May I never make my children feel the way I do right
now. This morning my boss’ father, who was
facing the prospect of assisted living, committed suicide. My boss’ grief at the sudden news unleashed a
gut punch of howling rage and sadness inside of me that I thought had been
dealt with, catalogued, resolved, and tidily put on a shelf to be examined in a
clinical fashion at my leisure.
Fifteen years ago this month my father did the same thing,
opted to leave this world on his own terms.
Dad wasn’t physically sick. He
probably would have lived to be 100, as his big brother almost did (Uncle Gene missed
it by two weeks). Dad was very very
depressed, exacerbated by cheap wine and Xanax.
I’m sure he thought that he was doing everybody a favor, or, in more
typical Dad fashion, thought “fuck it, I’m done.”
That was his choice.
I respect a person’s decision to leave life on their own terms, in their
own way, I really do. Two years after
Dad died, my mother slipped quietly out of life, the last act of dementia that
took her away from life little by little, memory by memory, until there was
nothing left but a shadow and, finally, that was gone. Which way was preferable? Easier?
More “respectable” or “dignified?”
Damned if I know. I spent many
years grieving for my mother while she was still alive; her death was an
anticlimax to the life that had ceased to exist. Dad’s death was sudden, violent, painful,
even after 15 years.
Suicide is a way of choosing the manner of our death, the
ultimate control of our destiny. It
leaves grief like shards of shattered glass in its wake. I do not know what the manner of my death
will be. I believe that I will
concentrate on my life instead, and make as many beautiful memories for myself
and my loved ones as I possibly can.
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