I posted on my page but I know not everyone gets those notifications or follows me so I figured posting on one of my more popular stories would get the word out a bit, though I may still have to post on Fairytale because I have an entire readership that doesn't read the fan fictions.
⚠️ this will be discussing suicide and death. If this triggers you please don't detriment your mental health. It's not important enough to risk that. ⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️
In august my grandmother was told she would die of cancer within three months. She didn't last six weeks. I took care of her and watched her take her last breath. It was hard but I do not regret it. It was an honor to be the one she trusted with such a vulnerable moment in her life. On October the 4th, at 3:20 in the morning, she passed. Her sons and daughter in laws came out of the woodworks like vultures and threatened to have me arrested for 'stealing' because her will said everything in her home goes to me. To put it lightly, they were pissed I knew about the will and that I was practically her sole inheritor. She was poor so I don't know what they thought she had hidden, but there was nothing to find including money. The audacity and greed of them still puts a bitter taste in my mouth.
The week after she'd passed, and after I'd scrambled back home to safety from the bomb going off back at my grandmothers hometown, my brother along with my nephew and his baby mama moved in. It was incredibly stressful as she was cruel, manipulative, and disrespectful. We got rid of her in January, and I'd barely gotten things back to living order in our home before my brother hit a tree and almost died. He's still healing from that to this day.
On February the 28th, I got the news about my father. He shot himself in late November and they didn't find his body until that day. We hadn't spoken in six years with the exception of texting in November after my grandmother had passed. Most of you are aware of how complex and strained our relationship was. It's been laced into my stories in various ways including Salem in Wanderer, Lullaby's father, Dollhouse in its entirety is based around our demons, Kinley's dad is even based on the good memories, lilium's dynamic with her dad, and some others you aren't yet aware of that are in the making especially are on our story.
My dad was both the hero in my story and the villain. It's now coming to light how much he hated himself for pushing us away and how he felt everything he loved left him. So I now have so much guilt to work through.
This is my father:
This is me just last week:
I wish I had a photo of us together, another regret, but we favored a lot.
This is my grandmother and me a year before she passed:
I look like crap lol I just got off work. I won't show my brother after his wreck because he's struggling bad with his image right now and it's pretty graphic. But this is us when my nephew was born:
If it weren't for the messages my dad sent me I don't know if I could've continued writing dollhouse or other stories that depicted what he put me through. The messages are below. I'll also include the ones he sent me last. Including the message I sent him that I regret about it not being fair to me. ⚠️ this is very triggering and can be distressing!
I've always been transparent with you guys and want to share this but do realize this is not something easy to read and please don't read them if you think it'd cause you distress. I love all of you too much and couldn't bear it if this hurt any of you. So please don't proceed and skip past the following images of you have even an inkling it'll upset you.
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The following are SOME of the last messages he sent me. I decided after some thought that it would just be too distressing to reveal everything he said.
God that's so hard to read.
I'm sharing this because I love you guys so much and you mean the world to me. I trust you all more than most people I know in my personal life.
I'm sharing this so maybe it'll help someone, save someone from suffering this sort of pain. My dad had many demons, but that didn't make him one. My greatest regret will be never learning the distinction until it was too late.
I wrote this after I found out. It's similar to Hollow Doll in Lullaby, talking about similar moments that song brings up.
WILD WOOD
Wake me up in the night,
And take me to count the stars.
Tell me their stories,
Soar away with my worries,
On clouds so wispy and white.
In the corn field we hide and seek,
Giggling, whispering,
A deer in the forest took a peek.
Run with me into the wild wood ,
On an adventure of our own.
In there we leave our secrets,
In there our hearts can roam.
Hold my hand and let us prance,
Under constellations more ancient than we.
Tell me stories,
Tell me your worries,
We'll leave them here to keep.
Let's lay upon the dew coated grass,
And count the planes soaring above.
Tuck me in, forget your sins.
