I Was Thinking About Suicide When I Found Out My Best Friend Was Dead.

5 years today, I experienced my first suicidal thoughts.

I know… what am I actually publishing right now?

It’s true.

Being me means being a little too real and honest, and that’s the point.

At least for me, that’s the point in broadcasting my experiences… to share them and hope they’re found.

Because there was a morning when I wanted to die.

Not in some dramatic, romanticized way.

I was actively thinking about jumping out of a two-story townhome.

I remember sitting on the edge of my bed, completely blank-spaced. Totally zoned out.

It was a Wednesday morning in Colorado Springs.

Perfect weather. I mean, it felt so incredible I had all my windows open.

There was a big window in the master bedroom that brought in the most light because it was facing West, exactly facing Pikes Peak, although there were homes behind, so I didn’t exactly have the view of the mountain, only if I was directly at the window facing NW to see a glimpse.

And I started staring at that window.

And started imagining… jumping out.

Out of nowhere.

I was actively aware of the horrendous thoughts arising from… nowhere.

I could see, imaginatively, my soul crawling out of my body and just jumping out of the window.

Like… a see-through version of myself just unable to ‘hold on’.

I want you guys to know… it just f&$*(&#g hurt.

I want to say the closest thing people could possibly relate to is… heartbreak.

But imagine feeling brokenhearted… with no context whatsoever.

The thoughts were real.

And with these thoughts came observing my son at the same time, who was cooing, joyfully I might add, while crawling around the floor. Oblivious to it all. As an almost one-year-old should, right?…

I was thinking to myself, why?

Why is this happening to me?

Why am I so sad?

It hurts? God… it hurts!!!!!!!

It burns, in a way.

Literally aches…

Why???

I wanted to jump out of my two-story townhome, knowing my kind neighbor, Bri, would surely be the one to find me. Like that’s how far I went into thinking of the consequences that would have followed these thoughts.

I was standing in front of the window when Austin started to cry because he was hungry.

It was breakfast time and I wasn’t doing anything…

Anything at all… but thinking of death.

Then my phone rang.

It was my aunt.

She says hi and asks how my day is going.

She asks how I was doing and I begin to sob.

I’m sobbing, telling her, “sabes que tia… I’m having a really bad day.”

And she begins to cry.

And I mean cry.

I’m over here thinking, ‘oh damn? I’m not the only one having a rough time..’

Then says, “I’m so sorry to hear that Amber… and I’m so sorry to not make this day any better… Your dad died. He’s dead.”

When she said my father died…

I took the deepest breath and exhaled.

A breath of… relief.

All that passed symbolically through my breath was relief.

I was relieved to know… what I was experiencing before the phone call wasn’t me. It wasn’t something Amber Lindsay Martinez would think or even fucking do?!??!

At all.

Like ever.

What I was feeling…

the emptiness,

loneliness,

dark sadness…

was something I needed to feel… to know.

A piece of my soul… was gone.

It’s as if my soul wanted to be joined with the essence it was created from and by.

Of course “I wanted to die”.

Of course!!!!

Because a part of me did.

50% of what made me is now gone.

Forever.

My dad was my best friend.

He was my best friend because he knew everything.

He knew everything about anything that pertained to my life.

I didn’t hide anything from him.

I didn’t have to.

He was the “cool” parent while my mom was the strict-Virgo queen she was (and continues to be… but we love her for it).

My dad didn’t give a fuck about anything.

He didn’t care if people didn’t like him or not.

He made sure he, as well as others, were having a good time, and made sure it was.

He was an unhealed man who was hurt by the world, that the only way for him to be ok with his own demons and trauma was to act free.

Free of shame.

Free of expectation and obligation.

Free of accountability.

Free.

This isn’t to idolize him but to acknowledge that his life was his own to make, and he sure knew that part. He knew it was his life to live.

He had an inventor’s mind.

A king’s appetite.

And a child’s wander.

He never grew TF up… Honestly lol.

I say that light-heartedly because it’s true.

His child-like excitement for life and adrenaline in general made you think to yourself, “what a crazy son of a gun” LOL.

My father raised me to be selfish and to live my life, unapologetically.

Because he lived his life.

