forgivenessa personal essay

At only eight years old, losing a parent is an extremely difficult thing. I was very close to my dad, and his relationship with my mom was the strongest one I’ve seen between two people. My dad was very protective of me and for that reason, he bought two walky-talky’s so he could talk to me when I was playing down the street at a friend’s house.

That night there was a slight crackle from the other end of the gadget. I knew it was the sound of loss, though I didn’t consciously perceive it. I felt lonely and abandoned despite the fact that I was in the company of close friends. For a reason I might never know, I expected this to happen. I knew it from the moment my mom told me he was sick.

My dad had been diagnosed with severe depression late in life, so in his youth his family had no way of knowing what his condition was. Besides the fact that they didn’t go to doctors much, depression was a not a problem people knew much about at the time. For all they knew, he was just a sad young boy that didn’t have as much motivation as others his age.

The first time my mom told me he was sick, I didn’t fully understand. Of course, at the naïve and unaware age of five or six, grasping the idea that your father has depression that might end in him taking his own life is difficult. It’s difficult even now, but thinking back on everything I often wonder how much I could have done to help him.

On February 24, 2002 my dad committed suicide. I was down the street at my friend’s house innocently playing games while he sat in agony wondering how he could possibly live any longer. That night comes to me in vivid detail and is one I can remember better than any other time in my life. I sat playing with dolls in their living room, letting my mind wander into a world free from death or disease. Gazing out of a large transparent shield onto a street paved with worries and confusion, I could not come to a concrete conclusion as to why I felt so strange. One could call it hindsight bias, telling me there’s no way I could have known, but I call it a gut feeling. An intuition that everyone has that alerts them to the perils of loved ones and close friends, though they may not be aware of the specific danger, or even to whom it will present itself.

That night, someone pulled back the curtains in my safe haven and the sting of reality flooded in on me sooner than it should have. I became an adult emotionally, shedding my naive, innocent skin to expose a tougher, more responsible shell. This was the biggest moment of my life.

The night was dark and cold, and my friends offered to accompany me back home. We rode our bikes like soldiers on mighty steeds onto a battle field. My fellow warriors may not have felt the same way, but I certainly did. Maybe I had an inconceivable premonition, or maybe it was just because I knew that someday depression would get the best of him. After all, he was going downhill faster and faster every day.

There were no lights on in the house except for the sliver of golden seeping through the crack of the shed door. My heart pounded faster and faster in my chest from the sheer anxiety of not knowing what was going on. A few minutes after my two friends and I got to my house, my mom came home. She knew immediately what had happened, but said nothing to me about her feelings. Pushing on the shed door, she felt something in the way. She knew this day would come. Often, when coming home to a quiet house, my mom looked fervently for my dad in every room and area around our house hoping to find him quietly working on something, alive and well. This night was what she had been preparing for, and dreading. As she walked in the house and called 911, she instructed me to return to my friend’s house and wait there for my grandma to pick me up, all the while not letting me know a thing.

“Dad did something…” she trailed off. “And he’s not alive anymore.” Those words ring in my mind like the sirens of a speeding ambulance on its way to an accident. I was sitting on my grandmother’s couch staring intently at my mother’s face as she spoke those words. “But why? He’s been so happy lately. How could this happen?” I thought. My dad had been hospitalized three different times for three weeks to a month each time for attempted suicide and various other reasons. My mom and I visited him often while he was residing in the building, and we occasionally brought along close friends of the family.

I remember walking into the psychiatric facility. Pink, I remember a lot of pink; not the shade of pink young girls seem so adoring of, but a soft salmon pink. It was as if the walls were saying “it’s not pink, this room is still manly”. The building had bright colors and the furniture was comfortable. My dad was sitting at a table with a card for my mom that he had made during an art session. She smiled and laughed softly, but I could see in her eyes a hopelessness that overwhelmed her, and I knew she was trying to look strong for the both of us.

As many people do when they’ve lost someone they loved, I often struggle with the thought that I could have done something to stop it. If only I told him I loved him more, maybe he would have felt better about himself. If I only I would have made him laugh more, maybe he would have been happier. Would he have stayed if I told him I needed him? Of course I know these questions are only self-destructive, but there will always be that voice in the back of my mind calling out to me, asking me why I didn’t do anything. My father would not have wanted me to feel this way. He would have said something funny to lighten the mood like he always had a way of doing.

It’s been eight years since my dad passed away, and it has gone by fast. I still feel angry at him for leaving my mom and me, but in the end it’s better to forgive, and in some cases, never forget.