This is something I have been trying to bring myself to do for weeks. I need to write. I need to find something to free the thoughts inside just long enough for my mind to fill right back up again. I have no hopes of this being poetic or well written at all; I’ll probably edit over and over and eventually delete this useless sentence.
Nothing about this blog post is going to be bright and sunny, the article is my biggest and deepest fear becoming reality.
It was Friday afternoon. I was 24 hours post-op. I was exhausted but no matter how many times I tried to nap, I kept jolting awake. I finally gave up and checked my phone. It was a familiar message; one I’d gotten many times before. It was a message from my sister saying someone my dad or “Abby” worked with had reached out. They were worried because Abby hadn’t been to work in a few days.
Let me rewind a bit; Abby is what we’ve all learned over the last year and a half or so to call the person we used to call “Adam” or “Daddy”. It’s a long and personal story, yet the validity of it is real and important.
Back to the message. My sister and I had talked about how this had happened before and historically things had been okay. I have always just gone over and told Abby to turn the phone on or to pick it up if someone asked if everything was okay. We mulled over it for ten minutes or so and we had agreed it was probably okay and decided not to. Until that decision didn’t feel right anymore. I had an overwhelming feeling that things were NOT okay. Come to find out, Michaela had the same feeling and was going to go over after she finished what she was doing. I hobbled to the car and drove and told my sister I was going to go check in, I made my way to the door and I knocked.
The building felt eerie; it didn’t feel warm and cozy. It felt cold. It was June. I knocked. I said “Abby, it’s Bree” and again “Abby, it’s Bree”. To which I was usually responded to with a “come on in, hon” or a “hang on a sec!”. It was silent. Somehow even with my hands shaking and hardly able to grip a key, I did. I opened that door I had opened so many times before. The bells on the knob jingled. I opened it and it felt empty. There had always been a Yankee Candle burning and music playing. It was quiet. It was dark. It was empty. Subconsciously I knew what was going on. However, in the present moment all I could think to do was to get to the chair where Abby would often fall asleep. I rushed over, somehow not even seeing that the apartment was a disaster and things were not in their place. I went to reach for the arm I had held my entire life and I stopped. I stopped because I knew in an instant, this wasn’t asleep. This had happened. From there, I can only tell you what happened in broken pieces. At the moment, the only thing I absorbed was observing a note I had written, it was delicately laying in my dad’s hand. I rushed out and somehow called 911. I didn’t know what to do. They asked me if I could do CPR and I said I told them it would do more harm than good, something I had to repeat over and over again because the dispatcher was having a difficult time piecing together what I was saying between sobs. The police showed up, the paramedics went in and came back out almost just as fast, I watched them nod to the police and walk away. In that instant it was real. I dropped to my knees. It didn’t matter that I had seen it with my own eyes, I was just in such shock and disbelief. That was the moment my world stopped turning and hasn’t yet started back up again. Outside of our family and close friends, nothing has changed. For me, I’m in either that moment or one of thousands of moments I had with my dad.
Disclosing such a personal story has a dual two purpose; one, to get my thoughts on paper. The other reason is to possibly save someone from going through the same thing. For me to think that my story is profound that it put an end to suicide would be juvenile and unrealistic. These things happen to people every. single. day.
I am sitting here hardly able to type, I can’t see past the tears in my eyes. But I’ll continue to write because this is fucking important.
Abby was a lot of things in all these decades on this planet; son, brother, grandson, husband, father, grandfather, and no less important, at the end of her life, a woman. A proud one, but a deeply sad one all at the same time. A sadness that I need to stress was not in any way related to a lack of support or openness for her to be herself. It was something deep inside that lived there forever. It was an emptiness that couldn’t be filled with any one occupation, person, substance, or even identity.
There were a lot of happy times, and there were a lot of sad times. We all go through things and because we’re all different, certain things affect us individually. There was something deeply rooted in Abby that I need to make sure the people who loved her or “Adam” need to know. This is no one’s fault. I blame myself everyday but I have to stop. Suicide is such a strong word. It holds so much depth and so much heaviness. It’s almost a word you hate to use. But it’s something someone does to themselves. You can’t blame yourself. So don’t, please don’t.
What I need other people feeling this sadness, much like myself, is that this ends. Nothing is permanent and EVERYTHING can be fixed. It may not seem like it. You may curse the world and scream at the wind every single day, just like I do right now. But if you want to fix it, tell someone. All you may need is someone to listen, but people can’t help you if they don’t know. Talk to people. Most importantly remember that you are loved beyond measure by so many. Because you are so loved, your disappearance would shake the world. Your life makes a difference. Your life does matter. Suicide eliminates any tiny chance of things getting better. It deprives you of another sunrise, a hot cup of coffee, and an “I love” you from your family. It widows husbands and wives, leaves children without their parents, coworkers without the person who brightens everyone’s day, friends wondering why, what and how. It will forever brand the people in your life. It will wake them in the middle of the night, the what ifs will never stop, the missing you is forever.
Please tell people how you are feeling, and often. If you need help or sense someone needs you, pick up that phone. You are not alone. Ever.
For the love of life. 