This is slightly based on a real life story.
A particularly sad day in the small community of D., located in the southern province of C., was January 23, 2019. That quiet neighborhood of wide, landscaped houses and tree-lined streets was unprepared for the news of an event absolutely no one there could have expected. One of the town’s most beloved residents, J.P. C., known and respected by all as a talented lawyer with a beautiful family of a wife and three children, and renowned for his always generous smile and his kindness and willingness to help anyone in need, was found dead with a pistol shot to the head. He was 40 years old.
J.P. C.'s wife initially assumed it was a robbery, but such thing was so uncommon in the area, where everyone slept with their windows open, without any worries, and where the police didn’t even bother to patrol around, that, after the initial shock, she had to admit to herself what until that moment had seemed unimaginable: her husband had committed suicide. But how, why? She couldn’t imagine any possible reason for him to kill himself. Until the last moment she saw him alive, he seemed perfectly fine. They had discussed their eldest son, 14,'s poor grades at school, and he promised to talk to him. In all their 17 years of marriage, she had never noticed any sign of discontent or unhappiness in her husband. On the contrary, he was an ideal husband in every way. Patient, polite, helpful, kind. His career was booming. He worked at a prominent law firm based in the capital; he never lacked clients. They had no financial problems, nor did he have any addictions that could compromise his mental health. Yet, against all odds, there he was, shot dead with a gun she hadn’t even known he owned, as he hated violence.
The police confirmed that the gun was his, and also that, given the angle at which he shot the gun right to the center of his skull, he knew how to shoot and did everything possible to ensure that a single shot would kill him.
Completely shocked by the situation, his wife couldn’t stay in the house even that night, moving to her mother’s house, right there in the neighborhood, with her three children. The police were able to continue their investigation into the cause of the suicide. During the investigation, they discovered that the lawyer hadn’t left a note explaining his motives, but on his laptop, which had no security password, they found a text file that appeared to be a diary of sorts. It contained a long text dated exactly that day. It was discovered that his wife thought J.P. C. had gone to work, but he had actually taken the day off, likely to carry out his plan to kill himself. He wrote the text precisely after the children had left for school, and the fact that there were no grammatical, syntactic, or spelling errors in it led the forensic team to conclude that he was in full possession of his mental faculties.
Below is a transcription of the text.
“Today, January 23, 2019, at exactly 11:45 AM, I will shoot myself in the head and end my life. If or when you read this, D., I hope you forgive me for this. Be strong. Not for me, but for our children. They will discover, the hard way, what it’s like to grow up without a father. I love you, and I love all three of them deeply. But today I am ending the farce I’ve grown accustomed to calling my life. I shouldn’t explain this, my reasons, I wouldn’t want you to ever know this part of my life. But in two hours, it will all be over, and you will need a reason, perhaps to keep from going crazy. I know you love me. I know your love is sincere. But even if it were ten times greater than it is, it still wouldn’t keep me here. I simply can’t take it anymore. My mind is like a volcano that, after decades of accumulating heat pressure within itself, giving the impression of being incapable of causing any trouble to anyone who sees it from afar, one day suddenly erupts into an inferno of lava that destroys everything around it. For a long time, I considered taking you and the children with me. I won’t do it. I want to believe that you and they can have the possibility of being what I never was: a truly happy person. Yes, I know how much this may shock you. Was your smiling, loving husband never happy? No, I was never truly happy at any time we were together. All I did was play a character, live out a role. Now, in this final moment, I can finally be truly honest with you, like I never have been before. I don’t remember a single moment of genuine happiness, a single moment when a shadow didn’t hover over my head. But I admit, I often immersed myself so deeply in my character that I almost came to believe it was all real and tangible, that I had a right to joy, and so did you. Yet, he was still there, hidden in the shadows, his voice, his cries, and I couldn’t, never could, completely hide the certainty that he was still there, begging for me, for my company. Who was ‘he’? Well, you were always satisfied with the idea that I was an orphan, and that I was raised by my aunt A., right? All of this was in fact only partially true, because I wasn’t really an orphan. I had a father and a mother, like everyone else. And more than that, I was the twin of another boy who was identical to me in every way. My family would have been just another of B.‘s many wealthy families if it weren’t for one thing: my parents’ marriage was crumbling, and the birth of me and my brother was like their last chance to avoid a divorce for good. My father was an old-fashioned man, extremely rude and often violent toward my mother. She, in turn, was very passive, unresponsive to any aggression. But she came from a rich family, so the only thing keeping her in the marriage was my other sisters, E. and T., who were fifteen and seven years older than me and took up much of my mother’s time, in addition to taking care of the house. It’s been so long since I’ve been in touch with my sisters that I barely remember them. I wasn’t close to either of them. But I was close to my brother. We were as thick as thieves. From a very young age, we couldn’t separate. If I told you I was never truly happy in our marriage, I could never say the same about my childhood. My brother’s company was everything to me, something more precious than my own mother, who, amidst her daily tasks, barely paid us any attention beyond the basics. My brother was different because he was always there for me no matter what. We dressed the same way, liked the same toys, went to the same places. When it came time to study, of course, we went to the same school, the same class. I was 6 or 7 years old, and I couldn’t formulate sentences like the ones I formulate today, I didn’t even know