Losing My Father to Suicide Changed Everything

In the grand scheme of things, I think most little girls worship their fathers. This isn’t always the case, but in mine, it was.

My dad was the guy who always had time for his children. He was an avid outdoorsman. If the weather permitted, he was outside doing something, from gardening to grilling to camping and fishing. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t encouraged to be out with him helping or doing whatever he was doing, even if being honest, I was most likely in the way.

He was patient.

Oh, so patient. I don’t think I inherited that virtue from him. I remember being patient as a child, probably because he was so patient with me, but I seem to have lost that along the way.

I remember spending a lot of time in the gardens around our home with him. He loved plants and flowers. He and my grandfather, his father, took a trip to England once, to study the Queen’s gardens, so they could come home and recreate a smaller version of them. I wish I had photos of them, as they were gorgeous.

As a child, I’ve heard of this through stories from others, my dad was a bit of a trickster. My family employed a lady, Vivian, who helped my grandmother around the house and occasionally watched the children if my grandmother left the house to run errands. My dad loved Vivian and eventually employed her in our home when my brother and I were small children.

She watched over me and my brother for years until her passing.

My dad loved nature and all its creatures, but Vivian did not. One day, my dad had captured a few black snakes, not venomous, and decided he wanted to keep them. So, into the washing machine they went.

Unbeknownst to Vivian.

A few hours later, Vivian brought in dirty clothes to wash, opened the lid, and screamed at the top of her lungs. Terrified of snakes, and there they were, just hanging out in the washing machine. I am sure my dad was called by his full name, in case he wasn't sure how much trouble he was in.

He almost scared her to death. He felt horrible, though he admitted that he laughed hysterically at first. But after he realized she was genuinely upset, he felt horrible.

I tell this story to show, even though he liked to joke around and even play tricks, he had a good heart. Vivian was in her late 70s by the time my brother and I came along. She still needed to work because she did not qualify for Social Security. She never married, and although she had worked for my grandparents for many years, it was not “on the books” so she had no verifiable income. My dad hired her and made sure she had enough income to live on until she passed away. She wasn’t able to do much, but he didn’t care.

She had been a part of our family for 40 plus years. There was no way he would allow her to be in a position of poverty.

Through all of this, my dad was ill.

He suffered from schizo-affective disorder, though it wasn’t called that then. When he was a child, he was very hyperactive and difficult to handle. My grandparents did what they could, tried to keep him occupied.

It wasn’t too difficult, considering they ran a large farm. He had plenty of places to roam and run, cows to milk, other animals to tend. He struggled in school for a while; he was dyslexic and undiagnosed. It wasn’t until he joined the Navy that he finally got help with that and learned to enjoy reading and studying.

He could attend and graduate from college with honors, thanks to the help he received from the Navy and became an avid reader, though it did always take him longer to read a book than most people. Though we never discussed it, I remember Catch-22 by Joseph Heller being on his nightstand, always. Tom Clancy was one of his favorites.

Funny story, years after my dad passed away, I learned through family research, we’re related to Tom Clancy, the author.

He was a Vietnam veteran, a submariner who was on the first stealth submarine. Their job was to follow a Russian submarine without being detected. This mission has finally been declassified, so I’m giving away no state secrets.

He hated this, and I feel it started him down the long road, the downward spiral to his eventual death. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for him, a man already fighting an internal battle with mental demons, being stuck in what was essentially a tin can, as quiet as humanly possible, for so long. Still as yet undiagnosed with the illness that would eventually take his life, struggling utterly alone.

He left the Navy and went to work for our family’s commercial construction company and soon married my mother and started our family. I was born in 1977, my brother in 1979. In the early 80s, he started his long road of hospitalizations and initial diagnosis of general depression.

The hospitalizations never stopped.

They were short term at first, just to get used to whatever medication the doctors were trying. They became longer and longer as time went on.

I believe I started losing my dad sometime around the mid-80s.

Hospitals in North Carolina became our home away from home. It became the norm to come home from school, and head directly to the hospital to spend time with my dad, have dinner, watch a movie in the common room with him and the other patients.

We would play board games, possibly a game of cards, watch television. Just normal family things, but in a mental institution.

