Never Healed

When I was 15 and my sister - 12, my step-father, a kindest man with a huge heart but exhausted will to fight his alcoholism addiction, hung himself in our bathtub. Two days before my mom’s birthday, one day after his own. My mother was working that day, and thought he was just sleeping off his hangover after celebrating with his buddies. She started to worry when he did not answer the phone or knocks on the door and left the key in the lock turned from the inside so that no one could open it from the outside. One of our male neighbors found him by climbing a tree to our 2nd floor apartment’s balcony. My step-father used my sister's jumping rope, hindging it on a clothesline hook. Neither me nor my sister were allowed to see him in all the commotion of removing the body when we came home from the infamous Soviet subbotniks (Saturday community clean-up days). That’s how I’ll always remember it happened on a Saturday. My mom did not allow us to go to his funeral either.

My step-father was the only man I really liked of several men my mother dated after my father had left us when I was 5. There were so many good things about my step-father: he was kind, generous, hard-working, and completely incapable of lying. Like a big kid. He loved us girls as if we were his own. We loved him back; he was the closest to the father we ever had. My mom had dated him for a year before officially marrying him and then we all lived as a family together for 3 more years. I strongly believe that those 4 years were the happiest years of my mom’s life, even though she never really admitted that. Strong Russian women, you know. But I suspect she still cries for him in her heart. She loved him, he loved her, he made her laugh a lot.

Except for the times when he lapsed into his alcohol addiction. He’d drink for a couple of days with his friends and then sleep for a couple more in hangover. He was never violent, just weak and limp in his body when he was drunk. I think it was that weakness that drove my mom crazy. She just couldn’t understand how a tall, strong and handsome man like him could be so helpless and weak in his addiction. Of course, in the Soviet Union alcoholism was seen as a stigma and a crime rather than a disease. That’s, by the way, how they met: He was doing his two years of “prophylactic labor treatment” at a special semi-prison for alcoholics where his first wife had stuck him and divorced him almost immediately. My mom was working there at the time.

Mom told me that she noticed him right away not only because he was tall and handsome but also because he was incredibly humble and honest. But addicted forever. I hated the days he was drunk because my mother was so frustrated and angry with him and I believed he didn’t really deserve it. I’d beg him to stop drinking because he was making it so much worse for all of us and he nodded understandingly, crying and wiping his drunk snot and tears, promising me not to ever do it again. When he sobered up, he’d beg for my mom’s forgiveness and promise her to never drink again. She’d forgive him until the next lapse. Over time, the lapses became more frequent. That fateful April, one day after his birthday that he’d celebrated with his buddies and not us, my mom was so fed up she told him to get his things together and get out of our apartment. By a tragic coincidence it was also the day when he was told he had been fired from his job for drinking. He did leave us the next day. He also left a suicide note begging my mom’s forgiveness for spoiling her birthday and declaring his love for her forever. He just didn’t see a way out of his addiction.

That was one of the life lessons I learned the hard way: Alcoholism is an addiction that cannot be simply willed or shamed away. To this day, I’m very empathetic with people who are addicted and will personally do everything I can to help them get it under control. Later in life, I lost three uncles to drinking and I still cannot understand why alcohol addiction is stigmatized and has no effective treatments.

Another big lesson for life I learned from this was about suicide. Through all their fights and arguments, my step-father never threatened to take his life, never blackmailed my mom that way. He just did it when he saw no light at the end of the tunnel. To me, that was a true sign of strength and courage, and ever since then I am always suspicious of people who terrorize and blackmail their loved ones with suicide threats. My mother became even tougher: When my alcoholic cousin threatened her mother (my mom’s sister) to commit suicide if she put her in a rehab, my mom brought her a noose and said, “Do it already! I’ve buried one alcoholic, will survive another! Three days of crying and no one will remember you, but you won’t torture my sister any more!” Tough love. My cousin went into a rehab the next day. She's been clean and sober for 6 years now.

In one of his tender and honest moments, my step-father once told me that when he was sobering up, in the worst moments of hangover, he felt so worthless, ashamed and sick of himself that he did occasionally think of suicide. He also said that if he allowed those thoughts run rampant in his mind, they were becoming more present and persistent, “It’s like some demons are running around, daring me, telling me, 'just do it, you weak shit, no one needs you or loves you anyway, and no one will even cry a tear for you when you are gone.'” I told him it was nonsense and he shouldn’t even think those thoughts. I was scared for him, but I tried to act brave by dismissing his confession. As a teenager, I lacked the wisdom and clues for telling him I loved him and cared for him. We were living in an emotionally repressed society where men were supposed to be tough and strong. Honestly, I didn’t even tell my mom about that conversation until years later. She was shocked because he'd never told her that. I often wonder what would have happened had I told my mom about his suicidal thoughts. My confession is, I blame myself for not doing it. Perhaps my step-father would have still been around if I had.

I first wrote this on Facebook months ago when I read a post by a FB friend, a beautiful, creative and talented woman who admitted she had persistent suicidal thoughts. Secretly, without telling anyone, just dropping subtle heavily coded hints to her relatives and friends. The types of hints that would become clear after the person is gone. I became very scared for her and felt the urge to write about my step-father. I don’t know if she ever read my confession, but she is still around on Facebook and I want to shout this out into the public space for anyone who ever thinks of ending their life: There are people who love you and care that you are here. You just need to call for help and they will be there for you. As those who are left behind, they will always carry the guilt of not helping, not doing enough, not seeing the signs or decoding the hints, if you end your life. Their broken hearts will never heal.

Now, I’m not religious at all. I don’t see suicide as a sin. But here is how I look at it: the fact that we came into this world is an event hugely significant in and by itself. Of all the gazilions and googles of possible molecule combinations in the Universe, some came together, fused, and made you. Call it a miracle, but we didn’t will ourselves into existence. If it’s not you who gave you this life, it shouldn’t be you who ends it. You should be just living it, to the fullest and with as much love and care for others (and yourself) as you are capable of giving.