Graduating from My Son’s Suicide

Finding the lifeless body of my son on the floor of his bedroom was extremely traumatic. The shock is as vivid today as it was nearly 2 years ago. I know that with the passage of time, the visual may fade, become dimmer, and possibly even blur but it never completely disappears. For days, weeks, and months, I had no idea that I was moving forward riding periodic waves of grief, shock, numbness, anxiety, depression, difficulty sleeping, flashbacks, and in February 2021, officially diagnosed with PTSD. I kept moving forward, not moving on, for moving on sometimes meant forgetting and I did not want to forget nor erase him from my life and memory. I wanted to keep moving forward as I prayed the traumatic event would eventually convert to a feeling of acceptance, peace, love, understanding, and calm. Moving from our home to another part of Arlington, Massachusetts was part of that recovery and therapy.

My son Daniel Lucas Ibarrondo Padilla died by suicide on Friday, September 13, 2019. He had genetically obtained a schizoaffective disorder from his mother who began to suffer from it at the age of 40. A highly successful Ivy League educated plastic surgeon and burn specialist she was. Daniel’s suffering began at 17 and at the age of 22, the pain, anguish, depression, and the unfortunate pile up of each and every single side effect from all of his medications took its toll. There were two moments in in the summer of 2019 when Daniel stopped taking his medications; he just wanted to feel normal once again.

That Friday, I left work and was eager to see my son. His 23rd?birthday was coming up on September 18th?and I wanted to discuss weekend birthday celebration plans with him. Daniel was celebrated plenty for he had so many personal and academic accomplishments on top of being an honor student, math major, poet, and great son and brother. I was texting Daniel when I left my office at 5:00pm and didn’t receive an immediate text response as I usually did. Being a Friday, I thought maybe he was busy with the college computer club of which he served as Vice President or maybe he was busy with the Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society of which he was President. Both of these clubs had late Friday meetings. By 5:30pm, I had not received any replies to my text messages. As I reached the Alewife station stop on the redline T, it was then that I felt a huge flush envelop all over my body. It was an unusual feeling and I immediately sensed something was wrong. I rushed home, went inside and headed straight to Daniel’s room. The door was closed and when I opened it, Daniel was lying on the floor next to his bed. There were pills on the bed and the floor and vomit on the pillow case. I screamed and cried out loud, fell to the floor, and touched his legs and feet and his body was cold. I screamed and wept uncontrollably. I took hold of myself and immediately called 911 and then called his brother Gabriel at work. As per 911 instructions, I opened the front door and waited in the balcony. I had never cried so much in my life, never felt so much pain, and had all of the obvious questions twirling in my mind… “Why?” “Did I miss something?” “Why did Daniel do this?” “Why didn’t he tell me he was experiencing suicidal ideations the way he always did?”??The police and coroner’s office staff arrived, examined him, and hours later they asked us to wait in the kitchen so that they can take the body. I said no. I wanted all of us to be there front and center. As they carried Daniel out, I had them stop and pause for a moment in front of the house as I sent him off with a proper goodbye, my last hug, and said the “Our Father.”??That evening I drank an entire bottle of Grand Marnier in order to be able to sleep. In the days that followed I was busy planning a funeral and a celebration of his life. All the while, I did my best to keep moving forward.

I thought I did well moving forward, allowing myself to grieve, and all the time wondering when will the next bout of tears arrive, the anxiety, the depression, and my fruitless attempts to try and gauge for how long will it last this time. I kept moving forward in the fall 2019 term and spring 2020; faculty and staff at the college needed assistance, co-workers needed administrative support, strategic plans and new initiatives needed to continue. In my professional service life, Marlaine Cover, President of The Global Presence, was instrumental in helping me move forward. Months before, the organization had selected Scarlett Lewis of The Choose Love Movement as our Humanitarian of the Year Award recipient. As Vice President of The Global Presence, three weeks after my son’s death, I had to travel to Connecticut and present the award to Scarlett Lewis. Scarlett’s son, Jesse Lewis,?was murdered during the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy in December 2012. After the event, I hugged Scarlett and sought to take and keep a measure of strength from her. On my way back to Massachusetts, I began to realize that my son?had “graduated” me with this life event.?I always embraced each and every life event as a graduation moment and I realized after this event, that?the tassel on my mortar board had moved an inch.