how to write properly, but I already knew that my brother was the most important person in my life. We would fight and make up the next moment. We couldn’t go two hours without talking to each other. I felt his pain, and he felt mine. We weren’t two persons, we were one person divided into two different bodies. While I was the more introverted and quiet side of the duo, my brother was the always happy one. He was always laughing and joking and trying to cheer everyone up, including my mother, who, around our eighth birthday, was becoming increasingly depressed. Her fights with my father were becoming more frequent. He had lost his job as a manager of a large supermarket downtown, and we were going to have to move to a more modest neighborhood. He took out his frustrations on alcohol and my mother. I couldn’t do anything about it at the time, even though when he hit her, I felt like attacking him. My brother reacted differently to my father’s brutality than I did. He didn’t harbor any negative feelings toward anyone; he seemed to have a deep empathy for other living beings. The short time we spent studying together gave me ample proof of this. Despite being in that school environment where it’s so common for kids to be pests to each other, and we ourselves were the targets of jokes for being absolutely identical, my brother took everything in stride and didn’t pick fights with anyone or respond to aggression. It was I who wouldn’t allow anyone to get close to him for any kind of prank. In truth, I wanted to protect my brother from the world, at a time when I wasn’t physically able to do so. But we were a duo; where one was there, the other had to be there too. At school, on outings, at friends’ houses, playing in the backyard, we did everything together. This close bond is what made being here without him so difficult. And so it was that one day something happened that deeply affected me. My father was drunk and fighting with my mother for some reason I can’t remember. In fact, back then, they didn’t even need a reason to fight anymore. On such occasions, my brother and I would usually stay in our room, waiting for the yelling to die down. But for some reason, my brother decided to go out and go to my parents’ room to see what was happening. I didn’t want him to, but I didn’t get there in time to stop what happened next. My father started yelling at my brother and hit him so hard that my brother fell and hit his head hard on the corner of a wooden table in the room. He passed out and began to bleed profusely. The moment I saw my brother like that, something took over me, and I wanted to kill my father. I went to the kitchen of the house looking for something I could use to attack him, I grabbed a very large knife used to cut fish, and if it weren’t for my older sister holding me back, I would have attacked my father until I saw him bleeding too. From that day on, I hated my father. I couldn’t stand the sight or the sound of him anymore. His aggression toward my mother bothered me, but even as I realized she didn’t react to his violence because she didn’t want to, now that he’d attacked my brother, who hadn’t hurt anyone at all, my father had begun to die for me. Nevertheless, after my brother was hospitalized for a few days to treat his head injury, he returned home, and the old folk’s fights began to subside. But from that day on, my brother was never the same. I could tell his enthusiasm for things had vanished. He wasn’t excited about anything anymore—playing, games, watching television, going to the movies, nothing. My mother took him to a head doctor, as we called him back then, to understand what was happening, and the doctor simply said it was all normal. A reaction to the trauma. While my brother no longer talking cheerfully about anything or showing any interest didn’t affect me as much because he was still there and I could cling to the notion that it would all pass, what happened next was far more than I could bear. When we turned nine, about three months after that horrific incident, my brother took ill. It was sudden; we were sitting in the living room with my older sisters watching some random Western. He was relatively well that day, even seemed to be starting to perk up. But suddenly, he started feeling ill and saying his head was hurting a lot. I was desperate at that moment, more so than at any other time up until then. You see, my brother’s pain reflected psychologically on me. Seeing him suffer was almost unbearable. At the time, I could barely fathom what was happening in that symbiotic relationship. You could never understand what it’s like to have a being so close to you that everything they do and feel is reflected within you. My brother fell seriously ill and never recovered. He was hospitalized for about two months, a time of extreme anguish for me because I could barely see him. My mother tried to reassure me that it was just some illness and he would soon be fine. I knew, I felt that it wasn’t. In fact, a part of me was sick along with him. I no longer felt like doing anything. When my brother finally returned home, I realized immediately that he would never get out of bed again. He was weak, very dejected, and living on liquids. How could a child so full of life transform so quickly in just a few months? I couldn’t hide the agony I felt seeing him in that state. Worst of all, I had to live in the same house with my father, knowing deep down that he was responsible for everything. After my brother’s illness, he even improved his typical behavior somewhat, since even for a man as rude as him, such a situation couldn’t have been easy to accept. But I never forgave him, never could. It was only later, now living with my aunt, that I understood what really happened. My brother had a genetic predisposition to developing a neurodegenerative disease. Something only he had; I was born without the condition. My father’s violence accelerated a problem that could have taken many years to manifest. My brother suffered brain damage that could have turned him into a vegetable in a very short time. Of course, I couldn’t grasp the severity of the problem at the age of nine. Part of me prayed for his recovery. Another part knew he was dying. I will never forget those months that felt like an eternity, when my life was on hold. My brother would wake up at night, even while taking sleeping pills, screaming in pain, and each scream killed me a little, because I couldn’t do anything. He had a lot of pain in his body and head, had fits where he needed to be forcibly calmed, and from a certain point on, he needed tranquilizers to sleep. But he never seemed to sleep completely, nor