Death | Suicide | Grief | Guilt
On This Day He Chose to Die
He didn’t leave a note, but I knew why he did it
Trigger warning and note: July 11 is the anniversary of the suicide of someone who was close to me. In nearly 30 years, I have only talked about it a few times and have never written about it.
I’m writing about it now for two reasons. 1. If I have to relive it every year on this date, I don’t want to relive it alone anymore. 2. To assure you that if you have experienced the suicide of a loved one, it’s possible to get to a place where you no longer blame yourself.
The alarm was set for 7:00 AM even though it was Sunday.
Saturday, July 10 — The Party
My partner and I had an argument about the party we attended earlier that evening. At the party, one of his coworkers was kissing him, and my partner wasn’t stepping away, he wasn’t resisting at all. The coworker was a guy much younger than him and he was, well… a guy.
The problem with this scenario was not that he was kissing a guy, the problem here was that I thought we were in a committed relationship, yet he was in an embrace with, and kissing someone, who was not me.
I’m old-fashioned that way, or that’s what he called me during the argument after the party when I asked him to explain.
There were red flags
I had been ignoring earlier red flags. For example, we attended an event with another couple, but we had not pre-arranged a meeting place on the off chance that we’d get separated.
Due to the crowds, we got separated, which left my friend Deanna and me, wondering where to begin looking for the guys. After searching for what seemed like hours, we left the event with the plan to go back to the restaurant where we had started the evening, hoping the guys would have thought to do the same. To our joy, the guys were there! Deanna ran toward them, I walked.
When my partner saw me he rushed across the parking lot toward me. I was ready to embrace him feeling relief about having found each other. He did not appear to be relieved and he did not embrace me, instead, he hit me. I was…