You, I'll always love.
Daddy, take me from this world of a reality so dim.
Take me to our hiding place,
Where imagination brims.
Teach me algorithms,
That none my age know.
Teach me of places,
Where they have winters of drifting snow.
Teach me the things you said you would.
Let us never leave this wild wood .
I know I must grow up.
And I know I must let go.
But can we stay here a while longer?
Can I pretend to never know?
Lie here beside me,
Under the big looming trees.
Tell me more stories,
Tell me all we'll get to see.
Together here forever,
There's still magic in the air.
When the sun rises,
I know you'll no longer be there.
So one last time,
I beg of you.
Just one more night please.
Let's hide in here a while longer,
In the wild wood under the trees.
When I was a little girl, my fondest memories of my dad were when he'd wake me up in the middle of the night after everyone else had gone to sleep. We'd lay on the trampoline some nights and count the planes passing over us and he'd tell me about the stars - mythological and scientific alike. We'd play hide and seek in our tiny corn field. One night in particular, I remember it being so bright because of the full moon that the earth was glowing. I was crouching down hiding from my dad and giggling into my hand. I looked over at the wood line nearby and this doe was peeking over at me. He woke me up like that so often and I loved it. It was magical. He'd tell me of far away places, of adventures he wanted to take me on. We'd play in the woods behind our house. In there anything was possible. He made the world mine to wield in those woods. It was our little secret. He taught me so much, including algebra. It still makes me giggle at how advanced he had me by the time I was eight. Math became my safe place in my later years too. When the world made no sense, math did. It was so soothing to me to think of how even a blade of grass is composed of equations. Math is predictable, unemotional, set in stone.
When my anxiety would eat me alive and something that embarrassed me kept me up at night years later, I'd remember that nothing will matter in a hundred years when I'm only stardust. Science was my safe haven. It still is to an extent, though I've become far more spiritual these past couple of years.
Last week I was in Cheyenne, Wyoming retrieving my dad's things. That first night I curled up in his bed and cried. I had gotten a ghost box on a whim, not even sure it'd work. There were a lot of voices, unsurprising after I learned the dark history of the place he stayed at. But in between the chaos, as I was crying and asking him why and that I always loved him, I'd hear clear as day in his voice - Baby. - Oh, baby.
Most of you probably won't believe it was real, or even just a coincidence, and that's okay.
But I know in my heart it was him. I'd never forget his voice. I can still hear his laugh even after all these years.
I didn't mean to ramble. But I do have one more announcement to make. Et Lilium and Lullaby will still be the first I publish though probably more delayed than I'd hoped.
However, the next one will be Wild Wood. Bloom will have a lot of parallels to my life, but one distinct difference.
My family has 'genetic abilities' on my late grandmother's side. I definitely inherited some of them but I didn't realize the full extent until I witnessed death first hand. I know many will be skeptical, hell I was the same two years ago. So I get it if you don't believe in this, but it's real to me so all I ask is for that to be kept in mind. After my dad sent me those awful last messages, I had a dream that night. A dream where I found him dead in his camper. I'd never seen his camper. I hadn't seen him in six years. He had that long curly hair when I knew him. But in this dream, which I wouldn't realize how accurate it was until I saw it for myself last week, I saw that camper. I saw him with his short hair. I felt the cold on my skin. I found my dad as he was found. This dream would be two days before we estimate he did it. That still haunts me. There was still time.
So wild Wood will be about a girl who goes on the hunt for her father like I wanted so badly to do. It's her journey to finding him, finding herself, and coming to terms with her loss. She retraces his steps as he asked her to do and travels to the places he wanted her to see. It'll also include a few of my own spirit friends under different names. It's a RH romance. I went back and forth on that, but that's what I write. I could never do justice to our story in one book. There's too many facets and the ending too tragic. I can't just end it there. I can't let that be the end to it all. Not when I can rewrite it.