Daddy’s little girl doesn’t have him anymore

I looked up to him, I wrapped my small hand around one of his fingers as we walked. We were so much alike, and in my eyes we were two peas in a pod. As I grew older I pulled away as I grew into my own, and started becoming more independent. My parents were together a very long time and to me seemed so great together. Things were hidden from me though, things about my dad I didn’t know. Like his mental illnesses, and his depression problems. To me, he was fine. He took care of us financially, we were always participating in family events and he loved life. But as I started to find things out about my dad, I pulled away from him even more, not knowing that I was the only one who could have saved him. My dad had done some horrible things earlier in his life that he felt guilty about, and he tried so hard to keep his depression in check. But when my mother convinced him to move from California, from a house he built with his own hands, and a job that he started from the ground up, just to move to Alabama to where my mother’s family was, things went downhill for him, and fast. No one in Alabama understood him, he had nothing, no job, and no ownership of a house. I stayed in California after ignoring my dad’s please to stay near him. He would call me some nights, feeling sad and wanting to talk, but I didn’t take it too seriously, I kept telling myself that it was just that he had to get use to his new surrounding. I didn’t know how bad it really was. The calls got more desperate and I would find myself calming him down over his tears while I was at my job. I would try to make him feel better and say that he could come visit me, but it wasn’t enough. So I decided to move out to Alabama to help out.

Once I got there I realized that my dad was no longer the person I knew, strong, independent, funny, full of life. My dad had turned into a very shy, and almost child like person, very sensitive and timid. I had also noticed that my mom had changed feelings for him. I guess she felt that the bad things he had done earlier in their marriage were too much for her to handle at the present time, and I felt like she was abandoning him when he was weakest. My dad had no one to talk to, not even my mother would love him anymore. It was up to me, but I didn’t know how to handle it either. My dad would go missing for a few hours and we would find him attempting suicide. Once he tried to drown himself in a lake nearby, then we found him breathing in car exhaust, and even cutting himself with razors in the bathroom. I got very scared and I decided to move back to California because I couldn’t handle it. I felt so horrible that I was leaving, but my mom kept telling me it was best and that she would help my dad thought this hard time.

The day I was planning on leaving, my father came into my room, I was sitting on my bed. He didn’t say a word, but with tears in his eyes he curled up in the bed next to me and grabbed me so tight, and instantly started sobbing, still not saying a word. He didn’t let go of me. I felt like a young child was hanging on to me. I didn’t know how to react. Then he looked at me and begged me not to leave him. He said that if I left, he would kill himself because life was too much to bear without me near. He said I was the only one who cared about him and he was scared.  I feel so horrible but I left, I left him there and thought of myself.

After I was back in California I convinced my mom to move back with my dad so that things could get better in California and maybe it would help him recover from his depression. So they came back, but almost immediately my mom kicked my dad out and filed for divorce. This was the worst thing she could have done at this point. I started to almost hate my mom for taking my dad’s weak point and turning it into an opportunity for herself. My dad still had no job and now had this dehabilitating depression, he had no where to live either. He moved from house to house staying with friends or relatives for a few days and when my mom took pity she let him sleep on her couch. It was really rough to see how bad things really got.

I got an apartment and let him move into an extra room with me. So I watched over him for about a year, I saw small improvements sometimes but they never lasted. Then he started to try and kill himself again. I heard a groaning noise early one morning and ran to his room. I found him on the floor with a scared look on his face, he couldn’t speak and blood was coming from his head. He had also peed on himself and was crying. I called 911 and tried frantically to figure out what was wrong. He had overdosed on a whole bottle of his medication and fell out of bed. The ambulance took him to the hospital and pumped his stomach, but to my surprise they released him within hours! He came back home and I just pleaded with him that he not do that again,  but again I was weak and couldn’t handle it. So I told him he needed to move in with my other sister. When he was there he was found trying to hang himself in the garage and I convinced him to let us take him to the mental hospital for treatment.

While he was there the doctors said that his brain was damaged by the overdose and it probably wouldn’t be normal again. So now he was even more childlike. I went to visit him in the mental ward one day and he was so excited to see me, he told me he made me something and with a big smile on his face he pulled out a card he made me. It was so simple with just a stamp of a bouquet of flowers on it. But it was so special. He had been waiting to give it to me for a few days. When he was able to be released he went to my sisters house to stay. But my sister said that he didn’t seem to recognize or notice her or her kids, that all he did was ask for me. I went to see him and he lit up so bright, he was so happy and didn’t want to let me go.  I found out later that my sister was abusing him, feeding him frozen food and giving him hard alcohol until he passed out. So I moved him to another sisters house, but things were bad there too. He then found an acquantance to stay with for a few days. He had gotten drunk one day and tried to walk across town to my mothers house, he fell in the street, almost was run over and the person who almost him asked where her lived so he gave my mothers’ address. My dad was dropped off at her house but she wouldn’t talk to him or let him it. So she called me to come get him. When I got there I saw him bloody and crying on her front step. All he wanted was a hug he said, he was so lonely and felt that he had no one to care for him anymore. It makes me so angry because he had cared for us for so long and now we all abandoned him in his time of need!

I was driving him back to my sisters and he told me that he thinks he broke a few ribs and his nose. But he didn’t have insurance so he couldn’t go to the hospital again. He looked at me and told me that he loved me, and that I was the only one who loved him. It was so hard to drop him off, i felt so bad for him. And this would be the last time i was him alive. I regret everything so much. He got out of my car so sad and asked if he could stay with me. I told him no because I couldn’t handle the stress. He walked away crying.

About 2 days later my dad called me and begged me to stay with me, just for a few days because again he told me I was the only one who loved him now. He honestly begged me, and again I said no. This would be the last time I spoke to him.

The next night I woke out of my sleep and had strong thoughts of my dad. So strong I started instantly crying and felt like I needed to call him, but I didn’t. I just sat there and cried for about an hour. Then I went back to bed.

The very next morning I was getting ready for the day and got a knock on my door. My sisters husband said, “brace yourself, your dad killed himself last night”. I lost all control of emotions and i felt so weak. I was driven to where he had killed himself and I will never forget the sight I saw. I was one of the first people there. I pulled up in the car, it was night time now, and windy outside. The car lights were shining on a shed door that was swinging open and closed with the wind. There was my dad, his legs were visable when the door was swung open. Over and over again I saw him, just laying there. I couldn’t force myself to get out of the car. I couldn’t believe this had actually happened. When the coroners got there they questioned me and told me that he had hung himself, and that it happened the night before around 3 or 4 am and it hit me. That was the time I was awakened from my sleep and crying over my dad, when I had the urge to call him but didn’t. I was so upset. I can’t even explain how I felt. I looked over as they were putting my dad into the bag and this image will never leave my mind. They wrapped a tag around his toe and zipped the bag and took him away. The police told me that laying in front of him when he killed himself were pictures of his family that he had set out to look at.

My dad was gone. And the guilt built and built. I can never talk to him again or tell him I’m sorry. He reached out for help so many times and we didn’t do enough.

I can still see my dad, teaching me piano when I was little, showing me the green catipillar on the house when i was 4 and telling it, “scoot scoot little catipillar”, playing th acordian while I danced around the room. I truly was daddy’s little girl. And now I don’t have him anymore.