He made his money.

He enjoyed said money.

And he left the world without any.

I love that for him.

I had 17 good years with my dad.

I had him my whole life up until adulthood.

Those 17 years are everything and more.

I am grateful to my mother for sticking with him until I was of age to understand more of what really forms and sustains a marriage and what doesn’t and shouldn’t.

I miss ugly laughing with him.

I miss having someone on my side, no matter who, what, when, where, or why.

I miss my daddy’s beautiful eyes.

I miss eating out at restaurants with him.

I miss hearing “eh who fucking cares!” or “idgaf”.

I miss him. I do.

It hurts.

It hurts me to my core knowing that for the rest of my life… I won’t have my best friend there.

But I know I have him spiritually.

And this is where my mourning gets different.

I haven’t made my beliefs known to many… and I don’t think anyone cares, so I’ve never explicitly gone out of my way to say.

I will share that I can’t succumb to acknowledging two very distinct dimensions.

The ones we call Heaven and Hell.

I can’t accept that.

That’s… too little imagination for me.

There has to be more (for me). Because one or the other is not enough for me.

I have chosen to write about my father at his 5 year death-versary mark because I was healed and relieved of so much guilt and regret that same week’s Friday that… I haven’t been in a depressive mood because… there’s no need to.

‘What the fuck happened that Friday?’ one may ask.

I talked to a Medium.

Ooooooooooo.

Aaaaaaaaah.

Spoooooky.

Yes…

A medium.

(OMG I loved the shows Medium and Ghost Whisperer growing up because my parents loved them.)

I said to myself, If I hear what I want to hear… I’ll literally be over it.

But if somehow… some way the person communicating with “my dad” says something I know only he could say/tell me…

Then I gain everything!

I lose nothing from trying! shrugs shoulder

I gain a lot of insight from even the slightest bit or piece of specific information.

I went to the most reputable Medium I knew in Colorado… Nancy Hayes.

I was so curious to see if… what people throughout centuries experienced and wrote about… was true.

The session was held at our home office.

I was on the carpet floor with my laptop ready to be a part of a heavy conversation.

The conversation was so unexpected.

It wasn’t scary.

It was uncomfortable… because duh, my parent died and here I was, basically open to, like, a séance, but Nancy held me throughout the call as she was receiving information.

I had a smile on my face the whole time, not because Nancy was saying nice things but because she was saying things only my unique father would.

I was given a simple sentence that really changed the trajectory of my loss. And for that, I am grateful to Nancy and her gift.

Do I trust her? Absolutely.

Does she have a gift? Abso-fucking-lutely.

Would I recommend others to do the same after a loved-one has passed? No, because it’s not for everyone.

But it was for me!

I feel I liberated a lot of suppressed emotions through my reading that I no longer have to face for the rest of my life… but be aware of and move accordingly.

I’m very unconventional, but we’ve known this about me.

I’m not going to lie, having done this… so soon… felt like attaining a cheat code for this game called Life and now it’s not something that can ever hold me back…

but help me move forward and live my life.

And I think that’s what I want people to understand about me.

I am mourning.

I am still mourning.

My mourning just doesn’t look the way people might expect it to.

I miss my dad.

I will always miss my dad.

I will always be sad that I’ll be experiencing the rest of my life without him.

I refuse to let that sadness become fear.

I refuse to let the fear of losing people stop me from loving them.

My father lived his life to the fullest. I mean… the fullest.

And because so… I am going to live out mine.

Without fear.

Because I can’t be afraid of life just because death exists.

So I move.

I live.

I love.

I travel.

I experience.

I keep going.

And I’ve let all of my loved ones know this, especially my very Christian grandmother…

that she, too, will be hearing from me post-death.

Because apparently, death isn’t enough to keep me away from the people I love.

I regret nothing.

I miss my dad…

but not as much as I could be right now.

And that’s all I wanted to share!

May his Soul continue to rest peacefully and no longer be confined to the limitations this simulation of a realm constricts the soul of.

DAVID HUGO MORAN

March 15, 1966 – August 11, 2021

My favorite Pisces. My best friend.

Tearfully,

AMBER LINDSAY MORAN

Forever a daddy’s girl.