Dad Secretly Got a Gun. Then He Ended Life as We Knew it

I am a daughter, left behind by a father who took his own life. I am a survivor, they say, of suicide.

I remember the exact moment my life changed. It was a brutally hot summer day in the San Fernando Valley when I got the phone call. A missed call—just one—mid-work day from my mom.

I was on a conference call for work, so I didn't think twice about letting it go to voicemail. An hour later, I finally pressed play.

"Your father has passed away, he's gone."

I remember collapsing on the kitchen floor, I remember screaming. I didn't say words, I couldn't. In fact, I hardly said anything the entire year that followed.

A year of showing up to events in an attempt to be "normal," wearing sunglasses inside, standing in silence while being shuffled from place to place. Alternating between being numb and shocked, and a grief so intense I was absolutely certain it would kill me.

He got a gun, legally, without telling any of us. For years after I wondered, perhaps borderline obsessed about, how many times he came close. The shiny object sitting in his closet or office or wherever he kept it.

How many nights he must have thought about it, how many different plans he might have had, how many times I must have acted like a spoiled brat—I was a wild 26-year-old at the time. How many times I rolled my eyes at him, sighed, crossed my arms and was annoyed with him.

That's the thing about being left behind by the suicide of someone you love. You'll never stop analyzing what you did. What you didn't do. How you didn't do enough. How, on earth, you could've missed something this huge, apparently staring you right in the face.

There's a whole subgroup of us: The ones left behind, the ones who roam the earth half here, half checked out—our own personal purgatory riddled with guilt and shame—forever wondering if we could've done more.

My dad was one of my favorite people on this earth. His sense of humor was sharp and dark and so offbeat I swore he could have been an HBO show creator, not a lawyer. Known for his unique mind, his brilliance, and his quick wit, he could make an entire room erupt in laughter. He was magnetic.

Some of my favorite memories of my childhood were with my dad: My sisters and I in our living room, past our bedtimes, twirling in our white nightgowns while the Beach Boys blared.

He was unique, he was special, he was different, and everything I saw in him he saw in me. We weren't like the rest of them, he'd say to me, we were better. We were special.

I am just like him. "Your father's daughter," people would often say. I have his eyes, his nose, his bushy eyebrows, his furrowed forehead. His weird way of thinking, his dark sense of humor, his temperament, withdrawn, elusive, eerily calm.

The resemblance, which used to be a source of pride, has become one of the most terrifying truths as a mom of three myself now.

Because while I loved him deeply, my father was also a flawed man. He had road rage outbursts, struggled with anxiety, the weight on his shoulders of having three daughters and a wife in a town where your worth is measured by the car you drive, the price tag of your clothes.

He was taught from an early age: Show people perfect. Shove the bad feelings away, act happy, act successful, act like you're better than everyone, because you are.

He suffered from debilitating social anxiety, shoving it deep down in an attempt to fit in with the picture perfect—the smile on his face when networking—his bunched fists and forehead vein bulging secretly showing me his level of discomfort.

No one would know the wiser. He was so happy, so funny, they'd say. He was so generous they'd say. I can't believe it, he was so friendly and outgoing, they'd say.

I believed that too. Until I didn't. Until he was gone.

The day my life ended as I knew it, I stood in a meeting room at the Best Western down the street from my childhood home, watching the scene unfold in front of me.

It felt more like a movie than my real life, everything happening in slow motion: Police shuffling in and out, my mother in hysterics, my middle sister diving into fix-it mode, my oldest sister with her beautiful pregnant belly protruding in a dainty sundress, her son, my nephew, just two years old happily banging on the wall of windows with his toy truck, shrieking in delight, blissfully unaware of the events unfolding around him.

I remember I stood, stunned, silent, watching my beautiful nephew play so joyfully and all I kept repeating in my mind was: "How could you leave this? How could you leave him, leave us?"

When a celebrity dies by suicide, I know better than to look at the comment section of a social media reporting their death, but I still do. Every time. A quick scan of comments lets you know how broken our approach, our frame of mind to mental health struggles is. The resounding sentiment in the comment section is some version of: "What a selfish jerk to leave his/her/their kids behind" or "how selfish."

I'd be lying if I didn't have the same thoughts, enraged. "What a jerk. You're missing the best parts. You left me. You left my children, your grandchildren."

And the thing is, when you read my father's suicide note, when you compile stories from others who have lived the same experience, you learn one undeniable, hard, twisted truth: The ones who take their own lives often do it "for their loved ones".

The lies that deep, deep depression tells them: That they are a burden, that everyone is better off without them. To them, suicide, leaving forever, is the least selfish thing they could do. My father truly believed that he was doing this "for us."

As a survivor, as a daughter, as the one left behind: I would give anything to have him back. I would take him with all his quirks, with all of his deepest flaws. His financial strain. His at times callous jokes. His social anxiety.

I wish I could scream at him: "YOU NEVER HAVE TO GO TO A HOLIDAY PARTY AGAIN! It's 2023 and ALL PEOPLE are welcome! You don't have to fit yourself into a box of what people are 'supposed' to be anymore! You can just be you! Social, introverted, outgoing, rich, poor—none of it matters.

"Stay. Just stay. Exactly as you are. You are not a burden. You are everything. Sad. Mad. Anxious. Depressed. Flawed. I love all of you. Just please don't leave."

And so here we are. Ten years later, I have the wild, crazy, successful, and incredibly unique career he always knew I'd have. I have three beautiful children, none of whom will have the chance to meet their brilliant, weird, wonderful grandfather.

Someday, I will tell the story of how their grandfather was a beautiful, incredible man. I will tell them about their grandfather, a man who needed help, a man who stayed quiet, who put on a mask to seem strong, and never got the help he needed, the help he deserved.

I will tell my children the story about how all feelings are a part of them: Happy, mad, sad, anxious, overwhelmed—and there's nothing to be ashamed of. We are human.

I will tell my children that getting help is the strongest thing you can do, that help is always there, and to seek it voraciously.

Kristin Gallant is founder of the online toddler resource and community Big Little Feelings and a mom of three.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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