My father killed himself almost eight years ago.

I never knew him. I spoke to him on the phone once and remember that he hung up on me while I was in mid-sentence. I saw him once, I think. He was on the maintenance staff at the county’s community college, and I think he walked right past me while I waited on a bench for my girlfriend to get out of class.

When my mother told me about his suicide, I didn’t feel it. I felt for her, and in a few days I’d feel dread about the funeral, but it wasn’t like I had lost anything. All I had was a father in the abstract. My existence implied a father, and that was it.

I decided to go to the funeral (“the,” not “his”) out of a vague sense that I was his next of kin and that maybe something would change. I barely knew his side of the family, and none of them had really ever reached out to me. His mother and sisters made token attempts, and they were part of my life for a little while, but the ugly truth is that I feel it was in their power to put him back in my life, and they couldn’t or wouldn’t do it, so what goddamn good were they?

There was other ugliness around the funeral, but I’m not posting about that. My father’s death showed me that he could be even less a part of my life, and not just because he was dead.

First of all, his casket was closed. You know that means he killed himself violently. When I visited his house, the bedroom was sealed, and his ex-wife told me, “There isn’t anything to see in there anymore anyway.” I’ve never learned the details, but he almost certainly shot himself in the head, and I imagine he used a shotgun in his mouth. I don’t know why, but that’s the impression I got of him.

But it’s not just that. I visited his house because no one had found a will at the time, and I was afraid I’d have to be his executor. I might as well have not wasted my time. His family had taken everything of value already, mostly guns, but they’d also taken any photos, any journals, any keepsakes that might have given me any kind of a connection to my father. It’s like no one had really lived there at all. There was a computer in one room that had basically been wiped clean except for an eBay cookie. He was stilled logged in and had posted an auction for some motorcycle stuff that had ended months ago.

Years later, I’ve felt more robbed by him than I ever did growing up without him. He never reached out to me before he killed himself at all, and as far as I know, he made no provisions to leave me with anything of himself. His will left what he had to his ex-wife, who promised me what little legacy she could manage then never spoke to me again. His brother made a weak apology about the way things are, and his sisters pledged that things would be different, and they haven’t been. His death has meant that my relationship with that half of myself will never really begin, and it has underscored the cold fact that no one of his blood wants me to be part of their lives, either.

My wife jokes that my Tumblr is about things that make me want to kill myself. It’s not quite true, but there’s some truth to it. I post things like this here rather than Facebook or a private journal because I hope these rough clods will knock around with all the pretty and ugly things until something smooth and beautiful is left. I want these goddamn rocks in my heart to be something I’ll want to pick up and hold someday. I get that the metaphor is clumsy. The emotion behind it is, too.