September 12th, 2017, I went to walmart. I didn’t have anything specific that I needed, I just couldn’t shake this terrible panic/ depression feeling. I needed to focus on something else. Anything else. I shopped for Halloween decorations and odds and ends that I didn’t have room for, but when in doubt, impulse buy to make yourself feel better. I got home and my husband could tell I needed some cheering up. So he took me into his arms and we slow danced together to the song “sweetheart” by Thomas Rhett. Later that evening, I was finally able to sleep, which wasn’t an easy task, being 8 months pregnant. I woke up the next day and got my husband’s lunch and coffee ready so that he could go to work. I gave my dad a quick call because I had been stopping by his house and trying to call for a week now and never got an answer. Still no answer. I got my 3 year old in the truck and we all started the 20 minute drive to get my husband to work. I needed to use the truck that day, so we tagged along. We stop at a gas station before we dropped him off, just like any other morning, so he could get a bag of chips or an energy drink. While he was inside, I recieved a phone call from my mother. I didn’t know why she was up this early, unless she just hadn’t gone to sleep the night before, but I answered anyway. “Hello?”

“Allison, you need to get over here. NOW.”

“Mom, what’s wrong?? What’s going on??”

“I don’t want to tell you over the phone. Just hurry up and get over here.”

“Mom, you can’t do that. Now, I’m worried sick. Tell me what the fuck is going on!!”

“Your dad… He hung himself.”

That sentence, for some reason, made absolutely no sense to me. My mind wouldn’t let it make sense. It just wouldn’t process.

“Is he okay?? You got him down right?? Like, he’s breathing still, right??”

“He’s gone, baby. I’m so sorry..”

I dropped the phone and started screaming. I didn’t care that there were people passing by and staring at me. I didn’t care that I looked like a crazy person. My heart was shattered. Waves of nausea and dizziness washed over me. My husband scrambled to get into the truck when he saw my condition. He immediately grabbed the phone and started asking questions. He grabbed me and held me and rocked me back and forth until I couldn’t cry anymore. We drove to my mom and dad’s. I prayed to God that it was just a sick joke. I didn’t even know if I believed in god but I needed my dad to be okay. Anxious panic after anxious panic hit me again and again. I turned the corner onto their street and I saw the coroner van. I shut down and screamed all over again. “No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.” I sobbed. When I entered, the coroners were still documenting with photos. So that meant he was still hanging. My mom told me to go in and look. But I knew I couldn’t see that or I’d never be able to see anything else. The coroners gave me what details they had. He had committed suicide by hanging. He didn’t leave a note. He only had a wallet, a lighter, a title to a vehicle, and a photo, which he laid out neatly in individual piles on his bed. He wrapped a dog collar around his neck, hooked the collar onto a coat hook, and sunk to his knees. He appeared to have been there for a while, rigor mortis had set in, he was grey, and his body was cold. When the coroner was finished and my dad was zipped into a black body bag, I went in his room to see for myself. I held his hand and talked to him for hours. I cried and asked him why. I knew he couldn’t tell me, but that was the one question I needed an answer to, and it was one that I never got. The funeral home was ready to transport his remains, after i had already told them to go away once, and I had to be pried away from his body by my family. I couldn’t cry anymore. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t listen to music. I couldn’t be left alone because I would start thinking, and my thoughts would immediately end up on that dog collar. After they took my dad away, I felt no reason to be there at his house. The thing I loved was gone. I didn’t want to be there anymore. So I left. We took my brothers fishing to distract them. But I couldn’t think of anything else. Even my baby boy in my belly was moving less than his normal, overactive self usually would. The photo that my dad had placed on his bed was an ultrasound photo of my son. He had helped us pick out a name for him. Cedric Gunther. I hated the middle name, but my husband and dad loved it, so I just couldn’t refuse. My dad had been so excited to meet my son. I think that is one of the things that hurt the most. The next few days were the worst days of my life. I had to relive the horror every time I saw my dad’s body. The day of the funeral, I was the last person to leave his body. The funeral director asked if I wanted to help her tuck him in, one last time. I pulled the silky casket blankets over his face and arms and I let out a deep sob. I had lost so much when he died. My heart was so broken. No girl should have to tuck her daddy’s body into his final resting place at such a young age.

When you commit suicide, you leave behind all of the people that love you. I am referencing a quote that secribed suicide perfectly, that i heard while i was watching a show on netflix called the Blacklist.

“Have you ever seen the aftermath of a suicide bombing…? I have. June 29, 2003. I was meeting two associates at the Marouche restaurant in Tel Aviv. As my car was pulling up, a 20-year-old Palestinian named Ghazi Safar entered the restaurant and detonated a vest wired with C4. The shock wave knocked me flat, blew out my eardrums. I couldn’t hear. The smoke… It was like being underwater. I went inside. A nightmare. Blood. Parts of people. You could tell where Safar was standing when the vest blew. It was like a perfect circle of death. There was almost nothing left of the people closest to him. 17 dead, 46 injured. Blown to pieces. The closer they were to the bomber, the more horrific the effect. That’s every suicide. Every single one. An act of terror perpetrated against everyone who’s ever known you… Everyone who’s ever loved you. The people closest to you… the ones who cherish you… are the ones who suffer the most pain, the most damage. Why would you do that? Why would you do that to people who love you?”

I never got to say goodbye…