A Year
Trigger Warning: Depression, Suicide.
You’re never actually ready to receive that call. Nothing can prepare you to find and see a loved one without life. There are no words, no actions, no hug, no presence, that can repair the sudden part of you that leaves when someone you love passes. It’s cliche, but it’s simply true. This isn’t to say that you cannot find comfort in those still with you or that it doesn’t get better. It does. But it’s more like learning how to manage an injury and return to normalcy with that scar. You forever change how you do things, and while there may be large periods of time where the pain is bearable or even minuscule, it’s always there, and the most trivial thing can bring back that wave of emotions you thought were done with. Sure, those waves get less frequent and less powerful, but sometimes they come just as strong as they did that first time, the only difference being that you know those waves can come at any time. It’s not that you took life for granted before, or maybe I did, but it’s truly impossible to describe in words and something I truly would never ever wish on anyone. That’s the tragic beauty of life, once it’s done, it’s done. Many different people find comfort in faith, friends, work, whatever. I suppose this is a way for me to share my experience and why I even continued on with this endeavor during my grieving process.
I was 17 years old when my cousin lost his life to gang violence. He, his younger brother, my younger brother, and myself spent a lot of our young formative childhood years together, and many of my earliest memories involve those same cousins in some capacity. That was my first real experience with death and grief, and it made me view life in a whole different light, considering that compared to other people’s experiences, 17 is a relatively manageable age to truly face death for the first time. Still, it had a profound impact on appreciating the people you love a little bit more, check in a little more often, and allow yourself to be more vulnerable with them. Well, that’s what I thought I was doing. I don’t like to be a constant downer, but something I’ve always had an issue with is the notion that a person doesn’t have any life regrets because otherwise they “wouldn’t be who they are today.” I think it’s nonsense, and while the logical, reasonable, & conscious part of me understands that my father’s death was no fault of mine, how could I possibly say I don’t have regrets? I’d rather my father be alive and I be the person I was before he passed than today’s reality.
Turns out, I didn’t learn enough from my previous grief experiences. Life carries on and slowly the check ins become a little less frequent, the time spent reduces to major life events or anniversaries, and we always say “we should do this more often.” How is it not a regret to revert back to normalcy? This post that I don’t know why I’m even making public, is certainly not the place to air any familial dirty laundry, but over the last couple of years leading up to his passing, our relationship had strained. Like everyone, he was flawed, just like I am, but it’s not like the teenage & young adult years discovering that your parents don’t have every single answer, that they’re figuring it out, too. I believe some of my feelings for that strained relationship towards the end was justified at that time, but in the aftermath, the realization that one is selfish to some capacity, it’s brutally crushing. Again, I know it’s not my fault, but how could I, how could anyone, not possibly feel that underlying sense of guilt, to any degree. The clash of logical and emotional parts of my being, where both statements feel true.
Very few people, even within my circle of trust, are or were aware that depression runs in our family. So, when my brother called me that terrible, awful Monday night that my dad, the man I respected and shaped the person I am, took his life…how could I be asked not to feel even a little bit of guilt? We didn’t see the signs, we didn’t pay close enough attention, until it was too late. How easy it is to look back and see the tiny shifts in tone, the inconspicuous changes in body language. Once again, the 2 conflicting truths, everyone saying it wasn’t any of our faults. Yet the guilt still exists. The incredibly selfish part of me wishing it was me, not my younger brothers and mother, to find him, in an effort to burden some of that pain. Guilt.
As the minutes turned to days, to weeks, to months, I found myself writing this letter in parts, sections that felt manageable, I guess reflective of the process I took. What happened that night is truly never out of my mind, but making stupid videos, doing the podcast with Spencer, writing for this blog, were ways for me to break up the grieving process into consumable chunks, as difficult to swallow as it remains. It’s not about the hustle or anything like that, just something to be held accountable to that wasn’t trivial like performing (poorly at that) my normal day job. Then the world started re-opening and yet another reminder, as many people have had to start dealing with, that there is no going back to the pre-covid world. My father didn’t die of covid, but it certainly played a role, I am sure of that.
