blue balloon

As a kid, everything in life is all sunshine-y, butterflies, laughing and smiling.  You don't understand words like suicide, death and funeral.  You don't understand how those words are going to impact you later on in life. 

At 12 years old, I thought my parents would live happily ever after.  I would day dream of being an adult and bringing my own family home to Pittsburgh to my parents house for Christmas and Thanksgiving.  Or spending family vacations together, sitting on the porch on a warm, summer night, sipping wine and reminiscing over childhood stories at my cousin's cottage at the Finger Lakes. 

My father died in 1994.  His death never really impacted me as much as my mother's did.  Maybe because I am still traumatized over finding him hanging from a pipe in our basement, or maybe because I was too young to truly understand things like suicide.  Even now, at the age of 26 and being personally affected by it, I still don't understand suicide.  I don't understand why people do it.

Right after my father killed himself, I was ashamed at how my life turned out.  I was ashamed of talking about my father, thinking about him and looking at pictures of him.  When friends would ask me about my father, I would lie to them because I was so ashamed of being "that girl" who lost her father.  I didn't know anyone who had lost a parent and so I didn't want to believe I was different than anyone else.  I spent my life trying to fit into this world - knowing I look different than my friends and my brothers, knowing that I grew up in a white family, in a white neighborhood - I was ashamed of being even more separated from the world by being father-less. 

It's still painful to talk about it.  It's even more painful to think about him - more so because I never really had the chance to get to know my father.  At 12 years old, all I wanted to do was play in the park with my friends.  I didn't realize the importance of building a relationship with my father.  I missed out on one of the best things in life, but it doesn't mean I won't savor what memories of my father I do have.

Today, in honor of Father's Day, I ask a favor from my readers.  To those of you whose father's are still around, please take the time to cherish them.  Hug them tighter.  Appreciate them more.  Love them stronger than before.

(I'm a poet and I didn't even know it)

And remember those other people in your life who have lost their fathers.  Remember how difficult of a day Father's Day is and make sure you appreciate them just the same, because deep down they too are struggling with the loneliness that today brings.

A pink balloon for my Mother, a blue balloon for my Father.

Keep watching over me...