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| Tia--a good day on the canal |
Dan and I loved that little dog. Never having been without dogs or cats, our empty house seemed to echo the time when I lost Dad to suicide and our family had no anchor. I also haven't been able to get T.S. Eliot's first four lines of his poem "The Waste Land" out of my head either.
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
I remember Mom often saying, "I hate April," that month when you expect birth from winter, the land greening with newness, the flowers and trees blooming, the sun finally remembering it needed to shine. Warmth, birdsong, goslings waddling behind their parents, calla lilies spiking through dirt.
April seems a schizophrenic month that promises a new start, a leaving of winter and a thriving of all living things but tests everything and everyone. Sometimes after seedlings burst, April will deliver a frost. Birds are wild with mating, but lose their head and smash into windows. Frenetic energy brings mistakes. The season is full of beauty and the stirring of desire--from sexual desire to a need to garden. It's all about planting of seed and escaping winter.And this brings me back to suicide and the seasons.
Many believe the rate of suicide peaks in the cold and dark months of winter, but that's not true according to research. Suicide is prevalent in late spring and early summer months.
My theory on this is that the holiday season keeps us engaged and filled with interaction with loved ones. My dad made it through pain and emotional suffering the winter of 1969 surrounded by family and celebration. There was hope. Then the need to carry this through with New Years and the idea that something would change, a better year, a different year. By March it's pretty damn clear that nothing has changed for the person suffering, and when April comes, so does the frenetic energy, never mind taxes and the responsibilities of clearing, growing crops, pruning, weeding, the long hot summer ahead meaning work, maybe the craziness of not being able to mate or let go of that pent up energy, and like a bird flying into the window, the mistake is made.
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| Dad, me and my brother Kent working in the garden 1955 |
Today is the first day of May. Yay! May brings birthdays, my oldest granddaughter and mine. May also brings new life. We're so excited because on May 19th we bring little Stevie, our new Havanese puppy, home.
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| Stevie at four weeks |
Val
* * * * * * * * * * *
30
April, 2016
Dear
Dad,
On
this day forty-six years ago, April 30, 1970, you committed suicide.
I
understand why you did it. You were in pain, struck down from an autoimmune
disease that hit in 1944 when you were an officer during WWII. You spent a year
in a Texas Army hospital that couldn’t diagnose your illness. Later it would be
called PTSD.
April
3, 1970 was your 54th birthday. You told us not to buy you any
presents. You were gray-haired, skin and bones, and physically worn out. You
still had two kids at home, a 17-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter. I was
going to have your first grandchild in July.
But
you couldn’t wait. And as I said, I understand.
You
were always self-sacrificing. You thought your family would be better off.
The
truth however is something you didn’t understand and I didn’t discover until
much later—the idea of suicide is addictive like a drug. The pattern is the
same, the same spikes and plateaus, the ever-shortening relief brought on with
the bigger the need. The idea of suicide brings relief at first, but then needs
to be fed
more and more to get ever larger doses of serotonin, the calming,
happiness-producing hormone.
I don’t know when you first thought of suicide as
a possible way out. It could have come rather innocently.
Maybe
it came when you had to call into work sick because your body felt aflame. Perhaps
a bill came due that you couldn’t pay or it was the day you scraped your
beloved new blue Oldsmobile against the side of the garage and realized you no
longer had control. Maybe it was from me dropping out of college, getting
pregnant, and marrying a Vietnam Vet with his own demons who I thought I could
save. Possibly it was when your business partner bailed and your business
failed.
The
day I drove you to the VA Hospital in Vermont for tests, you thought you might have
cancer. You hadn’t felt good for three years you said. Because the hospital had no doctors on staff that day
or over the weekend, they said to go home. We went for coffee. You seemed calm
and relaxed. In an unusual confession, you told me you had never wanted
children because of your condition, knowing you wouldn’t be a good father, even
admitted to being too controlling, like your father was. Later, I would realize
that this was your way of saying sorry, and goodbye. Thank you for that. Later,
it would give me understanding and closure.
