I’ve always been the token pity kid in my family. Whether it was “pobrecita she has had to be a mother to her older brother” or “she’s had to see so many of her loved ones pass away since she was very young”, my family has always found a way to rub in my face how “unfortunate” my life has been. 

They adopted a new saying on an unforgettable Sunday morning.

I carefully close the tap.  I wrap myself in my towel and step into my slides, but as I try to open my bathroom door I hear a faint crying sound coming from the living room. Is that my mom crying? Why would she be crying though? Did something happen?

And that's when I felt it; An unbearable pressure on my chest. I felt like the bathroom walls were closing in on me, like at any moment the walls would just squish me into a rug. I felt like something was wrong.

When I walk out of the bathroom I don't ask my mom about what happened, instead, I go straight into my room and take my phone as if my life depended on it. Or someone else’s… 

I go to the WhatsApp app on my phone and click the first name that's on top. I press the call button. One ring, two rings, three rings…  And then it stops. Dad❤️ is unavailable. 

“Hola papi, lo amo mucho. Llámeme cuando pueda”. Hey dad, I love you so much. Call me when you can.

No reply. 

My mom comes into my room with her eyes and nose looking like they’re filled with blood. Her eyes wander around my room, trying to avoid my confused eyes. Her eyes finally land on mine, as she proceeds to hold my hands and tell me “your dad has been in an accident and he passed away”. Just like that. I don’t think anything could’ve prepared me for that news, but some consolation would’ve been nice.

I can't remember if there were any consolation words besides ”I’m so sorry this happened to him.” All I remember is me frantically crying on my bedroom floor and my mom rubbing my back sitting next to me.

But something didn't feel right.

After what felt like thousands of hours, my mom came back into my room. I took this opportunity to get answers to all of my questions. 

What kind of accident was it? When did he die? Who found him? Why him? Unfortunately, my mom knew as much as I did about my dad’s death.

 Since my parents had been divorced for 3 years at that point and ended on bad terms they didn't really talk, so the only source of information we had was for my dad’s siblings. My uncles kept saying that he died in an accident but something didn’t feel right.

And I started to feel the pressure again. That pressure told me that it wasn't a car accident, but I was hoping my guess was wrong.

I made my mom sit down on my bed and look me straight in the eyes. If she was going to keep lying and hiding the truth from me then she had to do it to my face.

“How did my dad actually die, because I know he didn’t die in a car accident and I don’t understand why you have to lie to me when it’s not your place to choose whether I should know about my dad’s passing or not” I said with a shaky and frustrated voice.

She looked shocked. She didn’t say anything for what I believe have been the longest seconds in my life.

“Did he kill himself?”

“Yes, but Eliana…”

I didn’t even flinch.

“How did he do it?” I said emotionless, but the tears, swollen and red eyes, and nose showed that I wasn’t actually so nonchalant about the situation.

“He hung himself in his apartment”

“Who found him?”

“Your Aunt Roxanna, your cousins Marielina and Zahid, and the security guard”

“When did he die?”

“On Friday”

That shocked me. His lifeless body was alone in his apartment for 2 days already. Guilt started consuming every inch of me. I started feeling like I could’ve done more: called him on Friday at midnight, called my uncles in DR so they could check on him, taken a plane and checked on him myself.

I’ve come to realize that it wasn’t my fault. It was selfish of me to assume that his suicide had anything to do with me. There are many reasons why people commit suicide, but they’re more complex than having someone be there at the exact moment you attempt to do it. Someone doesn’t just wake up and say that they will commit suicide because something happened to them that day. Suicidal thoughts are like a cake in an oven; as heat keeps going into the cake, the cake grows bigger and bigger and it transforms from batter to a solidified cake. Suicidal thoughts work the same way, the more time passes, the longer you’re stuck in your head and your suicidal thoughts are more prominent and reoccurring. Because of that, your mindset transforms from “I want to die” into “I need to die”. 

I kept crying for the following days but that was it. I didn’t talk to anyone about how I was feeling, nor how I felt about my dad. I didn’t feel as if no one actually cares about how I’m feeling, but they ask in order for them to follow society’s standards. I mean, wouldn’t it be extremely messed up if they didn’t ask the poor girl who has lost a lot of the most important people in her life? That’s the right thing to do: ask if I’m okay, I respond that I am and we both move on with our lives. It’s either that or pitiful comfort, which is completely unhelpful.

My mom didn’t really comfort me either. She just talked to me when someone called her to give me their condolences or whatever. No emotions involved, at all. It’s not new behavior from her either because when my brother died, she would send me from one of my aunts’ houses to the other because she didn’t want me to be at the funeral home or when he got buried. I guess she wanted to prevent me from hurting, but what it caused me was the inability to grieve.

To this day, seven years after my brother died and one since my dad died, I still haven’t grieved but I truly don’t know how to. I’m unable to speak to my own mother about my feelings and I don't think I ever will. I wouldn’t say I’m completely unable to grieve, but I can’t deny that I’m still in denial.