I'm doing 28 things
This is my story (sorry it’s kind of long). Mine is somewhat like everyone else, but different.
I remember it vividly. I was at school finishing up my last year of college. For some reason I couldn’t sleep at all that night. I kept waking up and not being able to fall asleep; it just felt like there was something wrong but I could not tell. The next day, March 18th 2009, I walked to class feeling extremely exhausted and not wanting to go to school. About halfway through I received a call from my mom. Thinking it was extremely strange that she called me in the morning, I ran to the bathroom to listen to her voicemail. “Please give me a call back. Something bad has happened.” I knew, for some reason, that it had something to do with my dad. I called back my mom and found out that my father killed himself sometime during the night. The 3 hour drive home was absolutely miserable and I could barely drive through all the tears.
I was the first to arrive at the house. My mother said the police took the suicide note and she didn’t have another copy. Luckily my dad had typed it on the computer so I found it as a temp file. My dad had everything planned out from the day before. And his reasonings were perhaps the most romantic and selfless.
My father retired just as soon as I was about to go to college. He had saved up quite a large amount of money in retirement and decided he was going to work the stock market. For the first two years he had earned even more money, but after that it kind of stopped. All of the retirement money slowly got eaten up in stocks until there was nothing left. My father was a simple, black and white type of guy, and he never seemed to care about himself, but only about my mom and his children. So, after losing everything and not being able to support my mom any longer, he decided to end his life so my mom could get the several millions in life insurance money he had been saving. My father’s goal in life was to make sure my mom was comfortable and taken care of, and in his mind, this was the only way to go. Since he could no longer support her in life, he could support her financially in death.
My father note was long. The first page had a big warning telling her he killed himself. He said the exact location and told her not to go see his body, but to call the cops and tell them where he was. The second page was the real note, telling her how sorry she was and that he loved her. The last two pages were written instructions on how to pay the mortgage, bills, account numbers, my tuition, and every bit of financial information you could think of. He had even laid out the life insurance policies below the note and wrote the numbers to call. When the police found him they said he had used propane, which is fitting in my mind because it’s a painless way to die and the least noisy (I’m assuming he didn’t want to wake my mother). He had also taped up a bunch of signs saying “Warning: propane gas” for the cops as well.
In a sense I can understand why my father did it, but I cannot comprehend it. I am still angry at what he did, but still love him because I know he did it because he loved my mother. I feel bad for my mother because she feels guilty about it. It’s like when someone tells you they love you so much they’d die for you, you feel extremely happy because it shows how much they care, but when someone REALLY does it for you, all you can feel is pain.
I just wanted to share my story and my pain. Even though my father killed himself for my family, it still hurts. There are more important things than money out there, and I just wish he understood that. My father was so smart, funny, and coolest guy I’ve ever known, and am saddened that he can no longer be here.
