The Lady in the Water

My family has a long history of suicide.  By long, I mean my grandfather, my father’s mistress-turned-live-in-girlfriend, and my brother have all committed suicide.  I’m sure there are longer lists out there, but that would be the saddest pissing match ever.

I'm the third child, so pictures from my childhood are hard to come by.

My grandpa was the first.  He wasn’t my real grandpa.  That man died before I was born.  No, this was my grandma’s last husband.  He has a cameo in one of my earliest memories.  Though it is said that the human brain doesn’t start forming solid memories until at least the age of 2, I can fully recall my 1st birthday present from him.  I was in a lowchair.  It’s basically a highchair for parents who don’t particularly want to see their children at the table.  I was in the living room of my dad’s (and mom’s at the time) single-wide trailer, right where the carpet changes from a short, coffee brown, to a luxurious, shaggy gold.  On the plastic tray in front of me was a fruit tart of some sort that I recall disliking.  My grandpa came in and gave me a baby silverware set.  I distinctly remember the fork and spoon as they both had writing and balloons (one blue, one yellow, and one red) on a white, plastic background.  Suddenly, the tart became a project to test out my new tools as opposed to the unpalatable, albeit flaky, breakfast it had been a few seconds ago.

I was still very young when he passed.  It was my first open-casket funeral--probably my first funeral, period.  I had never seen him sleeping, so I couldn’t make that mistake.  My mom’s chainsmoking friend, Gerry (wife to Larry), escorted me from the funeral and watched me after it was done while my parents took care of whatever it is you do behind the scenes at one of those things.   It wasn’t until I was in high school that my mom told me that he was very sick, constantly in pain, and one day went upstairs to put a pistol in his mouth.

My father’s girlfriend (we’ll call her Janet) was next.  She was a symptom of the disease that caused my parent’s divorce.  I was four when my mom packed me in the grey GrandAm and drove me away from my father’s lake-front trailer.  A few years passed between that night and when Kathy moved in.  My father took to sleeping on the couch during that time, which meant I slept on the floor of the living room.  When Janet moved in, they both shared the couch and I got a bedroom adjoining the living room.  I never found that odd, but thinking back on it, it seems as if my dad put himself in the doghouse to pay penance for his past mistakes.  He still sleeps on a couch in the living room to this day.

Janet was always very timid around me.  My dad isn’t an emotional man, but I’m told that when it comes to me, he can be a total wreck.  I can only imagine what it must’ve been like for her to have me stomping around a trailer I hated demanding popcorn at 9:30 in the morning and drinking Coke after Coke.  I can only remember her being stern with me twice, and both were because I was a tiny tyrant, too big for his britches.  Janet and my dad spent every day I was with them grilling on the driveway and drinking beers in the garage.  It seemed like a fairly grown-up, boring life.

A pontoon boat on Lake Centralia

Her funeral was a closed casket.  I was under the impression that she had drowned.  At first, all I knew was that they were dragging the lake.  It didn’t seem too far-fetched considering it was January.  My fifth grade D.A.R.E. officer made the grievous mistake of referencing a body they found in the lake.  He told us that bodies are less buoyant when the water is so cold; he used her as an example against drugs and alcohol.  He told us that she was a known alcoholic and “probably on some other drugs as well.”  In a way he was right.  She was on very powerful antidepressants.  When I mentioned the story the D.A.R.E. officer told, my mom made an angry call to our local police department; that was the last story I heard about her for a few years. It wasn't until high school that I found out she had left a note.

These high school revelations weren’t coincidental.  My brother took his life in the summer of 2002.  His visitation was the same day as my high school freshmen orientation.  I had to wear the same outfit to both. After two years, when I started have some conflicts at school (I started arguments with my Spanish teacher that resulted in her crying; unrelated), my mom decided I should talk to a therapist and let me know about the other suicides in my past.

My brother was thirteen years my senior.  He’s technically only my half brother--his father died before I was born--but we never saw it that way.  His last home basketball game of eighth grade, the night the boys generally give a rose to their mom and shake their father’s hand, my brother stood there alone, in tears while I was being delivered.  It sparked a bit of a rivalry.

He wasn’t exactly book smart.  He was a “bad test taker” and had “issues concentrating.”  The truth is he was a tactile learner.  He could build anything with his hands.  The deck he built by himself for our mom’s pool is still standing 12 years later.  Any splinters I receive serve as reminders of the fact that only one picture exists where both of us are smiling.  

Though his name is John Robert, I always called him Dubby.  He claimed when I was little he would call me “Bubby” and my way of reciprocating just stuck.  When I grew up a bit, our relationship was cyclical.  If we were silent, we were happy around one another.  Eventually, however, I would start sassing him about how good my grades were and how his were never that great.  He would respond with one or more of the following: punching me, wrestling me to the ground and holding my arm in a very painful position, drowning me, or sitting on me.  I would get upset and storm into another room to “process my emotions.”

This, of course, was when we lived in the same zip code.

He joined the Army right after high school.  He went to Cuba and got sun poisoning (despite our mother’s and my light brown hair, he was a ginger until balding at a very early age).  After that, he was stationed in Seattle, where he met his wife and they brought my niece into the world.  She is seven years my junior, making her more of a little sister than a niece.

On the summer my future therapist will point to as my emotional ground zero, my brother and his wife were having problems.  In the middle of a messy divorce, she threatened to take his daughter from him so he’d never see her again.  This, along with a pretty obvious depression, pushed him over the edge.  The last time I saw him, he was in our living room in tears and stormed out.  Apparently he had taken a bottle of some pills and chased them with liquor.  My mom called the cops and he left, angry.  She had me get in the car as we went looking for him.  We found him on a main road in my hometown.  My mother asked to ask him if he wanted a ride.  He responded with a look of vile contempt.  

It’s the last face I’ll ever remember my brother making.  It’s also why I can’t get into an argument to this day without apologizing shortly thereafter.  I can’t bear the idea of doing that to someone else.  The next day, my mother went to check on him only to find he had completed the job with a rifle he owned for deer hunting.  My mom never gave me a good look at the note, but from the glances I managed, his wife fared the worst.  He also left a list of songs he would like played at the funeral (mostly songs by Disturbed) which my mom had me purchase and then get rid of once she had listened to them.

Of the three, my brother’s suicide affected me in the most far-reaching way.  I’ve read that survivors of suicide are 50% more likely to commit it, placing it in the ranks of drug abuse and alcoholism.  I’m not saying the thought hasn’t crossed my mind, but my experiences also drove me to receive training in suicide and crisis advocacy.  I even volunteered for a suicide hotline in college.  Still, I can’t read anything by Sylvia Plath without irrationally hating her for ending her life the way she did.

Yes, my brother’s death has certainly affected me, but it isn’t the reason why I will never willingly swim in a lake again.