The other patients became like family. One of my dad’s roommates there, Michael, was a nice man. His wife eventually became a fairly famous author, Kaye Gibbons. She gave me a copy of her book Ellen Foster. I think I was 9 or 10 years old. I remember thinking I must be special to receive a book from the person who wrote it; I’ve always been an avid reader and was already writing poetry constantly so I was in heaven to talk to someone fairly regularly who was a published author.

Eventually, even though his doctor was phenomenal, and became fairly famous in his own right for clinical studies, my dad determined that he had received all the help he could here in NC, and wanted to go elsewhere.

He went first, then we came out a few months later, to a place I wish I had never had to spend 9 months. Topeka, Kansas, the armpit of America. Sorry if you live there and love it, but I absolutely hated it. My dad was a resident of The Menninger Clinic for over a year. I can tell you, it was a beautiful place; I think I would have preferred to live on the campus there rather than in Topeka proper.

Their program seemed amazing to a child at least. I was 10 years old when we lived there, and thought it was like a city, self-sufficient. It kind of was. They had everything you could need, all on the campus. As part of their program, patients could take woodworking classes, make jewelry, and more. Their food was fantastic. I enjoyed visiting my dad there.

What I truly enjoyed was seeing hope in my father’s eyes for the first time I can remember.

After they released my father from Menninger, we moved to the Florida Keys.

He wanted sunshine and freedom. He became close with another patient at Menninger, Robert, who was from Miami. They discharged Robert a few months before my dad. Before he left, he and my dad talked extensively about the area, and it appealed to my dad, a lot. We had spent time in the Keys on vacation but never lived there.

He didn’t want to go back to NC, to the same things he’d always known. We lived there for three years. He saw a psychiatrist while we were there, but they hospitalized him again.

In April 1991, he decided he wanted to take a trip, alone, back to NC to spend time at the farm where he grew up with my grandparents. He left on April Fool's Day.

He never came home.

On April 20th, he called his original psychiatrist and told him of his plan to commit suicide. He didn’t make the call for anyone to talk him out of his plan. He wanted the doctor to know that he didn’t blame him for anything, quite the opposite. He wanted him to know that he appreciated all he had done for him over the years. Then he called my mother.

They were on the phone for hours. I was in my room, which shared a wall with her bedroom. I could hear her yelling and crying, but I didn’t know why, at first. After a while, she came into my room with the cordless phone.

My dad wanted to talk to me.

I didn’t want to talk to him. Something deep inside me knew there was something horribly wrong. I refused to take the phone from her. She screamed at me and said if I didn’t talk to him I may never speak to him again.

So I took the phone with shaking hands, determined not to cry.

I could tell it upset him, though he tried to hide it. He didn’t tell me of his plans. He just wanted to talk. For the life of me, I can’t remember what we talked about. It’s been 30 years. I think of him every single day, but I don’t remember a single word he said to me that night, other than him telling me he loved me. And that’s what did it.

Although I never went one day, not knowing my dad loved me, he wasn’t one to say it often.

So when he stressed the fact that he loved me before asking to speak to my brother, I KNEW there was something wrong. I remember begging him not to get off the phone. I became hysterical and started crying. I handed the phone to my brother, who was irritated that he had to talk on the phone. He was busy playing the Gameboy and didn’t want to stop. I remember getting so angry with him, telling him he NEEDED to talk to Dad. He just didn’t care. His video game was more important.

I remember going into my mom’s room and begging her to tell me what was going on. I was 13 years old, but I was intelligent enough, emotionally and otherwise, to know there was something bad happening.

She refused to tell me, saying it was adult business and that I needed to leave her alone and go to my room.

So, I left. I went to a friend’s house for the night. I couldn’t stay in that house, knowing there was something wrong that no one was telling me.

I came home the next morning and my mother told me to pack a bag, we were going to NC. My brother and I both showed our asses. I think by that point, he knew something was going on as well. For whatever reason, we dug in our heels, and just refused to leave. I can’t speak for him, but for myself, I think I already knew my dad was gone and I just didn’t want to face it.

My mom finally told us that my dad was missing. That everyone was out looking for him and that’s why we needed to get to NC now. According to her, after we talked to him the night before, he took off and no one could find him.

We finally agreed and packed our bags and headed to the airport. Upon checking in, the airline informed my mother that they overbooked the flight, and attempted to bump us off the flight.

