We all knew it was suicide as soon as we heard you were dead. I don’t know how we knew, maybe because nobody said anything about a heart attack or an accident. We just knew. And for a week now I’ve known that I’d have to find out what happened, that Athena already knew and all I had to do was ask but I couldn’t bring myself to ask. I wanted to know but maybe I was afraid that knowing the details would make it real? That until I had a mental picture of what had happened I could pretend none of this was going on? But finally I emailed Athena and asked her to tell me. And then I didn’t read the email.
And all the possibilities rolled around in my head. The awful, long, painful ways you could have chosen. I kept wondering if maybe it was a gesture that went too far…that you’d taken pills but hadn’t completely meant to die but somehow I sensed that wasn’t it.
So today I read the email. It was a gun. You shot yourself.
I should be relieved because it was over so quickly and there was no pain but somehow I don’t find it at all comforting. A gun. Pat, where did you get a gun? How long had you planned it? You went to a store and filled out some sort of form and discussed models and ammunition with the clerk and waited for your background check and went back to the store and picked it up and brought it home and loaded it? You did all those things?
Maybe someone gave it to you.
Was there peace while you were preparing? Did the process of preparing for your death calm you and bring you a kind of warped happiness? A solace? Yes I know about that. The relief of finally doing something. You’re not powerless anymore. You’re not controlled by your emotions. You don’t have to go wherever they want to take you. I get it. And I hope that, for however long it took you to make whatever arrangements you had to make, there was quiet in your mind and in your heart. I hope you had that.
I can’t bear to think about the moments just before it happened. I will at some point but not now. Later.
I’m not angry. I want you to know that even though you’re supposed to be angry at someone who commits suicide I’m really and truly not. I don’t like it and I don’t like that I’ll never see you anymore but I’m not angry. I understand Pat. No. Stop. I don’t understand. I want to understand what led to it and maybe someday I’ll have the courage to ask about what you said in your note. I don’t understand the specifics but I understand the impulse.
Who am I to judge you for your decisions? Who am I to say you should have stuck around? I don’t know what it was like to live in your body. What it was like in your heart and in your mind. And who am I to say how much pain is too much? I’m supposed to talk about mental health and therapy and “a permanent solution to a temporary problem”. But how the fuck do I know? And how could I dare to presume to tell you it would have gotten better? I know that the outside Pat, the Pat I got to spend time with, brought immense joy and amusement and challenge and love and happiness. That’s what you put out. I always knew that inside it was much darker, as it is for all of us. I don’t know how dark it was and only you knew how dark it had to get before you had had enough.
I’ll never be angry at you Pat. I just dread the fact that I’ll always miss you.
Dear Pat 