A More Honorable End

My father committed suicide seven years ago today. I was tempted to just let this anniversary pass without acknowledging it, but it did not feel right to do so, given that I have not been able to think of anything else since the start of January. So I find myself placing my fingers to the keyboard once again; not for too long- just long enough.

Suffice it to say that I have written extensively about this matter for quite some time now. At this point I do not believe that I can convey any other thoughts describing my sadness or anger or frustration, or even the loneliness of carrying around the memory of a ghost. And to manufacture more thoughts using slightly differing word tenses and stylistic phrasing seems disingenuous and an attempt to grab up attention for a matter that is important to me, but perhaps not overly remembered by others. At some point during grief it must be acknowledged that your burden is your own to carry and that summoning attention to it constantly transforms you into the image of your grief in the eyes of others (and, unfortunately, in your own eyes). One cannot live life as an animated monument to the deceased and expect to really live. These thoughts are not an attempt to do so.

Wishing is a futile exercise. It is hope with a sense of loss. But I do desire to just express this one void hope so that it can be acknowledged for what it is and what it can never be: I wish my father had a more honorable end. I wish that his exit was not so anticlimactic. I wish he had an end that was as big as he was, or, I should say, as big as I imagined him to be.

I wish that more of my friends could have known him so that they could realize how big a hole his exit left behind. I wish that I could look back at his death with the satisfaction of knowing that he truly lived to his potential, sad as it would be to see that legacy go.

I wish he didn’t die before I was ready for him to.

Herein we see the futility of the wish. I was not ready for him to die, and reflecting on his death will never ever bring a sense of satisfaction. I have only want and hurt out of it. I should remember the good times. I should remember his humor. I should remember his kindness. I should remember his deep mind and wisdom. I should remember just how big and strong he was. But all of those memories lead to an inevitable end that stains the whole. My father could not manufacture an honorable end for himself, and I cannot assemble one out of select bits and pieces of his life. His end is not his to change, nor is not mine to reinterpret.

Now I desire to express a hope. True hope is backed by the satisfaction of knowing that the object desired is inevitable, though in certain circumstances it cannot be explained why. I hope to one day no longer feel the need to justify my father’s life. I hope to let his end be what it is. I hope to let my father’s life stand on its own without the need to have my life act as a buttress for it. I hope to not depend on a sense of honor that is completely transitory and self-reliant. I hope that the meaning of my father’s life, and indeed the meaning of my own life, can lay outside of whatever thoughts I can muster concerning completeness and beauty. These things are hard to accept and embrace, but I have hope that they will be.

As of now, I only know a shadow of what should be. I only understand the immediate ugliness of wrong. I do not understand fully the true nature of restoration. I only know the shade of it and the closed bud if its being simply because I know that it should be there, though in truth I do not fully comprehend its form. I do not understand why it waits or why the story carries on the way it does. I only know that its existence points to what is wrong while simultaneously promising to what will be right.

Really beyond this topic is beyond my scope, and so here is where I will end this reflection. I miss my father, I wish for better things, and more than that I hope for something greater than I can completely understand: a meaning that supersedes my own understanding of meaning. A hope devoid of wishing. Restoration and beauty and completeness beyond their shadows.