With the passage of time, the pain and tears were less and the recovery time became shorter allowing me to fill moments with wonderful and beautiful memories of Daniel. Even laughter entered my thoughts as I recalled Daniel’s antics and his fantastic sense of humor. I had hoped these wonderful moments would become the permanent wave I would continue to ride.

In January 2021, my youngest child Gabriel moved out of the home ready to embark on his life journey. I always looked forward to being an empty nester but when that moment arrived, what I found was that I had too much alone time on hand to think of Daniel as well as process the trauma I experienced in 2019. Covid-19, the pandemic, the lockdown did not help any. I began to have a constant dream where I was always on the floor curled up in a fetal position and profusely crying. The difference between these dreams and my usual ones were that it was not a contained REM activity, I also physically felt it throughout my body. I mentioned this to a trusted colleague at the college who in turn referred me to someone for therapy. After a few sessions, the therapist informed I had PTSD and we continued. I was quite surprised at the diagnosis. I didn’t know much about it and always attributed this mental health condition with veterans. At the therapist’s advice, I temporarily moved to Tampa, Florida to be with my daughter, her husband, and my first grandchild who is 16 months old. It was the best advice for my mental health recovery. I also found a local therapist that specializes in PTSD and EMDR. The smiles, hugs and kisses from my granddaughter, whose middle name is Danielle in honor of her late uncle, complimented my therapy.?

After a month or so of being surrounded by family and enjoying the smiles and laughter of Elizabeth Danielle, the crying dreams stopped. I took on more involvement in college initiatives outside of my department and the anxiety and depression began to subside. I made myself available to listen to co-workers that suffered from anxiety and depression prior to the pandemic and for whom the lockdown made their situation worse. Peace and calm were beginning to take hold. Being a Reiki practitioner and into Eastern medicine and healing, I decided that it would be a good time for me to have a Reiki session. I did my research on Reiki practitioners in the area, read reviews, and prayed about the one I was considering. After a few days of contemplation, I called and scheduled my Reiki session with Allison. It had been over a decade for me since I had a Reiki session.?

I signed up for a 90-minute Reiki session and from the moment it started, I had no problem going into a deep relaxed meditative state. At some point, while the Reiki Master worked on the left side of my body, I felt her place the tip of her finger on my shoulder and simultaneously place a finger near my wrist. As this happened simultaneously, I also simultaneously felt a hand over my heart. I could feel the five fingers on the hand over my heart and I wondered whether she had three arms! How could this happen? I wanted to open my eyes and look but decided to keep them closed and stay focused on my meditative state. I did not open my eyes and could feel she had now moved to working on the right side of my body. However, the hand over my heart had not moved. It was at that moment that I was somehow back at our home in Arlington, Massachusetts on September 13, 2019. I entered the home, went straight to Daniel’s room, opened the closed door to his bedroom and saw his body on the floor next to the bed. This time I was not shocked and I did not cry. I knelt down and touched his legs and feet and realized the body was cold. I looked up at him and said, “Daniel, you should leave this body. This body is defective and it will only bring you more harm than good. You deserve a better life than this but it’s not going to happen with this body. This body can’t be fixed and is damaged. Go and leave this body and find a good one.” I then heard the Reiki Master say, “Daniel, your session is over. You can get up when you’re ready to do so.”?

I stayed laying down for a few minutes and when I got up I knew from prior experience that the Reiki Master was going to ask for my thoughts on the session. I decided I would pose the question first, and asked her, “How was it for you?” She said it was one of the rare Reiki sessions she had experienced and that she felt there was a presence in the room with us. It was then that I mentioned my experience; the hand over my heart, being back at the home in the time and place when I found my son Daniel and told her about his passing. I felt great. It felt great. I’d like to think that Daniel had given me a wonderful healing gift. I felt more calm and peaceful and smiled during my drive back home.

While the Reiki session was going on, the room had filled with the scent of Jasmine flowers. This was probably the third time in my life when I physically smelled Jasmine flowers when experiencing thoughts of those who transitioned. I still cry when I think of Daniel, but my tears focus on the immense pain and suffering he went through; not my pain. I won’t have all of the answers right now, and so I remember the one answer he wrote that day on the Post It Note he placed on his bedroom mirror, “This is for me. I’m sorry.”?