Still, here I am, sharing my experience, on a blog about music, tech, and video games. Because at the same time I am reminded about why I wanted to start this, to not have any regrets, there are enough of those. My first experience with gaming is one I barely even remember. I was a young child and my dad and uncle had bought an original NES and were trying to beat Super Mario. According to them, I wanted to play so badly that when they didn’t give me the controller, I sat on the console, in the process shutting it off. All their progress, gone (no save points back then). Whoops. Still, it’s because of him I was into gaming, going from Mario, to Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Mortal Kombat, and as he focused on familial duties, he continued try his best to buy us the new consoles, a PS1, a GameBoy, and so on.
The music and tech parts as well, I came to realize over the last year. He was a bit of a metal head when he was younger, so a lot of my youth was spent listening to Metallica, The Scorpions, Guns & Roses, Maná, El Tri, Def Leppard, Poison, The Beatles, and so on. A real hodgepodge of hair metal, Mexican rock, and sonidero cumbia. He had this really beautiful guitar, a metallic blue strat, if I remember correctly, and this huge amp that he truly had no reason to have in our family apartment, but that’s where that itch to learn guitar really rooted. And he never shied away from using upcoming technology, either. He became a general contractor and quickly adopted computers for digital documentation in the late 90s when most of the world was still on paper and Manila folders. He carried around cases of floppy disks in his red pick up truck. In the summers, my brother and I would hop on his computer while he was at work (at least on the days he didn’t take us with him) and just messed around with it, fascinated by the family computer.
The experiences that make us who we are, that make us human. In the last year, I’ve carved a little corner of something that starts to resemble success. It’s not about the numbers, but it helps to know we aren’t just screaming into the void here. Even if he didn’t understand, or even fully agree with this path, I wish I could show him what I’m doing. Would he be proud? He knew I loved him, right? He had to know, right? Despite our differences, I never wanted to disappoint him. I’ll never really know, but I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t try.
Even then, as we reached closer to a year, my mental health began declining again. Barely keeping up with my career, barely keeping up with THIS. I needed to take a break from everything, but coming back here has remained a bit of a North Star to orient myself to, not so much as a responsibility, but as an opportunity to continue to build something that feels good. In the darkness, and believe me, the holes get deep, and very dark, there’s always that little bit of light, that little bit of hope that we chase. Am I 100% ok? No, but that’s ok. I can laugh, I can enjoy things, I can cry, I can BE. And I suppose that’s the point of this, that you have to talk to your friends, the people you love, a therapist, SOMEONE. I don’t think I’ll ever truly get over not really being able to grieve with my friends thanks to the peak of COVID cases at the time, that’s a part that will stick with me. But they were still there, I just had to reach out. And they were there even if I didn’t.
So, if somewhere along this process of creating silly videos, even one person was touched, or laughed, or learned, I could point to that, and say it was worth it. I’m still learning and getting better at this. I haven’t given up, and that’s the bit of hope on this side of the internet that I will continue on. We may have had our differences, my father and I, but something that he once said, during an argument about faith or some other, sticks with me: “no matter what you decide when you leave this home or what you do with your life as an adult, you will always be my son.”
On September 28th, 2020, exactly one year ago today, Juan Martinez, my father, died from depression. I’m battling thoughts that say “you’re beating a dead horse here”, but I say that to show anyone struggling, that it’s not easy to talk about, but we have to. We absolutely must, particularly as a brown latino man. Mental health is not a joke, and the more we talk about it, the better we can address and prevent these things. He was flawed, he was a man of faith, he was a good father. Sometimes I wish he were here just so I could yell at him, because he owed us some beers (he had just turned 50, my youngest brother about to turn 21, and myself 30 that same winter). It was far too soon, but he’s resting now. I love you dad, we miss you.
A little ironic that September is both Mental Health Awareness Month and the first half of Hispanic Heritage month. As I continue on with The DMGT, my hope is that I can be a source of light heartedness and joy, but I end this post with a message:
Our parents may not always understand, but it even impacts them whether or not they acknowledge it. Care for your mental health, don’t be afraid to speak up, because there’s someone that loves you and will dearly miss you. You don’t have to do this alone.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Hours: Available 24 hours. Languages: English, Spanish.
800-273-8255
