"I never talk about my wife and daughter.
I'm only going to say this once.
My daughter committed suicide.
There was nothing after that.
Jill and I-
We married young. Twenty one.
We were in love. Crazy.
We had Joanna when I was still in school.
We had a house, a yard, a cat.
We lived that way for sixteen years.
Georgia summers, cool mint tea.
I never eat peaches.
Space lets me forget the past.
My wife was the love of my life
but she and I
couldn't
our daughter's death.
Jo was thirteen.
Jill took everything. I wanted nothing.
It's not about blame but what you can bear.
I left home. Enlisted.
They almost didn't take me, psychological risk.
But I told them it's either space or the bottle
I didn't much care.
Made a second life there. Here.
Space makes me angry.
That's why I'm alive.
I don't think about what went wrong.
Might have been, could have been.
I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor.
My baby girl.
It's possible to pick up the pieces
but the rearrangement might have you
scratching your head. Sometimes
I wake up, wondering how the hell I did I get here
wasn't everything supposed to be different?
Didn't I have something else in mind instead?
My baby girl.
I don't ever visit Joanna
I don't call Jill. I don't visit old haunts.
I haven't stepped foot in the state of Georgia
since I left. As far as I care
the place is gone.
We loved our girl, but she somehow hated
her life, her skin, she couldn't see
eleven is young for self mutilation
We had family and individual therapy
enrolled her in a private school with
teachers, counsellors specialized.
A course of pills that would leave her
hyperactive or catatonic
but there were precious, glorious days
when she was happy, radiant.
For a while, we'd achieved balance
it was never easy, but we had months
when the good days outnumbered the bad.
The experts say
and I'm an expert
that puberty
hormones
brought on too many changes
her body didn't adjust properly
caused chemical imbalance, led to depression
anxiety, obsession, you get the idea.
Mostly I hear
I failed
as a parent
as a doctor
as a father
as a person
Jill felt the same way
we blamed ourselves and each other
Joanna bled herself
to death.
You'll say that a child doesn't know what she's doing
she wasn't a child.
She knew what she wanted.
She couldn't see an end to the battle with her body.
There's nothing to say when someone wants death more
than anything life offers.
Never mind perspective, age, the neurotransmitters.
My girl loved to play music
and win holovid games
she giggled when Jill
would make silly faces
I've only got my bones left.
Sometimes she would cry and cry
as Jill and I held her
other times there was rage
we took her to a Betazoid mind healer
who couldn't do anything
said she must grow into her mind.
This is the last time
I'll say something about her
Jill knew Jo better
she saw deeper inside
my daughter
loved the color yellow
because she loved lemonade
and honeymelons
and french fries."
Warning: Suicide.