he was depressed towards the end...

by lisa leonor flores
(uvalde, Tx.)

my dad was declared dead 7/19/10. it was suicide. hung in between mine and my mom and his room. i walked in to see him there but it was dark so i thought my eyes were playing tricks on me since i wear glasses, my mom and brothers saw him when she turned on the light. her scream changed my life.

i can understand the state of mind he was in since im siucidal myself and have attempted 3 times. im being very blunt about this because i don't know how to say it. it's been about 5 months since he passed, ive been in denial all this time. ive had several nightmares.

i blame myself, and i will forever regret my last words to him, "i wish you would just die already and leave me alone" im 16 turning 17 on the 14th. a rebellious teen. i was angry and didn't know how my words would affect him. me and family left him and the house around 11 at night and didn't come home till 12:50. we don't live at my old house anymore.

those first weeks were hard. ive never been one to handle grief well so i locked it up and ignored it. recently my mom told me she went back to the house the morning after and planned on hanging herself in the same spot my dad did. that mom i felt my heart break knowing how close i had been to losing my mom also.

i would love to say my grieving is going along fine but how can it when i lost my dad. me and my dad never got along, and it kills me inside when i try to think of all the good times we had and only found alot of bad ones.

i thank my boyfriend/fiance for forcing me to deal wit it when i shut everyone out and was on a fast track to my dads same path. i hope to continue trying to get better but after seeing that i'll never go back to the same naive girl from before.

thank you if you read all this and i hope y'all learn from my mistake and love your dad for all his faults and try to have as many happy memories as possibly. you never know when you might lose them. bye.