Well, that went over like a fart in church.

She made us sit on the bench out of earshot, so she could lean into the counter person’s ear and instruct them they were not, under any circumstances, going to bump us off this flight. Obviously, my brother and I didn’t know why we couldn’t just get on the next flight. Later, we found out why. My mother already knew.

My dad wasn’t missing. He was dead.

When he got off the phone with us the night before, he got in the car he was borrowing from my grandparents, which was the car I used as a kid to learn to drive, drove up the road to our old house, the house I grew up in, pulled into the unused driveway, and shot himself.

The neighbor found him on the morning of April 21, 1991.

He left notes for everyone.

That’s something else I have no memory of. My 1st husband burned mine, along with all of my notebooks of poetry, the poem I wrote for my dad’s funeral, my high school yearbooks. Everything physical of meaning to me.

When we finally arrived in Raleigh and got to my grandparents, there were cars everywhere. We walked into the house and there were people all over the place, standing room only. They were dressed up; it made no sense. They ushered us into the formal living room, a room they never used except to walk through to get to my grandparent’s bedroom.

My grandparents, aunts, and honestly I can’t remember who else were already in there. I had barely bent my knees to seat myself on the couch when my grandfather, Apple, said, “Your dad is dead. I’m sorry.”

Thanks, Apple.

Chaos ensued. My brother lost his fucking mind, started punching shit and ended up flying up the stairs into one bedroom and throwing things. I was just numb. I remember hearing my grandmother next to me saying something about; he took a bunch of pills and just went to sleep.

And that’s what I believed, for a day or so.

The next day, I couldn’t deal with people any longer and had to escape.

I drove Apple’s little tractor up to our old property, mostly to sneak a cigarette. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going; I just had to get away from everyone. I was tired of hearing how sorry everyone was, how young he was, what a loss it was. I knew what a loss it was; he was my dad!

I guess I had been there for about an hour. I had taken my notebook with me; I was working on writing the poem I wanted to read at the funeral. My mom’s best friend and my Aunt ended up finding me and also catching me smoking. Thankfully, I guess they decided I didn’t need any more bullshit because they didn’t rat me out for smoking. They were more upset about where I was.

I didn’t understand. My aunt finally asked why I had chosen that spot. I told her it just seemed like a good place to write. She asked if I knew that’s where my dad had died? I just looked at her like she was crazy and said no. I asked her why would he take pills there? She said that’s not what happened and told me what really happened.

My grandmother meant well, but she had the tendency to sweep things under the rug and not want to upset people unduly.

My father was an atheist, so there was no church funeral. They performed the service in the chapel attached to the funeral home. The wake was awful. The turnout was insane; I think something like 500 people ended up coming.

I’m 44 years old, it’s been 30 years and I still miss my dad.

He missed the birth of my children. He’ll never meet my husband. I am thankful he never met the assholes I was married to prior to this one. There are days that I feel I have let him down, so much.

Other days, I think he would be proud. But I wonder, why weren’t we enough?

I know how difficult living with mental illness is; I do it daily, coupled with physical illness. I know that medications have gotten better. I don’t blame my dad for his choice, as it was his to make. We all have to make our own choices.

It’s my choice to wonder, I just have to remember not to allow it to haunt me.

There are days when certain things hit me hard. April is a difficult month for me. It always reminds me that this is when he began his journey to the end. Yesterday, I was out and about and ran into a Vietnam veteran. He was old. Not being rude, he just was. In my mind, my dad is forever 43. It screws with my head to see and talk to Vietnam veterans today and realize they are in their late 60s-early 70s. My dad will never be that old and he should have been.

In the 50s when my dad was a kid and the 60s when he was really struggling the most, talking about mental illness was taboo. In today’s society, it’s a lot easier to get help, but people are still judged for doing so, men especially.

I’d like to say that after 44 years of life on this earth, I wake up each day, remembering that I have a life to live. Being thankful that I’m here to raise my children, wake up next to my loving husband, and have a roof over my head.

But that would be a lie.

Some days, I remember all that, and I smile. But other days, I remember that I’m still hurting from the loss of a good man. That I’m hurting from a childhood lost.

I still have healing left to do.