Releasing the Notes

My middle child recently had a birthday, she turned eight. We had a fun couple of days, taking her to spend time with her best friend back in our old hometown. The friend was our neighbor, and rarely did a day go past that they spent a good amount of time together. The two girls enjoyed a few hours at the pool, playing like nothing had ever changed.

My wife and I took her to lunch, took her to pick out some clothes, and just had a fun day with just her. The next day, was a more traditional birthday, with the cake and ice cream, the friends and cousins, and the opening of presents. It is always fun to see how excited they are to be celebrated, and to see how loved they are.

When my kids have birthdays, I generally take a few days and think about them, about the ways they have changed, and the ways they have changed me.

When this daughter was a toddler she loved to snuggle. She still does, all my kids love to snuggle, but she was particularly snuggly. This came at a time in my life where I really needed a lot of affirmation from outside myself. I was having a lot of anxiety, my depressive tendencies had surged, and I was ready to just duck out of this experience we call life.

My anxiety attacks get pretty intense, and I usually end up just going into my room and laying down for the rest of the evening. A big portion of anxiety has to do with the flight or fight response, which is amazing when it functions normally. My anxiety attacks usually involve me getting overwhelmed by something, my fight or flight response getting triggered, and then getting stuck in the on position. I will get to a safe place, like laying in my bed in a dark room listening to something calming, and still be tensed up in anticipation of a non-existent event.

Living life in a constant state of anxiety is exhausting, and I was ready to be done. I would be in the midst of an anxiety attack, and hear the patter of little toes making their way down the hall, the quiet creak of my door opening and shutting, and see the little shock of white hair bobbing up and down as she made the effort to climb into my bed. I would reach over the edge, help her up, and she would scoot over and snuggle into my arms.

There, in the darkness, she would remind me why I needed to stay.

She seemed to sense that there was something wrong with me. She was a very emotionally aware child, and never asked for anything more from me than my presence in these times. It was as if she knew that I needed comfort, and was offering herself as a place to draw that comfort from.

She would stay there, sucking on the corner of her special yellow blanket, until she fell asleep. I would carry her into her room, lay her down, and be so grateful that she existed.

While thinking about these years, I came across this song. I hadn’t heard of Noah Rinker before, but he made it into a suggested playlist for some folk music I was listening to at the time, and it fit so perfectly with my feelings for my little girl.

During the years that she was saving me with her snuggles, I was struggling to the point that I was even having a difficult time praying. My usual prayer during that time was an apology. I would usually end up asking for God to just end it for me, because if I did it myself it would cause more pain than if it just “happened” somehow.

I now believe that the answer to that prayer was a little girl who would give me a reason to keep going.

Most people who are thinking about suicide are looking for a reason to stay. Hoobastank knew that, that was the whole message behind their popular song “The Reason”.

I talked before about the mindset of somebody struggling, particularly about how they believe their absence would be a gift to their loved ones. I did at that time. I thought maybe my wife could find someone who would support her better, someone who didn’t need to lean on her as hard as I do. I thought my twins could have a step-dad that could give them more attention because he wouldn’t be battling his own demons. The only thing that was stopping that was me.

I know now that neither of those things were necessarily true, though I do occasionally relapse into that way of thinking.

I know that there are things I will be able to teach my children because of the unique struggles and experiences I have. There is something I have for them that is uniquely mine to give.

The difficult truth is that I am not the only father that feels this way. I sometimes wonder how many men are only here because their kids needed a dad.

There was a video that was put out by a suicide prevention group a handful of years ago that shared suicide notes from men. The majority of them were centered on their children, either apologizing to their kids for what they were doing, trying to assure their kids that it was not their fault, or something along those lines. It was one of those videos that was extremely difficult to watch, but I felt it was important. It was made in the days before trigger warnings were common, so I had no idea how heavy the video was going to be, and even if I could find it again, I don’t know that I would share it, for that reason.

Since those days, I have worked hard on finding a solid reason to stay, and had a therapist help me focus on centering that reason within myself instead of placing that on somebody else. I no longer place the responsibility of keeping me alive on somebody else.

But when I am looking into the face of my middle child, I see someone who, at the age of three, was able to carry a weight I was dropping. A girl who was able to lift so much onto her shoulders, and still have that toddler bounce in the way she walked.

I recently asked her if she remembered snuggling me when I was having bad anxiety, and she didn’t really. She knows what my anxiety is like, as it still happens on occasion, and she remembers snuggling with me when I was having anxiety, but she doesn’t remember it the way I do. Maybe she was really just doing it for herself, out of a normal desire for a toddler to be close to a parent.

Maybe she wasn’t as conscious of how much she was helping me as I imagined she was.

No matter how the experience is remembered for her, I will always treasure it this way. I will choose to see a girl with wisdom beyond her years, with a love larger than what her small body should have been able to contain.

I will always see her as my three-year-old hero.