by Melissa A.F.

Created on: May 17, 2009

I was five. He was thirty seven.

He jumped off a building.

My mother came to me as I watched cartoons on a sunny September day, knelt down in front of me in her nurse's uniform and told me my father was gone.

"NO....I don't want him DEAD!" I screamed.

I am almost 30 now and sometimes I still feel like screaming those words. I am not angry though, nor do I use his suicide as an excuse to feel sorry for myself or blame him for anything that might arise in my life. It's simply unfair to do so. Some people might think that I am wrong, that what HE did was unfair. It wasn't. In his eyes, it was the only way. As his daughter, I am choosing to accept that and love him anyway. His death taught me the hardest lesson in forgiveness one could ever learn.

My father had a disease, a disease of the mind. I think people who have not experienced suicide do not understand mental illness like those of us who have lived it, who have watched a loved one deteriorate from the inside out. To watch a mind destroy a life is tragic. To have that life come to an end by choice is also tragic. However, to find peace that is only attainable through death, which is how people who are suicidal think, then who am I to judge? I am not my father, I was not in his head and only now through many years of questions and research can I truly believe that suicide was the best option for him. No I am not happy that he is gone and of course if I had my way he would be here and healthy, but he is not. He made a choice, a choice that became a defining moment in my life. In turn, I made a choice, a choice to use the lessons I learned from him and not use him as an excuse or make excuses for him.

I sit here writing and truly believe that the knowledge, insight, and lessons I learned from my father's suicide are things that I will carry with me for a lifetime. Those lessons would not exist otherwise. You cannot learn from a diseased mind, you can only try to ease that person's pain and try the best you can. I think my father knew he was simply too far gone, the disease gripped him in a way where he could not escape no matter how hard he fought. I know there are people who think he gave up, who think that those who take their own life are selfish beings. Those of us who know better, we know that suicide can be a way out for those who have no way out.

I choose to believe my dad's only way our was by taking matters into his own hands. I choose to believe he fought until he could not fight anymore and I choose to continue to love him and advocate for those like him in his memory. The term is suicide survivor; he chose the suicide, I am choosing the survivor. I love you dad.

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