TRIGGER WARNINGS: Suicide, Drug Addiction, HIV positive
Humans are messy. I can’t write this post into a neat, tidy package for you. I am messy. My past is messy. This story is messy.
US Father’s Day just came and went. I find I’m talking to myself more. I don’t notice it increase and decrease around hard days like I used to. Now it just ebbs and flows as my soul needs. Mostly I find myself confessing to my sewing. Quietly ripping out a seam, mumbling. No one the wiser that my mumbling isn’t about the sewing.
My father was a long-time drug addict, HIV positive, and committed suicide a few weeks after I turned 21. My father was more than that, good and bad. He was a hair dresser, he was funny, he was very good looking, he had incredible charisma and magnetism, he was a liar, he was a flake, he was a womanizer. Those opinions are mine to say as I wish and as I please. People say really weird things to families, especially children, left behind. Things that aren’t their place to say. Things they should really keep to themselves. Some of those things were more traumatic than the actual suicide of my own father. When I read about suicides in the press, I immediately flinch for those children left behind. I flinch for what they will hear people confess. Confessions to make themselves feel better, not the children.
We could go on and on discussing and arguing nature versus nurture. How much of my father’s personality was inborn? How much is environment? I don’t know the answers to those, nor do I care. Children in the US are statistically more likely to get struck by lightning than to survive a suicide legacy. That percentage goes down every year as I get older, and I’m getting closer to tipping the scales in the favor of lightning, but you can’t deny that it’s a powerful visual. After 20+ years, there are a few things I need to keep tipping that scale such as: I live a sober lifestyle, I run, I garden, I ferment all the foods, I cook, I tell everyone close to me about my family suicide (you must create “watchers” in your circles), and I sew. I sew a lot.
Sewing is really the best coping mechanism I’ve found, with running a close second (there’s a reason so many addicts turn to running, but that’s another story). I need to keep my hands going. I need to make, create, break, engineer, and waltz around in my creations. I talk to my hands. I talk to my father as I take things apart. I ask questions. I ask all the things I can’t ask. I can’t pick up the phone and tell him I saw something funny/stupid/ridiculous. I can’t tell him I saw a kite at the beach he would have loved. I can’t tell him he’s a dumbass for missing out on his grandkids. I can’t tell him, “Damn, now I get why you liked cocaine & shitty beer so much!” I can’t tell him I made him something. I can’t tell him I understand, and I’ll see him next time around. It’s ok to give up this round. I can’t tell him I’m not mad, except when I am.
So, I tell my sewing.
Post Script. This post is for others like me. Those of you that sometimes feel broken by loss. Those of you that feel, at times, damaged, and that fitting in is fake. Walking the world is fake. Acting normal is a lie. The lack of imagery in this post is partly because I don’t have much else. My father died alone in a van. It is also partly because I just don’t want to share more. This opens me up raw and bleeding before you. That is enough. I’m going to go sew now.
Author Bio: Becky Jo Johnson is a blur in various places, but Instagram is usually a safe bet.
Becky, thank you so much for sharing. This is something no one can understand if they haven’t been through it, but I’m here, I’m listening, I’m watching. I’m proud and in awe of your strength, and reminding myself that just because you pull off a lot doesn’t mean it comes easy. You pour positivity into the world through your children, your sewing, your patterns, and your work here as a Sewcialist. Thank you!
Thank you, Gillian. You are a dear friend.
You have a beautiful self. Thank you for sharing a bit of yourself with me.
<3
Becky Jo, you have my deepest sympathy. My story is different and I am not eloquent like you but the hole in my life is still there.
My brother committed suicide when I was 22 and he was 21. He was struggling with depression and crippled with rheumatoid arthritis.
Parts of your story resonate with me as I so understand what you mean about people saying the weirdest things to you or “well meaning” things. Then there are the people who shun you because they don’t know what to say. I also used my sewing as therapy for those first years and I talked to my brother as I sewed.
I still grieve 37 years later, for all the lost promise, for my nieces never knowing him, how before his arthritis he was a star athlete, how they never got to know his wonderful sense of humour, his laughter, his empathy, his kindness, his amazing puzzle skills and his fabulous hugs. All the things I got to know and miss terribly to this day.
Thank you for sharing. I’m so sorry you lost your brother. So close in age; I bet some of your childhood photos are just priceless. The grieving doesn’t ever stop, does it? Thank you for letting me know you understand, know where I’m at, and for sharing your story. <3
Sitting here with tears in my eyes. I lost my father to very aggressive for of cancer, 9 years ago. One day he was watching soccer on TV with me, sorting out the WiFi Password for me, as I had come home from college to be with him in his final days, the next he was gone.
I picked up sewing as a coping mechanism, though it took me many years to realize that. I see him everywhere, I think of him every day and I have the similar conversations you have with your dad, with mine. You’re right about people saying terrible things to you after someone has passed. I miss his humour, his cooking skills, all the crazy stories he used to tell me and that he finished all his phone calls with “I love you”.
Oh, sweet friend, I am so sorry. Yes. It is so hard. The wi-fi. I recently watched “handy men” on YouTube to figure out how to change my car battery and how to changed the wire on my weed eater. I call them my YouTube dads. You know what I mean. YES, the crazy dad stories. I miss those too. I often vicariously enjoy friends who still get to be daddy’s girl… in the best way. I love seeing other people with close relationships with their dads. It brings me so much joy. Thank you for sharing. We are in this together. <3
I read this as I was preparing to head into my State’s legislature to testify on a domestic violence bill…
To require a training program like the Cut it Out program by the Professional Beauty Association to help hairdressers understand.
