Don't Think

There are things I try really hard not to think about. Then there will be days like today, when I am consumed with all the memories and ideas I have fought so hard to keep away.

Today all I see is your face when I found you. Then I see your casket as it was lowered into the ground. I think about how your little girl doesn’t have a daddy and how your youngest son will never have you for a soccer coach. I can’t stop wondering what your eldest son, father and brother must be going through. How people in the neighborhood are still mourning your loss and wondering how they missed the signs.

I just try not to think about how I must have failed you. How I missed every sign of your pain or dismissed it as nothing. Or maybe I was so wrapped up in my own life; I didn’t take a good long look at yours.

Deep, deep down, in the pit of my soul, I do blame myself. I know that I am not supposed to, but some days I just do. I try not to dwell on this feeling. I push it away and know that rationally it isn’t my fault. But there are moments when I just have to wonder how you hid your pain so well from me that I didn’t have a clue.

The only day I really saw you different was on your last day. The only day that I felt something was wrong was the day you died. I certainly never left the house thinking you were going to go kill yourself – but deep down I knew something was going on. I asked you if everything was alright and you said yes. But I knew there was something you weren’t telling me. I didn’t ask the right questions that day and I just didn’t know how wrong things really were.

Maybe if you had acted more like you did on that last day, I would have reacted differently. But everyday you were the same. You went to work, spent time with your children – you lived your life as I have always known.

I remember leaving the house thinking you were really distracted about something and as I went on my way I thought we would just talk later. I hate this feeling that gnaws away at me – this idea that I could have somehow changed the course of events if only I had done even one thing differently. It is an awful feeling.

I guess I could spend the rest of my life dealing with the “what ifs.” I know that I need to focus on the right now and not look back. But there are some days that I can’t get over what happened.

I think I just really miss you. I find myself at times still wandering around the house looking for reasons to make sense of this all. I found a bizarre website dedicated to suicide notes. I read them all trying to find some missing link that would give me better incite. It didn’t work. There doesn’t seem to be a connection between any of them. Nothing these random people wrote makes sense to me. Your note makes no sense to me.

I wonder how you did it sometimes. How you could have left us like you did. I just don’t want to believe it most days and pretend like it didn’t happen. I try very hard not to dwell on these feelings. Some days I just try not to think. It is just so awful and so sad and such a waste of your precious life. There is so much to live for – so many wonderful opportunities to enjoy. Your beautiful amazing three children are just enough for me – why couldn’t they be enough for you too?

I hate money and I hate everything that seems to make people crazy. There is just so much more to life than having money, yet it seems to be the driving force behind everything. I just couldn’t care less about materialistic things. I never did. Which is why it bothers me so that you couldn’t look past these inconsequential issues and see the bigger picture. How you couldn’t look into the future and think about your life in terms of your children and their future. How you could only see and focus on the right now. Your children were everything to you and you left them.

Maybe it is inevitable that I have these days and these conversations with myself about you. Suicide is not a normal ending to a life. It has left me with more questions than answers and more grey areas to ponder. How can I not feel somewhat to blame? How do I wake up everyday and not feel you chose the worst case scenario instead of just trying a little bit harder. Maybe if I had just pushed you to talk to me or been a better, more attentive wife, life would be different today. How can I not wonder what might have been. This was not how you were supposed to die.

Everyday I try and focus on the future and what is most important for my children and me. I am trying to make the right choices and the right decisions to give us a better life than what we have right now. Sometime though, I can’t even decide what socks to wear – how I am making important life decisions is almost a joke.

Every few days or so I fall backwards into time and wish it wasn’t so. Maybe this is what I will learn in therapy – that I am not the only one with regrets. Maybe when I finally get myself there it will help me come to peace with all that has happened. Or maybe it will just teach me how not think even more.