March 31st is the anniversary of my dad’s suicide, and I need your help.

by Guilty Squid on March 25, 2012

This week is the anniver­sary of my father’s suicide.

You can read about that day here. 

Although it’s been seven years, almost eight, I’ve come to accept a few things about the grief one expe­ri­ences when some­one they love kills them­selves. After nearly 8 years, lots of ther­apy, and more sup­port from my friends than one prob­a­bly has a right to expect, I am still angry about it. I’m still dev­as­tated by the loss. I can still recall that day in star­tling detail.

Every year, when I real­ize the anniver­sary of his sui­cide is com­ing up, it’s incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult for me. I dread it. I dread think­ing of it, I hate that the 31st is cir­cled in bright red in my mind. I hate that I can­not avoid think­ing about it.

This year, in par­tic­u­lar, I’m hav­ing a harder time than usual. It’s been really tough for me.

To be com­pletely hon­est, I’m tired. I’m tired of hav­ing this day loom over me. I’m tired of being angry. I’m tired of try­ing to not relive that day in my head every year on March 31st. I’m tired of feel­ing like there’s no real progress that I’ll ever make in my grief here.

I talked to my ther­a­pist about this, and I’ve come to a deci­sion about what I want to do.

I’m tak­ing con­trol over what the 31st sym­bol­izes to me. And I’d like you to help me.

My father wasn’t just an avid reader, he con­sumed books. I think it’s fair to say that he read every sin­gle day of his life. My father read tens of thou­sands of books dur­ing his life­time. His pas­sion and enjoy­ment from read­ing was passed on to me, and his grand­son. The most emo­tion­ally mean­ing­ful memo­ri­als that were given in my father’s name were sim­ple dona­tions of books to libraries. He would have loved know­ing that.

Fri­day after­noon I ran into a leader of a women’s group in my small com­mu­nity. She was telling me how they had decided that they wanted to try to estab­lish a mobile library to bring books to all of the rural kids in our area dur­ing the sum­mer. Ordi­nar­ily, there are more activ­i­ties for kids in the sum­mer­time, but I think that bud­get cuts and the econ­omy have severely lim­ited these oppor­tu­ni­ties. But, she said, they’d like to bring books to all the kids who are miles from town dur­ing the sum­mer to give them some­thing more than tele­vi­sion and video games dur­ing the sum­mer days. In par­tic­u­lar, they are hop­ing to get enough dona­tions to fund the pur­chase of chap­ter books for older kids.

I’d like to make as large a dona­tion to this pro­gram as I pos­si­bly can on the 31st. I’d like for the 31st to be the day that I do some­thing pos­i­tive for other peo­ple. I’d like it to no longer be about the day my father killed him­self and instead be the day that I do some­thing that brings cheer to other people.

And of course I’m being overly ambi­tious about this. For two rea­sons, really. One, I could just write a check to the women’s group, but I’d much rather set a goal and work my butt off to accom­plish it. I’d rather be think­ing about reach­ing that goal all week than think about my father’s suicide.

I’d like to be able to take them the funds on Sat­ur­day to buy 500 books. The aver­age cost for each book will be about $8. There’s just no way I can reach that goal with­out your help. If you are will­ing and able to con­tribute to the pur­chase of these books, I would be so grateful.

Thank you all for always being there for me. And thank you for help­ing me change what the 31st means.

If the but­ton below doesn’t work for you, you can send to squid at guiltysquid dot com on Paypal.

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