It has been a month since that day happened. April 7th, Holy Tuesday, the 23rd day of enhanced community quarantine for our safety from COVID-19, when the unimaginable took place. What had made it more painful is this. It was the second time in our family after my younger brother did exactly the same thing 19 years ago.
All of us in the family was home. We have been doing our daily quarantine routine. Reflecting, I have noticed that there’s a bit of a difference from the usual. I ignored it somehow. When I was about to take my lunch, I got up and was about to walk away from my laptop. As I was about to take a step while looking at my wristwatch, I heard a very loud sound. At first, I simply wondered what was it. Suddenly, my older brother came rushing inside the house telling me that our father shot himself. Automatically, I recognized the sound was a gunshot. I rushed outside to see him lying on his stomach while the fresh blood flows out of his right head. Crying already, I immediately checked his pulse hoping that we can still save him...he’s gone. Just like that.
As a son, I have this sense of guilt. In my three weeks stay at home, I had witnessed what my mother kept telling me. My father was not easy to live with. Small things that irritate him can get easily blow up big time. In no time, every person in the house is either stupid or brainless. He was not proud of any of us his children. We are all big disappointments in his eyes. We are all good for nothing. He had angrily verbalized all these sentiments. I could not blame him. By the world standard, although employed, all of us are not successful. Myself, on the other hand, is a freelancer through God’s ministry calling while finishing my doctorate and surviving barely. For him, it appeared that money is everything. We all just have enough. If only he had learned to be grateful for what he had instead of always looking for more.
Through my eyes, he had lived a very comfortable life. He had stopped working 25 years ago. Yet, he had continued with his alcohol and cigarette vices without falter. He could go out with his friends nearby whenever he wanted to. He had eaten very decent meals and two snacks every day. Aside from going to the market rarely, cooking at times, cleaning a bit the courtyard with murmuring, he would spend his day normally with sleeping and watching TV. This had been his daily routine until his last day. As a Christ-follower, I had learned to accept and love him as he was. However, when in his drunkenness, he physically had hurt my mother I was saddened and irritated simultaneously. Then, I had wished and prayed that God could get him if his absence will bring peace in our verbally abusive home.
As a mental health practitioner, I could not help but blame myself to a certain degree. One of the topics I have taught many times to people was “Understanding Depression.” Looking back upon the last three weeks of his life, I had seen all the signs and symptoms. He has no energy, lost his appetite, and had eaten barely, sleeping longer during the day than usual, sleepless nights, and never drink or smoke less. He could not go out because of the quarantine. Yes, he can lose his temper quite easily but he had been more irritated than usual. On the contrary, most of the time he appeared sickly. All these I had seen but missed miserably. We had downplayed it. I had downplayed all these for I was so irritated myself with our situation at home emotionally. Witnessing the fights with shouting between my parents more than once a day every day at home was not a good place to be in during quarantine.
Seemingly, he had planned it. His drinking buddies had recounted to us that he often mentioned wanting to die a long time ago. A couple of times, I also heard him wishing that God take him already. He had wished to die first according to my mother. She also had realized in the last few days about the instructions that he had kept saying repeatedly to her as well as to my elder brother. None of us had expected that he could do such a thing. We did not even know that he still had that gun. Now he’s gone. His action may be his sole responsibility. Yet, undeniably, we partly have our share that had driven him to take his own life. This makes it difficult to take the advice of dear friends not to take the blame.
As a Christ-follower, I am struggling with remorse. I had failed as God’s witness to him. Yes, perhaps I had shared with him the good news once or twice. However, I could have tried harder. The only thing I had done was to gather my entire family to debrief them from this traumatic event. On the first of only two nights of his burial after debriefing, I led the family by reading a few verses from the Bible first and closed in prayer for him and all of us. If this would count as a funeral service, then, this was my first to do one.
Two days after we buried him, the house was so quiet. We were grieving in our own ways. For almost two weeks, I would catch myself crying before I sleep at night or after I woke up in the morning. Any scene on TV or movies I was watching that includes father, I cried. Yes, he may be annoying more often than not. Yet, I could not deny the fact that I miss his presence. Yes, I had wished him to be gone but not this way. Deep down inside, I believed what my friend told me, that I love my father. Sadly, he won’t see me graduating and getting my Ph.D.
The home quarantine and COVID-19 fear could be factors too for what happened. But this and all other questions I have in mind does not matter. This loss amid crisis and uncertainty, I have chosen to hold on to my faith. Trusting God more than ever is all I could ever do. Acknowledging these feelings of bewilderment and melancholy while crying out to Him my grief and sorrow are the only way to respond. Only God knows when will I ever get used to this new normal. Losing a loved one or loved ones perhaps is normal and it could have been easier to accept if he died naturally. Irrespective, dealing with a loss will never get any easier. Nevertheless, moving forward from that harrowing Holy week while allowing God to carry me through is the best way I know how to go on and continue to live.
My father had lived for 70 years. He could have lived longer for he was healthy. Sometimes I still wonder. What if I get up even for a few seconds earlier, could I have stopped him? Depression, left unnoticed or downplayed, kills. Truly, the complexities of life can never be fully grasped. Truly, life is too short. Truly, the more reason to trust God. And truly, the more we should live for Jesus no matter what. Yes, I am convincing myself to move forward from this tragedy as a better child of God.