could I sleep knowing he was suffering. My mother cared for him as best she could, but she could do as little as I could. Doctors visited our house regularly, but they didn’t solve anything either. Little by little, my brother began to become completely lethargic, so much so that by the time we turned ten, he was practically a vegetable, no longer speaking or moving, and only feeding through a life support system. I never knew if it was my parents’ insistence on taking my brother home so early or the doctors themselves being unable to help him at the time that worsened his condition so much, but either way, there I was, ten years old, standing in front of my brother’s coffin. A part of me was buried with him that day. I would never forget his desperate face looking at me, knowing I would be there for him no matter what, yet still utterly incapable of doing anything to solve his problem, a problem I barely understood. At that moment, everything in life seemed so dull and meaningless to me, to such an extent that this perception has never left me, even as I write this. If I’m ending it all today, it’s because I know this thought will never leave my mind. Shortly after the funeral, my parents separated, and three months later, my mother died after a cardiac arrest. I didn’t realize at the time how much that had affected her. I even felt my mother’s death a little, but I was so numb that it was as if a distant relative had died. My aunt took me in at my request, because I preferred to die than to go on living with my father. For a year, I had no desire to do anything—study, play, go out, anything. By then, I might have killed myself if it weren’t for the sincere affection my aunt showed me. She truly showed me a care my mother never could. It was thanks to her, and to an adoptive sister my age, that I gradually resolved to try to live the life my brother couldn’t. He was the kindest, most polite person in the world; there was only good within him, and I felt that perhaps what he wanted for me was to be what he was—someone good and happy. In this process, the character you met, the character you married, emerged. For a long time, I immersed myself in this character to such an extent that he seemed like the real thing. The ardor of youth contributed to this. When you’re young, you want to live; it’s natural. I studied, had girlfriends, had fun, got my first job as an office boy. And I met you. But behind it all, there was always that shadow. As much as I wanted to see beauty and goodness in people, I couldn’t forget that I lived in a world where a father destroys his son’s life and goes on living as if nothing had happened. For a whole year, I had no desire to do anything—study, play, go out, anything. By then, I might have killed myself if it weren’t for the sincere affection my aunt showed me. She truly showed me a care my mother never could. It was thanks to her, and to an adoptive sister my age, that I gradually resolved to try to live the life my brother couldn’t. He was the kindest, most polite person in the world; there was only good within him, and I felt that perhaps what he wanted for me was to be what he was—someone good and happy. In this process, the character you met, the character you married, emerged. For a long time, I immersed myself in this character to such an extent that he seemed like the real man. The ardor of youth contributed to this. When you’re young, you want to live; it’s natural. I studied, had girlfriends, had fun, got my first job as an office boy. And I met you. But behind it all, there was always that shadow. As much as I wanted to see beauty and goodness in people, I couldn’t forget that I lived in a world where a father destroys his son’s life and continues living as if nothing had happened. I also couldn’t forget that I was living life while my brother couldn’t. Most importantly, what I couldn’t forget was his suffering while I could do nothing. I think now you’ll understand that card game I insisted on playing with my so-called friends every Thursday. In fact, I was in therapy for a long time, but I never wanted to share that with you. Not because I believed you were incapable of understanding but only because the marriage I built with you was my protection against this other side of my life, a kind of shield. Entering our home, I made every effort in the world to be the best husband and father I could be. I admired my talent for pretending. As we made our plans for the future, I wondered internally about the motivation behind all of this and found no answer. I tried hypnosis, group therapy, even mediumship, all without your knowing. However, I realized that all I could find were palliatives. Because nothing would solve the core problem, nothing would bring my brother back, and that was the question that had no answer or solution. The fact is, I could separate the two things and understand that you, or the others, were not to blame for what had happened. That’s why I did my best to never involve you in this story. There was no point in sharing with you a problem you would never solve, and I never thought you wanted a frustrated man by your side. Either way, this has all been a big sham for me, a big lie, and I want, need, it to end. I will never be truly happy as long as the image of my brother suffering remains in my mind, and that image will remain in my mind as long as I live. I can only imagine how painful this will be for you, and I ask you to forgive me in advance. I know I’m being cowardly and irresponsible, depriving my children of a father and leaving you alone, knowing that your love for me is sincere. But try, if possible, to understand my situation. I can’t be happy, no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I hide it. Something in me is already dead. My happiness is completely superficial. You deserve someone who is completely with you, someone who truly doesn’t feel as empty as I do. Know that I tried my best to make our story real, and in a way, it was, but never so real that I simply forgot. That’s my problem: I can’t forget, I can’t get over it. If you can’t forgive me for leaving you alone, at least forgive me for trying my best to spare you this whole story until I die. Be well, be happy, and try to make sure my children have a good memory of me. Your friend, J.P.”
J.P.'s wife, after the initial shock, recovered reasonably well and, a year later, remarried. She never told her children the truth about their father. She invented a story that he had actually shot himself by mistake. It’s unclear whether the children truly bought this version of the story, but six years after the event, the family goes on living, apparently well.