I think I am a coward. The hardest thing to admit to others it that which we can't admit to ourselves. Although I know in my head and - after 12 years - in my heart, that my father took a shotgun, walked out of the house to the back garden and knelt? lay? stood? under the pear tree and pulled the trigger - it is still hard to admit. So in my previous "admission" I didn't admit that much.
Here are the facts:
He was suffering from depression.
He was on, then off, then back on, anti-depressants
On the day it happened, my mother left him alone in the house for an hour and went to fetch my sisters from school.
I was not there - I was at university.
I still haven't asked my sisters exactly what they saw before they started screaming, before the police and the ambulance came.
I got there that same night. I carefully collected the grey hairs from his pillow.
The next day I walked outside and saw the grass under the old pear tree flattened where he lay - that made it seem more real.
The "facts" don't help very much, do they? It's the huge hole inside of you that needs help, the falling sensation when you receive the news. How to right a world the has turned upside down.
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