If you opened up my chest, I’m sure you would see cracks and scar tissue from my shattered heart, and if you could touch my soul, I am convinced you would experience the ache that still longs for his presence. However, if you could sit next to my faith, I believe you would experience the warm embrace of Light, healing, and growth.

You see, two years ago on the evening of May 24, 2014, my Daddy (I’m a southern girl) committed suicide. In fighting through my grief, I’ve come to know deep in my soul that the man who pulled the trigger and robbed his daughter of her Daddy–her best friend, her mentor–was not my Daddy.

That man was one who was alone in his once beautiful mind, a mind that had become a playground of torture and pain, both physical and emotional. That man was one who became lost in the rabbit hole of anger and sadness. That man was one he himself did not want to be but felt shackled to the exhaustion of being.

How did this man, my Daddy, become this other man? For you see, My Daddy was a man of God. He was honorable and disciplined and spent his life helping people. Even before he became a Christian in his mid-twenties, he helped people.

What I know is that my Daddy was broken as a child, but he did not let that stop him. I know that he became a man before experiencing the joy of being a child, but he kept living. I know that he spent time on the dark side until he found the Light.

Once infused with that Light, he walked the walk, and talked the talk. . . until his physical body started failing him. My Daddy was a carpenter and a gear-head and jack of all trades, and all of these things took a toll on his body, but it was his heart that stopped us in our tracks in 2008.

The doctors said he had a valve that needed repaired immediately, and so they did. Yet, his entire sternum fell apart, and they had to build him a titanium sternum. He would have to learn how to breathe differently and move differently, live differently.

So, after a month-long stay in the hospital including a rebuild, many debridements and being dropped by the hospital staff, he returned home to heal, to his home that he built with his own hands–his home that God showed him in his dreams, his castle here on Earth until he received his mansion on streets of gold.

The problem with sending him home to heal was that those all-knowing doctors sent him home with a life-long sentence to prescription pain medication, medication that is a billion dollar industry, medication that provokes depression and requires no counseling–only “piss tests” and pill counting–medication that is so addictive that recently the government has been forced to acknowledge the devilish concoctions and publish a report that says such.

Bottom line: this “medication” is turning loved ones into souls boiling with emotions that have no escape. This “medication” is killing people every single day and leaving families and friends lost, confused, angry, and broken.

I wish I had realized how things were going to change. I wish I had been more aware early on. I wish I had injected myself more into Daddy’s recovery after surgery, but I was playing my role as daughter instead of being my Daddy’s advocate.

I wish. I wish. Wishes, though, don’t mean a thing unless you turn them into prayers. I was praying, but I didn’t even know what to pray. I just wanted God to make my Daddy better. I felt like Daddy was the modern-day Job from the Bible, and I didn’t understand why God was putting Daddy through all of this– and the “all of this” became so much more. It became a spiraling staircase to nowhere, until it became a bullet inside a gun, held by the man inside my Daddy’s body.

What I know now is what I’ve always known but never truly put into practice and given my all to. The truth is in each experience. Each experience has a purpose, a lesson. Since my Daddy’s suicide, I have walked through all of the emotions–anguish, guilt, anger, pity, longing, and on and on, and I still walk in many of those emotions today.

However, with those emotions, I choose to honor my Daddy and my God by being a better person, being a better witness, diving into the Word on a daily basis and praying with power and expectation for understanding and application. It has taken awhile to get my wits about me, and I can’t say that I can make any sense of suicide, but I can and I will make my Daddy’s life AND his suicide matter.

Even though I am not sure what this exactly looks like yet, I do know it means being still and listening, seeking direction, and taking action. With that said, I will not let my anguish and anger lead to apathy or destruction.

My Daddy taught me to think before speaking, to be humble, observant, and kind, and so I will honor him and the wisdom God gave him and the grace God gives me everyday to walk the path He’s made for me.

Furthermore, through my spiritual journey and growth, I am learning to replace the “question marks” and “exclamation points” of Daddy’s suicide, with a “period.” I am striving to find peace in the “period” because there truly are things in this world that will never make sense.

Once I can fully acknowledge and accept that all “why’s” don’t get answered and all “screams” don’t get acknowledged, it is then that I will be able to move forward with passion and purpose and press on to that high calling.

“Pressing on” sometimes happens in baby steps–especially when working through such grief, and last year on May 24, the first year without Daddy, my siblings and I buried his ashes on his land and planted a pine tree.

This year, I will add a bench next to the tree and the memorial stone my classmates gave me, and I will declare that I will be the difference God wants me to be in this world, and if that difference means taking on the vicious, destructive cycle of pain “management,” then bring it on!

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.