I'm not at all angry at my son who killed himself this past April. I know he was hurting, and depressed.
So I'm not angry. I miss him every day. I just got home from work, and cried my heart out. He was my friend. I was so proud to be his dad. I loved talking to him and hanging out with him.
I don't sleep well anymore. I either stay up all night, or I can't wake up. I have nightmares where he's beside me and then I realize he isn't, and I relive our finding his body all over again. My back hurts all the time, because my shoulders and back muscles never relax.
I see his talented, artistic fingers, slightly blue, and cold in the coffin. I vividly remember trying to give him CPR. the puke getting all over my mouth and beard as I desperately breathed into his lungs. I can hear the way his lungs rattled with each breath I blew, because of the moisture and vomit he had breathed in. I remember a panicky feeling, as something in the back of my mind kept saying "he's cold, he's cold" like that was supposed to mean something. I remember his brother doing chest compressions and something in my head saying "he's cold, he's cold". Eventually the voice started to break through. I remember the way my voice broke when I said "I don't think CPR works if they are cold." But I still couldn't imagine him being truly gone.
After the police and ambulance arrived we couldn't find his puppy. I was so fucking scared that it had gotten out the front door and something happened. Because that puppy was never far from us. We found it safe in the backyard and I held it close. I held his puppy and sat on the couch in shock till the next morning after the police and medical examiner's took his body away.
I have crippling depression. I lost interest in everything that gave me joy. I fake being alive because I love my surviving family. I take a handful of prescriptions to get up and go to work, and others to try to go to sleep. I try not to drink every night. I give myself rules, never drink more than 2 nights in a row. Don't drink more than 1/2 a fifth in a single night. I mostly stick to them.
Before then, being a dad was the biggest and best part of my identity. Now, being a failure is.
His pain is over, mine has just begun.