Sometimes, we’re desperate.  Desperation is part of being human, or just animal.  Animals get scared.

ritual

I need to talk to my dad.  There’s a ritual I need to do, but no time to gather herbs and find a quiet spot.  I feel rushed and caught up in what other people need, at my expense.

I’ve talked to him before–that dad, his spirit wherever it is.  But I’m a new person now.  I know things I never knew when he was alive.  I’m a grown ass lady, these days.  He never knew me like this.  In a way, he never knew me at all.  Or he knew my baby self only, and messed that up really bad.

I have new things to say about my dad’s suicide, and I need to say them to him.

talking to my dad

I’m sorry you were so hopeless that you killed yourself.  I know you were miserable for years, and I had no way to reach you.  You had no way to reach me either.

What does it mean to be a daughter?  Incest destroyed our family in multiple ways.  There was the violence of sexual violation, and there was also the fear of repeating it, which drove us away from one another preemptively.

If anxiety is the poison of our family, what’s the antidote?  Or maybe sexual abuse is the poison of our family.  Or violence in general.  Maybe addiction itself.

Whatever the biggest problem is, we struggle with health.  Sometimes I think we’re doomed in the genes.  There’s something medieval going on where we survive long enough to reproduce, but not into old age.  It feels unfair.  But then the grandpas have less time and hopefully do less damage.

liberation

You were so fearful and small.  Angry white man who acts big but inside is terrified.

But you’re spirit now, and I honor you as a powerful being somehow.  You’re no longer confined to a body.  I bless you in your liberation, and I hope you’re happy now in a way I never really saw you in life.

You are free to be who you are with no anger from me or real expectations from me.

I’m realistic about your weaknesses and grateful for your strengths.  I don’t want to monster-fy you anymore or distort you in any direction.  I’m letting you go again  A thin golden vibration thread connects me to you somehow, always.

But I don’t need anything from you: I don’t need your protection, your apology, your ideas.  I release you and all your failures.  I release the dreams you held, your disappointments, your stubbornnesses.  Even the curl of your hair, the feel of your hands, your preferences I can’t forget.  They aren’t my responsibility to track or help you hold.

my dad’s suicide

I’m sorry you chose suicide.  But even that sorry feeling I let go of.  Your misery was yours.  But probably you released it yourself when you made your great journey to the other side..