I was excited to be home after spending Christmas at Grandma's, which, while fun for awhile, soon becomes boring. She lives in a small town, hours from anything or anyone I know. That evening I had big plans--it was my six-month anniversary with my boyfriend, Matt, and we were going to do something to mark the occasion; maybe go out to a nice restaurant or something.

We pulled into the familiar driveway of home in my mom's minivan and began unloading the trunk that was overstuffed as a result of a good Christmas. My dad's new car was in the garage. I was surprised he was home from work already--it was the middle of the week--but glad, for he hadn't come up to Grandma's at all this year and we still had all of his gifts to give him. This year I had finally gotten my license and so all of the gifts I had given were solely from me, as a result of my ability to go shopping alone. I had gotten my dad a shirt that I knew he would like because he had said, half talking to himself, that he needed a new dress shirt for work. Plus, I had wrapped it in this really cool sparkly-silver wrapping paper--appreciation for weird little things like that is one of the things my father and I had in common.

I was the first at the door, laden with baggage, expecting my dad to have heard us arrive and come help, as usual. But instead, I had to struggle with the door, which had frozen shut with icicles. I dropped a bag that was someone else's in the front room for them to retrieve, then continued through the kitchen to deposit mine in my room. I was puzzled that my dad hadn't appeared yet with hugs and smiles as usual, asking in his booming voice how we all were. I noticed distractedly two notes on the kitchen table, propped against a package in brown paper. One said "To my wife" and the other said "To my daughters." Thinking it was his Christmas present to us, I continued on to my room.

Passing by my parents' bedroom, I noticed that the door was closed. "Stayed up all night on your computer again, dad? Had to sleep the day away?" I thought fondly. It was an old routine of his.

Not until I had dropped my bags off into my room and was returning upstairs did my brain register the few words that I had seen in my glance at those notes: "I'm sorry." I got this horrible feeling inside, dread and fear and sudden, awful understanding all at once, combining to make the breath stop in my throat. I knew that my dad hadn't gone to work that day, that it wasn't the computer he had stayed up all night for.

Back in the kitchen, all of my fears became reality. My little sister stood there, reading the note aloud, a trace of panic beginning to surface in her voice and on her face. "I'm sorry I won't be there to walk any of you down the aisle. I'm sorry I won't get to see any of my grandkids grow-up. Amanda, I'm sorry I'll never get to enjoy your piano-playing anymore." She stopped and looked at me with an expression on her face that I will never forget: denial and recognition at the same time. "What's this mean?" she asked. I backed out of the kitchen, went back to the closed door of the room, in which I prayed that my dad was only sleeping.

Then I saw the other note, taped to his door--the shortest one. The worst one. It read simply, "Do not let Marisa and Rebecca into this room."

I could hear Marisa still, in the kitchen, reading the note to my mom and Katrina, my older sister. Rebecca, my youngest sister, was in the bathroom. I fought back the urge to cry and, wishing fiercely to wake up from what promised to be a nightmare, opened the door.

There he lay, in his weekend clothes--a raggedy pair of shorts and an old shirt. "He's just sleeping," I lied to myself. But no, his skin was too pale, cold, and lifeless, and he wasn't breathing. I took a step closer, thinking that maybe he wasn't dead yet, that we could still get him help if he were just still alive.

What I saw next will forever be burned into my memory.

I saw the tear-streaks running down his face, the expression of sadness, of extreme despair, in his glazed eyes. I saw the gun still in his hand and the bullet hole in the side of his head, where blood and pulp had spilled onto the pillow. I touched his leg and he was so cold.

My mom came around the corner from the kitchen as I fled the room. I must have looked as horrible as I felt. I gave her the note that had been taped to the door and completely broke down in tears. Marisa came in, all anxiety, and asked what had happened, demanding to know. My mom said, "Your father has killed himself," in a tone that suggested even this last act of his was meant to be a nuisance to her. She nevertheless had tears in her eyes. Marisa started crying and followed my mom into the bedroom before I could stop her. She saw what I had seen and her pain was piercingly audible--you could hear it even in the space between her sobs. Katrina, who had been continuing to unpack the van, took the news silently, her tears falling fast in soundless paths down her cheeks. I, crying and sobbing, not as loudly as Marisa, but with as much pain (or perhaps more), was torn between trying to comfort her and seeking comfort myself.

And at this point, poor Rebecca walks into the room. She had been in the bathroom this whole time (less than 5 minutes) and was utterly confused upon seeing us all in tears. At first she didn't believe us when we told her that Dad was dead, telling us that a joke like that wasn't funny. When she realized we were serious, the tears appeared instantly in her eyes, done with ease, born from frequent practice. But these tears were sincere and came in tidal waves.

