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The Year of Death
The year of death. I said that to myself many times last year. It is how I will remember it. My daughter died. Alone and in her apartment where she took her life. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, but it was inevitable
Life with my daughter was beautiful in the beginning. Born prematurely, she beat the odds and became a lovely young lady and person that every father hopes for. She was full of life, joy always in the lead. That changed when she reached her 20th year. The mental illness struck, and she began the slow slide into the darker world of drugs, homelessness, and constant family turmoil. Throughout it all, I did my best to stand with her. It was hard, really hard. But, at times, I was rewarded by moments of true calm and friendship. Those moments were few and far between, but they always gave me hope.
Her challenges were as many as you could load on one young soul. Schizoid-effective, or so I was told by the doctors, and struggling with meth made her fragile. She had a son conceived in homelessness. They survived the birth, but she was unable to keep him. Thankfully, my son and his wife adopted the child. However, not being able to care for him weighed heavily on her. She ended up in long term mental care as a ward of the state of California. This gave her a chance, and by January 2020 she had fought her way out of system to get her own apartment. She had finally had a place of…
