Amy Marlow and her dad, Doug McDowell. Photo: Washington Post

When you walk into the laundry room and find your father hanging, you know that life is never going to be the same. That is a sight you can’t unsee and a pain you can’t unfeel.

I was 13 years old and still a little girl. My dad was my hero – a Vietnam vet, a Michigan grad, a Springsteen fan. I remember being a kid, flying down the road in his Oldsmobile with the windows rolled down and the music cranked up. I looked over and he smiled, his blue eyes sparkling and his black hair blowing in the wind. He played the trumpet and I played the sax, and we would sit, side by side, blaring out duets that sounded amazing to us and probably awful to anyone else.

I was 13 years old and I didn’t know about depression, didn’t know that my dad had struggled silently with his mental health for years. I didn’t know the name for what started to change him. Why he became so tired, so withdrawn. Why he seemed weighed down with a heavy sadness. I didn’t know why the light went out of his eyes. The music had stopped and in its place I heard a deafening silence.

So like a little sponge I absorbed what I sensed. I absorbed the unnamed sadness, I absorbed the undercurrent of fear and anxiety. I took it all in and I didn’t ask why and nobody offered an explanation. I sensed the pressure build and build in our home until it felt like the charged atmosphere just before a tornado.

Wrung with a fear that I couldn’t name I finally asked him, “Dad – what’s wrong?” His blue eyes clouded over as he said, softly, “I . . . don’t feel good.” Needing to know more, I asked, “When are you going to feel better?” He said nothing as his eyes filled with tears. I had never seen him cry before and it scared me. I raced out of the room and slammed the door like the teenage girl that I was. I expected him to follow, to explain.

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– Amy Marlow

Source: My dad killed himself when I was 13. He hid his depression, I won’t hide mine