Things will have to get better

A year ago my father committed suicide. Since then, I've felt the need to do things for him: to preserve him, embrace him, support him. Through archival images modified with thread, I seek to tell his story, wich is also mine

I think about my dad every day. While I'm washing my hair, eating breakfast, getting Olivia dressed. I always think about him while I'm driving. Since he left, life has changed very little. I still do the things I used to do. Same schedules, same routines. But I almost never go to Santiago.

Sometimes the news hits me again all at once, as if I'm being told it for the first time. For a second, I forget that I already knew, that it's real, that I've already experienced it. Then everything becomes very strange. It seems like reality is a joke, an absurd story that happened to someone else. That feeling lasts for a while.

There's something that has always attracted me, ever since I was a teenager. It's the idea of ​​dying, not as a tragic or dramatic act, but as a means of escape. It's something that can't be spoken out loud for obvious reasons, but just because I fantasize about death doesn't mean I'm going to try it. It's a strange relief I feel when I think that, truly, if things get too complicated, I can always decide to die. To withdraw from this dance, to not play anymore. Like when we were kids and I didn't like something at recess and said "I'm not playing anymore," and no one could do anything about it. They can't force you to play, just as they can't force you to continue living. But they are clearly different magnitudes.

My dad drank a lot, and I think I also sometimes drink too much. I don't admit that to anyone either. It's been very difficult for me to assert my independence in life, so I'm not capable of acknowledging anything that might imply external authorization.

Returning to the idea of ​​"everything is where it should be," the day we went to the SML to pick up my dad, I had to go in and examine him. His face was almost intact, except for a fracture on the left side of his forehead. So I stood next to him, leaned close to his ear, and placed my hand on his chest. Gently patting him, I said, "It doesn't matter, Dad, I know you tried. Don't worry, there's nothing to complain about, nothing is pending."

Of course, I wish my dad hadn't done what he did. I'd love to be able to call him, talk to him, visit him in Santiago. But I understand what he did and why he did it.

All the time, I also think that my dad didn't deserve what happened to him. He didn't deserve to end up like this. There's no consolation for that grief, no reconciliation, no meaning, just a lot of reality. And this grief constantly collides with the constant feeling that everything is exactly where it should be. How do the two coexist? Perhaps the first is an emotion and the second a sensation, like an uncomfortable companion I've had to get used to.