FATHER
he killed himself in 2000 21 January. he gassed himself in his car in his garage.
apparently they often leave scratch marks where they are trying to get out at the last minute.
he had been paying his life insurance that held a one year suicide clause. he had started the insurance 11 months previously.
he asked me for money in month 12. i had been giving him each month. he was probably paying it instead of lights. i had seen him whither into a broken man. each time was worse. he tended to alienate people it is also uncomfortable being with a depressed person. then eventually he pushed everyone away, but me.
i didn't find him particularly offensive. his burping reached 5 on the Richter scale. he tended to overstay his welcome. what do you expect? he had nothing to go home for.
he would come from Durban to visit me in my bachelor flat in jhb. the sleeper couch must have been designed by Hitler for his torture chambers. i didn't sleep on it. i always asked him to bring up his cabbage rolls. i knew cabbage and mince was cheap and they had always been my favorite after almost any food except Indian food.i would clap with delight when he arrived to unveil my torture. i did like cabbage rolls for the first five years.
but it was nice to to have to cook.
he and i didn't have much to say to each other. we elapsed into our favourite activity - TV.
TV is my escape, living vicariously off someone else's imagination. even my dreams are movies.
I've had 2 nightmares that i will mention. but the rest that should be fear is the delightful fear of an action film. once i was and FBI agent and my side kick partner. i kicked my toys out of the cot when they gave me a promotion and not him. i refused the promotion unless he continued as my partner. then we blew up a building in Pretoria which had a swimming pool on the top floor. it was like a fountain dancing display and major fire crackers bursting in all directions. that should have got rid of a lot of the baddies. we were ecstatic. my partner was sure to get a promo for that. i always wake up invigorated.
i knew my father wasn't going to live a normal life and certainly not one for much longer. there was no work on the horizon. at this point, i will blame BEE for his death. he was happiest working.
while people were getting the jobs that could hardly tell off from on, he remained inconveniently white.
we talk about the atrocities of apartheid and you will hear the other side.
i understood exactly how that boy felt when the home affairs couldn't get it together to get his ID book so he can work. he must have felt hopeless that he couldn't get a job because he didn't have an ID book, i'm guessing his despair was that he couldn't afford a bribe because he didn't have a job.
give a suicidal person just one thing to hang on to and they will cling to it for their life depends on it. when there is still hope you can change, then there is despair and that is too late.
a real suicide attempt is well planned and you can't stop it.
with hopelessness their is still the chance of hope. anything. paying that 12th month.
despair is the part where you curse your heart for still beating.
nothing is going to get better.
everything can get better, but it won't feel better for you.
my father was not just that one moment. i follow up later. i just wanted to stick it right after i mentioned a "father" in page 2.
