Tuesday, August 29, 2023

Suicide, 35 Years Later


I don’t remember much about you, Dad, but you are my focus in this attempt to reflect on the moment everything changed. Many of my friends and loved ones need to understand what suicide will do to a child for the rest of their life.

Snapshots of the man I knew until I turned 16 are often random, quirky moments that carry no significance beyond their proof that we were together at some point. As far as I know, relating to children was difficult for you. I just fell into your same routine, doing things you would do even when I was not around. A Yankee game blaring on the television while you cooked up a bluefish we reeled in earlier that day. Of course, we must have visited the ballpark a time or two. I don’t remember any of those trips. Our story is stuck on one random day you cooked bluefish.

You taught me how to play pinochle down at the Half Crown. I am still an excellent bad pinochle player. My strategy is solid, but I get lost trying to total the melds. I don’t remember who else played or what I drank. It was probably just soda—what else would they serve a kid as he sat at the end of a bar with his dad?

We were jogging out in Pelham Bay Park the day I first told you I started an application to West Point. You seemed proud, but I remember your reaction was somewhere along the lines of, “That’s a tough place to get into. Don’t get your hopes up too high.” I don’t remember my response, but I did not listen, instead putting all my eggs in that one basket. You would have been so proud watching every step of my journey.

Only a handful of other memories bounce around in my head. TBI from a car accident when I was 25, multiple sclerosis, and time washed most of my recall, leaving only translucent whispers.

Of course, I have pictures. Not as many as I should. Grandma died three years before you (I remember nothing about her death or funeral). In the throes of whatever demons you faced, all the history from your side of our family ended up in the trash. Those photos Mom kept after your divorce are my proof you existed, evidence that I once lived a vibrant and happy childhood.

Gaps in my memory are toxic soil where nothing grows. Surrounded by beautiful images of your granddaughter and troves of magical experiences that I struggle every day to keep is that wasteland. Its voids are peppered with arbitrary traces of times abandoned for unknown reasons. That is where you exist because we have planted nothing new since October 8, 1988.

One memory I wish would fade is seven minutes of that day. I feel like it happened this morning.

You looked so peaceful when I walked into your bedroom. Serenity was my first warning.

“Dad?”

I called out twice in a hushed tone, hoping you overslept and forgot we were supposed to get together that Saturday morning. I don’t recall what we planned, but I remember your haunting image, face-down under the covers. Your left calf was stiff to my touch. I still see the horrifying kaleidoscope of blood and chunks splayed from your left temple when I lifted the pristine powder blue pillow used to muffle the gunshot. I never looked for the .38 nestled in your right hand. A single bullet hole in the wall was enough confirmation. I dropped the pillow and sat alongside your body. It is the single most peaceful moment I have ever experienced.

“When did you start to lose memories?”

“When did constant noise and chaos first flood your mind?”

If I had an answer to the first, I might piece together the second. The best I can say is that at some point soon after October 8, 1988, I began to run. Perhaps that was the moment I started to purge memories.

Maybe not.

My entire life is a consequence of that crisp fall morning. As much as I continue to deny any claim that I am a victim, that my poor choices and their repercussions are not the results of that first brush with horror, what you did put a silent exclamation point on everything I have been since the day you committed suicide. It took me 35 years to come to grips with this reality.

Here is the message I need to share.

I wish my curiosity had turned into questions rather than fear when I was a younger man. “Why?” would have sparked conversation. Many people offered to help me search for answers, but I rejected their outreach. Terrifying images became my nightmares that triggered a fight-or-flight response. There is nothing about your suicide that I can fight—there never was. Instead, I jumped from one life to the next with little disregard for what or who I left in my wake. For more years than I care to admit, I ran. Unfortunately, those foolish mistakes are the times my mind chose to keep.

The image I cherish is not the man who thought he had wasted his best chances for happiness. Among scattered shadows that stare back at me and say, “Hold on to that memory,” I keep photographs on my refrigerator. They serve as reminders, challenging me to recall the sights, sounds, other senses, and emotions from those days. The irony is that your picture is from over three years before I was born.


The face I see is a man I never knew, one who would become the faint image still in my mind. It is your file photograph from when you joined the NYPD, on your way to a noble career serving the people of New York City. You were young, strong, and confident. I sometimes wonder if you were excited about the future. You accomplished so much in your lifetime, achieving marks that still leave you in the superhero category of my heart. Did you think you had overcome your turbulent past? I look at your picture and smile because I want to believe it was a good day. To my friends, I say this: What memory you pick does not matter. Hold close something that was good.

The last thing I need to do is remember there were many bad days to follow. I don’t know what you could have done to change your outcome, but I don’t think you tried hard enough. The bottles left behind, the prescription meds collected in excess, and the relationships you shunned in favor of distractions did not ease your pain. They only pulled you closer to the day you left a bloody corpse in a bed for your 16-year-old son to find. We both traveled dark paths, but the image of your last bad day was a blessed reminder in 2003. It forced me to reach out to loved ones for a lifeline. It forced me to talk. I don’t know how many more bad days I could have endured, but you showed me how emotional pain only worsens when it’s not treated. I no longer have an obscene collection of discarded bottles or medications. I’m trying to not shun relationships, even if my life is still an avalanche of distractions meant to ease the agony.

Sometimes, I try to wish things were different. I wish you had a chance to meet your granddaughter, to hold all five of your grandkids. I wish my daughter knew you as “Grandpa” or “Pop-Pop” and not just “your dad.” But that is not the case, and there is nothing I can do to change the past, so I move on. I want more than lost opportunities.

October 8 is a Sunday this year. It will be a day I never wanted to describe until I discovered the power of my words. Now that I have finished our story, your memory will once again sit silent in my heart and mind.

For the first time, Rogue and I will ride together at bike MS on September 23. I’m trying to change something I don’t understand. She knows many of my demons—I never met yours. She sees my body weakened and struggling—I only remember the confidence of a man who never faltered. I will continue to be the dorky dad, showing up in her world no matter how out of place I may feel—you only invited me into your routines, unable to see life through the eyes of a child. I don’t want to kill myself—I don’t think that was your plan. Hopefully, I will be enough to end our cycle.

My reaction to your suicide, those gripping emotions that are impossible to share, turned to inspiration. “What if you could capture and re-create sensations?” I answered that question with my next story. With a smirk on my lips, I chose to release Sensations on October 8, 2023. Selfish promotion? Lemonade out of lemons? Perhaps, but stories are the only way I can illustrate my turmoil.

My favorites are those based on the utter confusion in my head that I just can’t quite accurately describe; the alternate fantasy world became a surrogate for the chaos I was unable to express otherwise. (“Chaos” 2018)

I am going to take full advantage of our mistakes and pain. I earned that.

On that Sunday, I travel home from my 30th West Point reunion, where I will have celebrated that milestone with my beloved classmates. They embrace me, though I remember very little of our time together. Two days earlier marks 24 years since I first read the words “possible multiple sclerosis” on my lonely drive back from a Korean hospital.

Just like October 8, 1988, just like October 6, 1999, my mind races today with the thought of, “What’s next?”

Many more bad days are sure to follow, but I hold on to the memories of everything good. The fear that builds in me will become questions, thoughts, and stories I share with the world.

If your story helps one person, if mine brings someone a single night of comfort, our mistakes were not in vain.


Please consider a donation of support for Rogue and Kevin, riding together in Bike MS: Oregon 2023.

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