My Life: A Collection of Short Stories

Depression's Journey: Childhood - Daughter's Loss

I don't really remember how old I was when I first got depressed. In my opinion, sorrow/grief are different from depression. I define depression as a long-term problem that just can't go away. It comes and goes randomly and when you do get sad, it only puts more salt on the wound. Depression hurts. Depression is what kills you, on both the in and outside.

Up until I was eight, I was a pretty happy girl. Despite growing up in a mostly female household (except for my dad) I was rather tomboyish. I never like dresses or anything pretty and preferred to do more boyish things such as play video games and watch television nonstop. My family was a bit well off as well. We were receiving 3 checks at the time and always had enough money left over to buy many luxuries. I never really thought of it much back then of how fortunate I was but now I envy those moments. It wasn't really the money but the family that was important.

My mother, although older than the other mothers at my age, was her own carpenter. I remember going outside on the weekends and watching her cut wood into marvelous patterns. My favorite pattern was one that depicted two geese in the shape of a heart. My mother was and still is a very kind woman. Most of this excess money we did have was put in her savings in case I needed it for supplies or a school field trip later on.

My grandma was a marvelous woman herself. Despite being in her 80's, she always got around well. My grandma was also the first generation Spaniard in America, being born in 1920. Looking back on it I really felt bad for my grandma in her last years. She loved to garden and feed her birds she owned but most of the time she was confined to a chair in the living room to watch cops and many other reruns all day alone.

My father was my favorite out of everyone. He was the most kind, generous person that anyone could have. Despite being a heavy cigarette smoker like my mom, I would always be with him, even if he smelled. I loved playing with him and helping him in whatever I could. He wasn't the most intelligent of fathers but was a very Catholic man who always made Catholicism seem like an okay religion.

Life was pretty fun for us in my young childhood. We had no worries. It actually seemed like the future was bright for everyone. That is until 2006 hit...

As mentioned previously my father was a heavy smoker. He wasn't a chain smoker forsure but he could light quite a few in a single day. I honestly don't even remember how it happened or what happened really but it just became clear that he had gotten lung cancer. I don't ever remember being told that he did have it. My earliest memory of him having cancer was of me and my mom waiting in the waiting room in a hospital for him. I don't have any recollections of being sad that he did have cancer or knowing that cancer was even a thing. In contrast, one of my earliest memories of remembering that he did have cancer and I was sad was a few weeks before he passed when my mother told me to give him back his cigarettes (even when sick he still smoked so one day I decided to hide them from him). She justified giving back his cigarettes on the ground that he would have either bought new ones or her or my grandma would have given him the pack anyway. To this day I still haven't forgiven my mother for that statement.

I wish I could feel something. I wish I could remember what it was like to be living between the months of April and November when my dad had cancer. This sole memory of crying and being heartbroken when I hid the cigarettes is not enough. Despite being 7 (and then 8 in October) I feel I should remember more, especially of the person that I loved the most in this world. I remember the moments after he died. I don't have a mental block of the months and years after his death. It doesn't matter anymore but like another person taken away from me, I think about him every day.

I remember the night before too. I remember getting out of the car and watching him being wheeled in. I remember walking into the kitchen and seeing my grandma get him some jell-o, which I disgustingly wanted too. I don't remember the sleep. I don't remember what I did in between. But I sure as hell remember the day after.

November 20th, 2006. A Monday. Up to that point my mother had to deal with my father's costs of chemotherapy and everything else as well as trying to keep the home stable and prepared for Thanksgiving. I on the other hand just beared it and grinned trying to not be sad about my father. My mother probably knew but I didn't of how it felt for my grandma to be losing a son. Well... I didn't know what it was like to lose a dad until this morning.

I think it was 7:30 or so. The windows were open and the light shined in like sun rays. There was a light breeze which made the curtains stir; it was all quiet. Very peaceful. I was awoken by my distraught mother. She was standing in the hallway outside of my room. The look of fear had given away to sadness. Her face was pink and tears streamed down her face. I assume now that she had been standing there for a little bit, probably contemplating how she would tell me the news. But all I heard was, "Your father has died."

Almost immediately I felt all the sadness I had been holding in me burst out. Like a dam breaking, all my emotions poured out. The world stood still around me in these moments. I tossed and turned violently on my bed, smothering my head against the walls and pillows and yelling indescribable yells. But like many emotions, sadness turned to anger and anger led to blaming. This was the first time also I went against God and my religion.

I yelled at the top of my lungs of why he couldn't save my father. I cursed Jesus and all those that went before him. Like an anti-exorcist, instead of violently compulsing to get the demons expelled from me, I was letting the faith and the religion get expelled from me. Ironically, the events that came in the months and years ahead didn't help me reclaim faith either.

Eventually I must have stopped. I remember looking outside my room and noticing the paramedics take him away. I think I still was crying. Around 9 or so, my aunt and her children came to console me and my griefed family. My aunt was trying to feed me some waffles, which, after some tries, calmed me down.

Times escalated from here however. The coming months and years would hurt me more and more physically, mentally, and emotionally. My father did have a burial and I got to choose out the tom bstone but the hurt still laid there. Here too is where I started to make myself an eccedentestiast (look that up). His death also led me to eat more and more to comfort myself, making me overweight and less fit than how I previously was. A few men came into my lives but they either faded away in time or I pushed them out. None of them were my father and none will ever be. Financially we lost the house and much of our property and sometimes we had to live in our car all three of us. Family trouble too loomed as time passed on and so did an ever-changing world.

These events led me to depression and more will come in the next Depression's Journeys