Whatever
first put the idea of suicide into your head, you thought of it and experienced
your first hit of serotonin. You were back in control and had a way out if need
be.
That
didn’t last however.
The
next time you experienced stress and your body was wracked with pain, you
thought of suicide again, and that brought relief, only this time not as much.
When the pattern repeated, relief came when you started planning your suicide.
Now the relief was stronger and longer.
The
family doctor had given you painkillers. That’s how you’d do it. A big surge of
relief this time. You functioned for a while and felt back in control.
But
it didn’t last long, and the next time some incident brought back the pain, you
were ready to be done with it. You calmly took that bottle of pills and laid
down on the bed, waiting for relief. Instead, you slept for three days.
Probably you’d built your drug tolerance too high. Mom had me go over to change
your sheets and I found you in the bed, and you were breathing, but wouldn’t
wake up. Only nineteen and scared, I called Mom, but Mom said let him sleep.
He’s tired. He sleeps a lot. So I covered him and left.
After
the failed attempt, you no longer felt a big surge of serotonin. So this time you
started carefully planning, took your time, and made sure your business was in
order, from making sure your insurance policy had no suicide clause to figuring
out how much paint it would take to finish painting the garage. The serotonin
surged. You were acting happy around that time, even for your birthday on April
3rd.
By the end of the month, you’d finished writing a love
letter to Mom and telling her how and why you were doing what you were doing. You’d
convinced yourself that since you couldn’t provide for your family anymore and
no one could help you medically, you’d end up being a financial burden on your
family. You said you hadn’t felt good for three years and didn’t want to get
out of bed in the morning. I wondered if you cried as you wrote that four-page
letter. I can imagine you also felt relief. You felt free. You’d done the right
thing for your family. You gave Mom instructions on everything she’d have to do
after you were gone, including having me paint the rest of the garage. You told
Mom how much you loved her and the best days of your life had been with her.
You said how sorry you were. You even apologized to me for not being there to
see your first grandchild and made a joke that we would probably not name our
baby after you, Albert Horace. You also told Mom where the police could find
your body. You didn’t want Kent and Wendy coming home from school and finding you.
You folded the letter, sealed it in an envelope,
and left it along with a copy of your insurance policy standing against the fruit
bowl on the kitchen table.
Then you drove to town, bought a new license for
the dog, paid all outstanding bills, got a haircut, drove home to leave the
license and pick up your gun.
At one of your former favorite hunting grounds in
Sanbornton, you parked your car. That beautiful blue Oldsmobile that you loved
so. The day was sunny. A lovely flood of serotonin hit. You no longer had to
worry about your family or the burden you’d become. You’d no longer be in pain.
The gun felt familiar in your hand. I don’t know if you were crying or smiling
or just ready to go. Then you shot yourself.
You were free. But we had to suffer the burden
that suicide leaves on a family.
I’ve
had many years to heal from losing you. I still write letters to you and one
year I even bought a Father’s Day card for you. This year I want you to know
one thing: I don’t blame you, Dad, for what you did. Many forces were at play.
I
blame war and our stupid fixation on what is heroic. I blame a system that hadn’t
identified PTSD as real or the health system that failed you and still fails
others in our military. I blame the Greatest Generation’s belief that they
could control everything and valued keeping an outward appearance of perfection
vs. recognizing when a family or person was in trouble. You couldn’t ask for
help. It was too embarrassing and would be a sign of weakness.
Suicide is not painless. We would have rather
had you alive even if it meant hard times, because suicide caused rough years for
all of us. Twenty years after your death, like a gateway to grief, when my two dogs
died in one year, I finally felt your loss and grieved so hard I thought I’d
never stop crying.
I love you. And as I said, I understand your
decision. I don’t even look at it as the wrong decision. It was the only one
you thought you had at the time, and who knows? I cannot see into the parallel
universe that would have been if you had lived.
All I can say is you were and are deeply loved and
missed. I forgave you years ago for leaving so soon. You missed so much joy with
Jason and his girls and the two great-grandsons.
Yes, there is pain in life, but joy is always
around the corner. You just need to be patient and keep the light on.
Love always,
Valerie