So much of things like substance abuse, suicide, intimate partner violence, and child abuse is an assault on trust
I appreciate Sewcialists for the trust offered to all of us
Thank you
Thank you for the work you do. These epiphanies you speak of are difficult and hard won from the people at the center of it. These are hard cycles to break in humans, and often it’s thankless work. Thank you.
You’ve made your life into something very beautiful, multi-colored, multi-faceted. Thank you for so generously sharing your story with us!
<3
Thank you for sharing this part of your journey. I sew (among other things) and I work with children to make sure they are safe and cared for. I lost my dad to alzheimers last year. So many things I wanted to say to him but didn’t get the chance. My creativity is a healthy form of expressing myself and clearing my head. Healing is a journey in itself.
Thank you for your work with children and I’m sorry about your loss. It seems there’s never enough time to say all the things… and even if we did, because we are left, we’d come up with more, wouldn’t we? Is the nature of being the ones left behind to carry on, and as you say, the journey. <3
Thank you for this post. Sewing is very therapeutic for me, too.
it really is my favorite therapy.
<3
thank you. <3
Keep speaking your truth especially when its the ‘unspeakable’. Thank you for your courage. Its great that you have found sewing as a constructive and enjoyable way of dealing with all your feelings. I love the feeling of the needle passing through the fabric; I don’t know why but it gives me great joy. I have discovered that when I am struggling with emotions I just have to pick some material and start stitching spontaneously to clear the confusion out of my system.
I wish you many blessings in your life! Carol
Thank you. Yes, whether it’s the distraction of creating and concentrating, or sometimes the monotony of the passing needle and the rhythm of the punctures… they are such good ways to work things out in the heart. <3
Thank you for sharing this with us – it took more bravery than many of us can muster on any given day. Thank you also for sharing your dad with us, and sharing your pain and the ways you mitigate that pain. I sew to refocus when my mood disorder disorders my mood – it somehow helps me to pull myself back together in ways I just can’t explain.
I hope you enjoyed your sewing after this post! <3
I’m with you. I can’t explain it either. And I’m not sure we need to explain it… there are somethings, as I get older, I’m perfectly fine with letting it be as it is. There’s aren’t too many things I can’t sew or run out of my system… or at least sew or run them into a place where they’re manageable. (And thank you! 3 shirts and 2 pairs of pants <3)
Thank you for your powerful and moving post. Sewing is my therapy too ❤️
It’s my favorite.
Lovely and raw article. Thank you for being so honest and I too find the solace and answers in sewing.
<3 sewing really is the best.
Gosh I hear you! I also talk to myself….alot! I spent a long time thinking I was psychotic because of it and was afraid to tell anybody in case I was sectioned. Thank you for sharing, it’s so important that everyone knows that it doesn’t matter what they’re going through somebody else has been through it and understands.
My story is different in that my parents split when I was small and although I was then adopted by my mum & her new husband I was constantly told that my biological father ‘didn’t want me’, was a ‘waste of space’ and was a bully. That left me with huge security issues and always feeling worthless. Aged 48 these issues still haunt me and I’m only now becoming more emotionally stable, achieving that through a mixture of a very kind husband, creativity and constantly trying to remind myself to be kind to me.
I found it interesting that you touched on nature Vs nurture, I searched for and met my biological father in my late 30’s, unfortunately we were unable to develop a long relationship as he was taken by cancer a few years later but in the time that I had with him it became obvious to everyone around us that certain behaviours and mannerisms are purely as a result of nature and not nurture. That brief relationship demonstrated why I was always so different to my siblings from my mum’s second marriage despite be raised by the same parents.
I’m so pleased that you are getting closer and closer to becoming a survivor and that you have found your very important channels for a healthy life. Love and hugs from the UK 🥰
oh, wow. Not the same, but very similar. the loss, the rejection, the inherent cliche abandonment issues… funny thing about those cliche abandonment and daddy issues… they’re cliche because they’re so common, yet, as we realize we are in those statistics and as we work through them, or at least as I did… I became a lot less glib about them. I’m 44 now. It has taken a long time to just get to here. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’re not alone in this, and that is why I shared this piece. So we know there are others that understand us. <3
Wow I feel just like you do, Father’s day doesnt get me its the little things, like how he would have had a fit about some of the salaries the football players make nowadays or bitching about the broncos new quarterback.
Sometimes I am in the mood for a very quiet place and a long hem that I can hand stitch in.
{{HUGS}}
thank you!
Beautifully written. Thank you for sharing.
Wow. Thank you for writing this. ❤️
Such a powerful testimony. I do often wonder just what the heck people are thinking when they let some of the things come out of their mouth that they let come out of their mouth. Eesh.
And, keep on talking to your dad…he’s listening!
What a beautiful post…
Becky, this post is moving and raw and heartbreaking–thank you for sharing it. As others have noted, you are such a force for positivity and encouragement in the sewing community that I would have never guessed what you are always working to overcome and reckon with. Simply put, I am in awe of your compassion, your strength, and your spirit. I am so, so glad that you are here: as a sewist, as a Sewcialist, and on this earth as the human you are. <3
A very important post Becky. Thank you.