Everything blurs together after that. I remember the police and ambulance coming. I remember how they took the notes for evidence and that none of us had finished reading them all--we still haven't gotten them back. I remember my sisters going over to the neighbors house a half hour later, their tears already almost dried up--mine wouldn't dry up for weeks as I cried myself to sleep at night. I remember that I wouldn't leave the house with my sisters. I went into the back room where we do our laundry, while they interviewed my mom, and cried even harder, the dog doing its best to comfort me. I remember the phases my mind went through. The bottomless grief for my dad, the confusion, the anger at how the world works, demanding to know why. And of course, the guilt. The gnawing guilt--what could I have said to change his mind if I had known? What could I have done? I remembered the morning that we were leaving for Christmas at Grandma's. I had asked him if he was coming up later in the week. He said no, as usual. I said, "You should," also as usual, and yelled "Bye, Dad!" as I went out the door, expecting him to show up on Christmas Eve, like always. Those were my last words to him.

I remembered how he had planned to take me on college visits in February and how someday he wanted to take all of us out west and show us around that mountain/desert land that he loved--he had always wanted to live in Arizona. I remembered how he had promised to take me skydiving my senior year, because I had been too young when he took Katrina. I remembered his obsession with computers, his enthusiasm for history and science, his love of traveling, and those corny jokes that I wouldn't mind so much if he were here again. I remembered how he loved hearing me play piano, listening to the songs I wrote, and how he always said that I could make a career out of my talent for computer art. I remembered how I could never beat him in Monopoly or chess or Ping-Pong.

I remembered the time that he saved me when I fell in the deep end of the local pool, before I had learned how to swim; how he had called my hospital room from California the minute he heard I had pneumonia; how he smiled and said I looked beautiful whenever I was dressed up for a dance or a concert; and the time he first took me driving and only laughed when we ended up in a ditch, saying THAT was why we took the truck.

I remembered how he always took two hours in freezing cold weather to pick out a Christmas tree and how the one time he was out of town for Christmas, we picked out a tree and had it home in 20 minutes. I realize now he was just enjoying spending time with his family.

But I couldn't remember him ever being truly unhappy. And I think that's why I still can't stop crying whenever I think of him and why I still can't sleep at night. I never would have pictured him as so deep in depression or despair as to do something like this, and I don't know why he did it or how he got to the point that he thought that was his only way out. And I can't help thinking that there must have been signs that something was wrong and I didn't see them, but that maybe if I had I could've gotten help or done something. But then the rational part of me knows that he gave no signs--he kept it all inside, only pouring it out in that note and releasing it with a trigger.

We left Sunday morning for Christmas up north, which was the last time I saw him alive. And just the night before he had told me that I should start thinking about which colleges to visit when he had his week off of work in February. Then Wednesday we come home and he's killed himself? I just can't understand how he could do something like that. "Why?" I keep asking. It just doesn't make sense.

After I had "why'd the world" and scolded him for killing himself and berated myself for not knowing he was going to, then I cried even harder. I cried because I would never hear his voice again, saying, "Hey, pumpkin," never see him sitting in the old red La-Z-Boy that was both our favorite chair. I would never have him there to tell me how to fix the computer or to explain complicated governmental plot movies to me. I'll never watch the U of M v. OSU football game with him again, never have him watch another of my soccer games or piano recitals or band concerts. He won't be there as I leave for my first prom, at my graduation, the day I go to college, the day I get my first real job, the day I get married, or the day he would have become a grandfather. And I knew that every day of happiness in my life to come would have a little bit of sadness too, because he won't be there to share it.

I sat there, in front of the clothes dryer, with the dog sitting concernedly next to me, and suddenly I just couldn't stand to be in that house any longer, with the policemen walking around like it was just another suicide. The cold air felt good as I walked over to the neighbors' house, still crying. My mom came over a little later and by that time my three sisters were sitting on the floor playing a game with the neighbor kids--having fun, laughing--even Katrina, who is older than me.

We hadn't even been home two hours yet.

I have never before or since felt such outrage and contempt towards anyone as I did towards my own sisters that night. How COULD they? How could they dry up their tears so fast and seemingly disregard the fact that their father, MY father, was dead? That he had just killed himself, in the house right across the street, OUR house? Forcing yourself not to cry is one thing, but to the point of playing and laughing and joking as if nothing had happened? That, to me, was the ultimate betrayal to his memory. I had to get out of there, or I might have strangled them in their unbearable indifference.

I could think of only one person that I wanted to be around, one person that I could talk to and finally let go after such an emotionally draining day--the one person who could offer comfort, for I certainly wasn't finding any among my dry-eyed sisters.

So I called Matt and told him what had happened and I could hear him crying on the phone--as much for me as for my dad, whom he had always liked and gotten along with. He was still crying when he picked me up, but had somewhat dried up when we pulled into his driveway, Christmas light icicles hanging above the door. I don't think I'll ever like the sight of icicles again.

We went inside and I told him more than the simple, "My dad shot himself" that I had used on the phone. He cried all over again with me--I had never actually stopped though. I still haven't, on the inside. Evening turned into night and eventually the only thing I was aware of, besides the emptiness inside, was my exhaustion. And when there were no more words to say and the tears fell slow and silent, I fell asleep with his arms around me and slept the dead sleep of those who have been drained, mind, body, and spirit.

01/05/2001

Posted on 12/30/2002
Copyright © 2024 Amanda J Cobb