I started thinking about putting this site together in early August 2026, after a series of events gave me some clarity on how I actually want to live my life. I didn’t set out to start this on the 25th anniversary of my dad’s suicide, but it just kind of… happened. And once I realized how close it was, I felt like there was no better post to begin with.
I’ve written a lot about my dad’s death over the years. The first big thing was when I was a senior in high school, when I wrote a personal narrative about it and submitted it to the Scholastic Writing Awards. I won a gold key in my region and a silver key at the national level. After that, I wrote a number of posts on Facebook on or near the anniversary.
As I started thinking about what I wanted to write for this anniversary — 25 years, somehow — I realized that all of my previous writing has been focused on That Day or how That Day affected me in the years after. Most, if not all, of those old writings were just me trying to put my feelings into words so I could make sense of them. I struggle with alexithymia, as well as delayed processing overall, so I often only come to terms with something after writing about it.
This year, I want to take a different approach. Instead of focusing on That Day, or the 25 years worth of days since, I want to focus on the days before. The number of people who actually knew my dad gets smaller all the time, so it’s time for me to share what I can.
My dad, Duane, was born in Anchorage, Alaska in 1950, almost 10 years before it officially became a state. His dad, Wayne, was in the US Air Force and was stationed there at the time. They moved to Florida a few years later, where Dad’s sister was born, before heading home to Indiana, where he spent the rest of his life.
From what I’ve been told, as well as papers and other artifacts of his that I have, he didn’t have the easiest life. He started drinking and doing drugs at a young age, which wasn’t exactly uncommon for a working class boy in the 1960s and 70s in Indiana, but certainly wasn’t great. He never went to prison or caused any serious injury to anyone, but he did get arrested for drunk driving several times, right up until he died. He wrecked a lot of cars and lost a lot of jobs due to his alcoholism. That inability to keep a steady job led to a lot of debt, ending in bankruptcy at least once and was probably the main reason I had lived in 7 different houses by the time I was 5. He got into shouting matches with my mom and my sister fairly regularly, and he did little actual parenting of any of us, leaving us largely to raise ourselves and each other. By all accounts, he was a difficult person to love.
But none of that is what I remember when I think about my dad. I remember a man who taught me how to ride a bike. I remember a man who showed me how to hold a hammer and let me practice hitting nails into a piece of scrap wood. I remember a man who listened to me yap about dogs and Rugrats and Pokémon and let me quiz him about things I’d learned in school that day. I remember a man who drove my little horse girl self out to a farm he’d been to for work, just so I could see (and pet!) some actual horses for a change. I remember a man who gave it his all at Dad’s Night, sprinting down the lane to make up the time I’d lost us in the scooter race (I have no idea if we won or not). I remember a man who knew exactly how to massage my forehead to ease my headaches; who exclusively listened to classic rock but never minded me blasting *NSYNC; who drew pictures of Disney characters for me and taught me about all of his favorite cartoons.
Growing up, I always felt like an alien. I didn’t understand people and struggled with sensory overwhelm often. I was constantly shamed for doing or saying things that felt natural to me, then left confused when no one would explain to me what I’d done wrong. Adults all around me made me feel like there was something inherently wrong with me, that what are now obvious neurodivergent traits were just character defects I needed to fix.
Except for my dad. Of all the adults in my life, he was the only one who never made me feel like I was broken. He didn’t tell me I talked too much or too “rudely”; he listened, even when he probably didn’t care about the topic, and he took my words at face value, just as I’d intended. He didn’t laugh at me when I asked “obvious” questions or made “careless” mistakes; he patiently answered in ways I could understand and calmly helped me correct things I’d messed up. In a world where I always felt like I had to hide who I was in order to be safe, he was my safety, where I could strip off the mask and just… be.
I think this is what underlined a lot of my thoughts and feelings in the immediate aftermath of That Day. I didn’t understand it at the time, and I certainly couldn’t have articulated it, but the part of me that blamed myself did so because I felt like I should have been his safety, too. He was the one person I could share anything with, yet he didn’t share with me; I had no idea he was struggling with anything, especially not to the point where suicide was an option. Ten-year-old me felt like I should have been able to help him the way he’d helped me. I could have been enough to make him stay, if only I had noticed how much he needed me.
Of course, 35-year-old me knows none of that is true. Him never sharing his struggles and putting that burden on a literal child was probably the greatest act of good parenting he ever did. He certainly could have shared more with friends and (adult) family, or sought out help on his own, though I understand why he didn’t — mental health and addiction were so heavily stigmatized back then, especially for men, so it would have really taken a lot to overcome that. I wish the de-stigmatization movement had started just a little earlier; maybe That Day would have been Just Another Day instead.
Every year, I take a moment to think about just how much time has passed and how much has changed. That Day, my dad was 51 years old; today, he’d be 76. Would 76-year-old Duane still have long hair? Would he still wear the same glasses? The same clothes? What would he think about Taylor Swift or the fact that *NSYNC now plays on the oldies radio stations he used to listen to? What would he think about social media and AI? What would he think about the state of the world?
What would he think about me?
Ever since my therapist first suggested ADHD to me back in 2021, I’ve been working hard to understand myself better. I’ve been trying to remember who I was before the mask became so stuck on that I could no longer see where it ended and I began. It’s been a long and slow process, one that I’m still on, but I’ve lately been feeling like I’ve got a good enough grasp on who I really am that I’m ready to share this unmasked version of myself with anyone who wants to listen.
Like I said at the beginning of this post, I never explicitly set out to start this on the 25th Anniversary of That Day; the two events just happened to be close enough that I could make them coincide. As I started putting my plan into motion, I knew I needed something to call this whole thing. I started with variations on my name, or my standard username, then asked my sisters for ideas, then asked Claude (sorry) for ideas, but nothing felt quite right.
A day or two later, we got an email at work that the next public auction for old library stuff is coming up, so I was looking through the lots to see what was available this time. Among the furniture, copiers, and mini card catalogs, there were several old electronics kits for kids, including some “Little Bits” Arduino coding kits. I paused for a moment there, waiting for my brain to catch up and put the pieces together.
I have almost no memories of my dad calling me by my actual name (which is kind of funny, since he’s the one who named me). Instead, since I was the youngest and was always short and skinny and, honestly, kind of frail, he called me by a nickname:
Little Bit.
And so, I dedicate this site to the first person to really see me — all of me, unmasked — and love me anyway. I don’t believe in any sort of afterlife, but I’d like to imagine that enough of him lives on in me to remind this Little Bit that who she was, is, and will be is worth sharing. ❤
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