Hearing that news was like getting socked in the stomach—my father had never mentioned wanting to end his life! I panicked. I knew I had to do something, but I had no idea what. So I called a suicide hotline. But they're primarily for people who are contemplating taking their own lives. The operator suggested trying to get my father into therapy.

Right away my mother started looking for therapists for Dad, but he wasn't interested. He told her he was fine. And we wanted to believe him. We thought, Maybe he lost control, but he's fine now…right? Neither my mom nor I knew that we could have called the police that night and said Dad was trying to hurt himself, and that they would have escorted him to the emergency room for an evaluation. I didn't even know that there are suicide prevention groups that exist for the loved ones of people at risk.

Still, over the next few months, my mother and I were in frequent contact about my father's mental state. During one conversation my dad came home, pulled the phone away from my mom and yelled, "Michelle, mind your own damn business." He sounded possessed. I yelled back, "I'm not giving up on you!" Then he hung up. Later that week, on my birthday, September 24, he called me back. I had sent him a supportive e-mail the day after our fight, but I was still upset. I asked, "Are you going to apologize for hanging up on me?" He shouted, "No!" We hung up at the same time. That was the last time I ever spoke to him.

I was relieved to hear, days later, that my dad had finally agreed to go into therapy. But on September 29, 2003, I received an instant message from my brother, Adam. He wrote, "Dad seems upset; he's pacing back and forth in the living room." I replied, "Where's Mom?" and Adam said she'd gone to get Jaclyn, our youngest sister, at soccer practice. Moments later Adam wrote, "Dad just left the house. I don't know what to do." I tried to be strong for him, writing back, "Everything is going to be OK." But I felt like I was standing at the top of a cliff, just waiting to fall.

Hours later my mom, sounding at her wit's end, called to say Dad still hadn't returned home. At that moment, I knew he was dead. The feeling was certain—so certain that I hung up, ordered flowers for my mom and booked a ticket home. I know it sounds strange, but that evening I stopped being a bewildered daughter and began to see Dad as a person in such terrible pain that he needed relief, whatever the cost.

The next morning the phone rang at 7 A.M. It was my mother. Gasping between sobs, she said the police had found my dad's body in his Suburban near the electrical company where he worked. He'd died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Even though I expected the call, my mother's words took my breath away. I sat down and cried hysterically for 10 minutes. Then I pulled myself together, grabbed my bag and headed for the airport. As I flew from New York to Michigan, I remember looking out the window at the clouds. It was a sunny, beautiful day, and I thought, I hope you've found peace, Dad. It would be a long time before I'd find peace of my own.

Later that week my sister Wendy and I went to the police station to collect items from Dad's car. An officer gave us a bag filled with magazine clippings of me modeling that my father had kept in his work locker. He'd still been proud of me; that made my heart swell. Then the officer handed us an envelope Dad had left in his truck. Inside were letters for all my siblings and my mom. There was also a general letter to my cousins, aunts and uncles. I frantically searched the envelope again. There was nothing inside for me.