Hanging by a Thread

Prologue

It's funny how it takes just a few seconds and three words to change your life. For better or worse, there are words you can't take back; just like you can't bring people back from the grave. I know that because the words my mother uttered that fateful day changed me. "Baba mat habibty." (Translation: Dad died, honey.)

After four months of constant physical pain, my dad died.

After five years of suffering, my father was gone.

I wanted to pinch myself to try to make myself believe it was a bad dream that I was going to wake up and find him sitting on the couch at 4 am drinking an alarmingly large mug of Turkish coffee. But that wasn't the case, his death wasn't unexpected. A dying cancer patient had died. A part of me wanted to feel relief that my father, whom I loved, was no longer suffering and had found eternal peace. The bigger part just wanted her dad back. She didn't care if he was suffering, because his death was just too large to carry without him to help her through it. I didn't want him to leave me to deal with the pain that his death left in its wake. While people might call me selfish, he was my dad. Ever since he took his final breath, I was surrounded by people yet drowning in solitude.

The funny part was he would always tell me that death isn't a punishment; he would say, "death is peace, it's a mercy that is given to a person." As glad as I am that he found peace, his mercy, I wish it wasn't at the cost of my child-like happiness. While God – or whatever higher power that you want to believe in – had given him his mercy, mine was out of grasp. My own personal hell was just beginning and I wanted out.

So while I chose to endure a life that my father was no longer a part of, I also decided that I would stop living.

August 15th, 2019 was the day I died.