10 Years

8.24.15.

10 years.

It’s been 10 years since my dad died by suicide.

A whole decade without his voice, his laugh, or even just the small comfort of knowing he’s somewhere out there, living his life. And yet, somehow, I still find myself haunted – not just by the memories of him, but by the weight of what will never be.

The conversations we’ll never have. The grandfather my future children will never meet. The healing I always hoped would come. There’s a whole version of my life that includes him and I’ll never get to live it.

I don’t understand how he did what he did. I’ve turned it over in my mind more times than I can count. I’ve searched his story for clues, tried to step inside his pain, tried to make sense of the impossible. And still – I can’t. Because to me there is always another day. Another opportunity to take a step forward. To make a change. To try again.

Have I always been this optimistic? Or is this some kind of strange compensation? Am I trying to rewrite his ending through my own life? Trying to make up for what he couldn’t do? Trying to carry the hope he couldn’t hold on to?

I don’t know the answers, but I do know this: sometimes I’m still mad. Mad that he couldn’t see another way out. Mad that he left so many things unfinished. Mad that the illness he battled stole so much from him – and from us, too.

And then I question: am I even allowed to feel this way? Because what right do I have to be mad at someone who was suffering so deeply? He did what he thought was best, maybe even what felt like the only option in that moment. Mental illness can be blinding. It can convince you that the world is better off without you.

I hate that for him. I hate that he didn’t get to see how things might’ve turned around. How healing could’ve happened. How change was possible.

I know he was hurting. I know he didn’t want to hurt us. But still – I hurt. And I miss him. And I wish, more than anything, that he could’ve held on just a little longer. One more day. One more sunrise.

Grief is strange like that. It’s a conversation that never ends, a knot you keep trying to untangle. But I carry it. I carry him. In memory. In spirit. In the way I keep choosing hope, even when its hard.

Maybe that’s the best I can do. Maybe its okay to miss someone and wish they’d made a different choice. Maybe there’s room in grief for all of that. Because I don’t want to forget him. I just wish he could’ve stayed.

All is well,

H