Damned Tears
By Andy Alt / Mental Dimensions
Sep 26 2005
For every joke he tells, there is a sadness. Each sadness buried by one joke. Once he thought the joke transformed the sadness, but the joke merely blanketed the sadness to comfort it.
It’s said that tears clean one’s eyes. If the the dam broke from all of the tears from his sadness — crying an ocean over the loss of his father, the loss of his child-hood, the loss of what-could-have-been-but-never-will-be, what he never knew, what he’ll never know, feelings he’s never felt, feelings he’ll never feel, a father he can never know, nor the father who can ever know his son, a father who can never be proud of his son, a son who can never be proud of his father, a voice he’ll never hear, a father who will never hear the voice of his son, the son who can never have his father, the father who can never have his son, the life that never was, a life that never included a father, the life of a father that isn’t — if the tears for all these were shed, he could throw away his glasses and have perfect vision. And the tears would wash over his soul and clean the taint of blood and terror. All emotions, love, hope, happiness, sadness, fear, and many others, would be uncovered and laid out — existing, coexisting peacefully upon the cool sheets of time and the future.
A trickle of these tears were shed this night, for the death of a father over two decades past, and the death of a son over two decades past, each only happening yesterday. As the tears fall he could for a moment sense and feel what the father felt at the time of his death, and then the son shed even more tears for the pain which the father felt at the moment the father’s finger was upon the trigger. The son could almost feel the father’s presence, and the son reached out his hand, but there was no hand to take it. He told the father that he missed and loved him, and that he knew the father missed and loved him as well.
And I realized that I do indeed have a father, but he is dead. Some of the sadness now uncovered, the tears dry, the ink falls from my pen,
and I see that I’ve written about the loss of two men.
There’s nothing I can add to this post which you haven’t said already said.
It’s harrowing and very, very personal.
I don’t know what it’s like to lose a parent to suicide. The death of a parent itself is devastating enough, but the confusion of thoughts the suicide of a parent brings must be terrible, especially when you were so young.
You sum these thoughts up so well. But I can guess there were many more…
I found the opening paragraph so true too. So many of us hide our real emotions behind a joke. Our sense of humour (even if dark) and our ability to cope most of the time, make people surprised when they find out we suffer from depression, anxiety and other emotional traumas, or when we talk of suicide.
It’s as if we are two separate people. But only on the outside.
Another cliche here ;)
You may have lost two people, but you found two new ones.
Is it personal? I haven’t read it for a few years. Oh well, some people said I should post it. After some of the discussions with you on your site, I decided to do that. I started my site at a time when most people hadn’t heard of blogs yet, even before Google had bought Blogger.com :) I didn’t have a “blog” at the time, I made all the pages myself and uploaded them using an ftp client. So when you discussed the lack of comments, it made me realize that the more bloggers like you there are talking about it, the more depression, etc will be de-stigmatized and talked about, more blogs will be created and people will be more likely to comment. :) So after all that, I should maybe I should just post Damn Tears.
One final thing, by loss of two men, I meant my loss of a father, and my father’s loss of a son. I don’t want to screw around with your interpretation though; if a reader takes more or something different from what I write, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
You did the right thing.
Damn Tears is moving and needs to be read to help people understand.
They won’t understand completely of course, but no one can.
Just a little helps though :)
I did know what you meant by the loss of two men, by the way. I just didn’t word my reply very well.
I see it as a sort of change in your perception of your father and the way he felt about you, and your actual loss of him…
If that makes any sense…
No, on second thoughts it doesn’t!
Thank you zania, and I’m glad you found it so meaningful.
I remember when you first wrote that my brother. It touched me then, and helped me. And it touches me still. I think you should submit it to NAMI or some suicide prevention organization. You know those billboards. Maybe it will help discourage suicidal thoughts and encourage those affected by suicide. By the way, isn’t this the same one that was plagarised? It’s that good.
No, the one that was plagiarized from me was “Future of Banking.” They could have it, but they had the attribution wrong. Now I license stuff under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ so everyone can share an enjoy stuff I write.
Oh, and don’t look for “Future of Banking;” I haven’t added it yet. I have about 30 articles I have yet to add to this site.
But glad you enjoyed “Damned Tears” and overglad that it actually helped you.
Well done Andy,
I lost my father at 17, it was not suicide, but it was close. he was bipolar… I think that was his gift to me. I’m a father of 4 now, and 6 months ago I tried to take my own life. I know at that time I thought it was the only way to safe my family from the monster with in me but I can also seen now that my year with out medication let my disorder control me. I am now on a better road, that of recovery, but I still deal with the idea of suicide, but that is just symptomatic of living with bipolar disorder. Now I look at it as such, just an move on.
It is true that suicide isn’t always selfish, at least not in the unbalanced mind of the person attempting it. Rather this is a reality of the mental condition, that is why your post and other like it that bring to light not just the act, but after effect of the act are so important. For me I was thinking I was going to save my family, but the reality would have been just the opposite.
I grieve for your loss, but applaud your courage to be willing to talk and write about it. You are helping more people then you could even know. For me reading it was a reminder of what i have and my firm resolve to keep my balance so that I can see my kids grow.
I thank you.
Chato
http://mentalhealthhumor.today.com
Thank you, that’s nice to hear. And fortunately, because of blogs, Web 2.0, and people like you, it’s written about more than ever now and brought into the open, which helps others understand they are not as alone or as “weird” as they thought. But still… I’m pretty weird. But I guess that’s okay if I’m nutty as a fruitcake — since I don’t have any plans for assault, killing, rape, or destruction of other people’s property, I just like to kick back easily and eat my Frito’s in peace. As a matter of fact, I’d rather not even write, but I guess since I seem to have the gift of writing, I’d better use it. I sure do miss my Frito’s when I’m busy writing though.
That’s the best thing I’ve heard all decade. Thanks for letting me know, and for your sharing your story, too.
Andy,
It is a beautiful piece. Thank you for letting me use it on my blog.
-Susan