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Who would have known our lives would have led us here? If you would have told me five months ago this is where I would be, I would have never believed you. But here we are, in a club in which no one wants to belong, all sharing a loss greater than we ever could have imagined.

Yes, I am early on in my loss journey, only four months, but to me, anyone of us can provide the gift of second. Since the loss of my mother to suicide, I have learned some profound lessons that I want to share with you, in hopes that maybe some of them will resonate with you as well. They may not make sense now, tomorrow, or even a month from now.  But someday, somewhere in the future I hope these lessons come back to you and provide a little help in your healing journey. I, too, often have to remind myself of these lessons and will probably need to do so for a very long time.

Lesson 1: If you let it, this loss will teach you things about yourself that you never knew.

You will learn about your strength, your resilience, your perseverance, your value and your contributions to this world. People constantly ask me how I am ever able to do what I do with what I have lost, and the only answer that I can ever give them is, “You never know what you are able to do until a situation is thrust upon you.”  You can and will get through this and come out a stronger person. Yes, there will be work and yes it will be hard, but you will find your new normal and find your way to happiness again. There is no set time, but you can and will get there.

Lesson 2: You have been given a gift.

Although it doesn’t seem like it now, and may not for a while, your gift is KNOWLEDGE. The

knowledge of the importance of your life in the hearts of others, and how losing you would impact them greatly. No matter how bad the circumstances or feelings you are experiencing, you now have the knowledge that you would never want to make anyone you love feel and go through what you are going through now. And maybe one day, you will be able to share your knowledge as a loss survivor to help others like you.

Lesson 3: What we learn once they are gone…

I feel that I know my mother more intimately today, four months after she took her own life, than I did in the 36 years we shared together. I have let those revelations resonate with me, the good and the bad, but in her absence, I have found a different closeness to her that I missed when she was alive. Do I still want her here? Every second of every day. But since that can’t happen, instead I take these revelations from her and try to apply them into my own life to better myself and help me get through my grief.

Lesson 4:  The good, the bad, and the ugly

This grief process is not linear and from day to day, minute to minute our feelings of our loss and who we lost will change. But if you let it there is learning from all of them. Let yourself learn what makes the good and use it. Learn what creates the bad and try to build pathways around it. The ugly? Just try to plain avoid it as best you can. There will always be ugly triggers, no matter how far in our journey we get.  But if you recognize the ugly and find ways to avoid it, you may find your journey a little less daunting.

Lesson 5: You can’t do this alone

Find ways and people to support you. Whether that is family, friends, therapists, support groups, or others. Allow people in, let them help you, and be there for you the best way they can be.  All these people in your life are there because they care and want to help. Allow them.  I know it’s hard to trust after a loss like this, but we were not built to handle this on our own, and we don’t get through to the other side of this without help.

Lesson 6: It’s okay

It’s okay to feel what you feel, when you feel it. It’s okay to say “no” or “I need help.”  It’s okay to try new things as you build your new normal.  It’s okay to grieve your loss for however long it takes. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to forgive and move forward and then fall back again. Finally, it’s okay to find moments of happiness. The best way we honor those we lost is by living. Making it out of the darkness and back into the light. One of my greatest lights in my loss that I have found is ways every day to make my mom proud of me.  For her to be looking down at me and saying to me “That’s my girl.”

So, to you I say, look for your own lessons in the wake of your tragedy and loss, grief and pain.  Find them, learn from them, use them, and share them with others.  The only way we get through this is together.

Today marks 20 months since my father’s suicide. I suppose it is time to begin counting not by months, but rather “year.” One year and a half, one year and 8 months… That word… “year” is hard for me. It makes the time since his death loom larger than I am ready for.

I remain fundamentally and forever altered. I’ve set down the advocacy work for now. Though it imbued my father’s death with some sense of meaning, it had begun to take a toll on me. Dwelling in the world of suicide loss and prevention came at a cost. It felt worth it, until it didn’t. And hard as it was to admit, I needed to step away. Harder to admit was that I wanted to.

I need to figure out who I am, outside of being the survivor of suicide loss. Yes, I know I remain a devoted mother, wife, and friend. But where these newly altered pieces of me fit and how to fulfill and strengthen myself remains undefined. I began building a jewelry business. A business I once found successful & fulfilling. A business my father was so proud of. Ever so slowly it has allowed me to begin to see and slowly embrace a creative purpose, an identity… artist, designer, entrepreneur. These are titles, names that are not a part of the horrific loss I’ve endured. And there is so much symbolism in this endeavor. The beads are the pieces, stringing them together one by one, is like picking up the pieces of my life. They come together to create something new, something beautiful, quite different than before. My journey is deeply reflected in such work. Fragments and pieces coming together in this new self that is unfolding. 

Today marks 20 months. I will never ever be at peace with losing my father to suicide. Every day I strive to learn how to live with it. And I strive for a balance between giving his death purpose and imbuing my life with the same. I deserve that. Don’t I? Guilt tells me no. But I cannot let guilt define where I go from here. I don’t let many people in these days. I’m guarded, feeling vulnerable and fragile in many ways. But this is my truth. It’s still hard, every single day. But I journey on determined to find happiness, fulfillment, and joy. My dad would want that.

20 months… I miss him. I can’t undo his final act. But I’ve discovered that I can’t get lost in it either. The journey is long and hard. I’m tired. But I know there is a resilience within. He lost sight of his. I must continually tap into mine, even when I lose faith in it’s existence. He lost hope. I cleave to it, the notion that it won’t always hurt like this, that it will get better in time. His death has forever altered me. But I cannot let it define me. I still want to bring meaning to such a senseless loss, but I want more than that. I need to find that balance.

So onward I walk, I step, I falter, I stumble, but I get up and keep going. So perhaps I’ve already discovered that this altered self, is strong, courageous and braver than I’ve ever given her credit for. And healing is a continual process… even 20 months later.

And still, I miss him. That will never change.

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Twenty Months Later was originally written by Deborah Greene for her website, Reflecting Out loud. If you would like to follow more of her story, I encourage you to check out her writing over there.

I was recently asked by The Dialogue Projects, a website created to reduce the stigma of mental illness by opening the dialogue around it, to share how The Gift of Second came to be and how the site is helping to reduce the stigma around suicide for those directly impacted by it.

It is an honor to share the story. You can read it for yourself over at The Dialogue Projects.

May another survivor never feel alone in their pain and grief!

It was never about me. Never.

I used to be so angry at my mom. How could she leave me while I was still so young? How could she plan for me to find her lifeless body? How could she write me such an insignificant note goodbye? Didn’t she care about me? Didn’t she love me? Didn’t I matter enough for her to want to continue to be my mom? Didn’t she care about the wound she would create inside of me for the rest of my life? Didn’t she know what this would do to me?

It was never about me. Never.

Maybe I could have prevented it. Maybe if I were better behaved. If I had stayed home that day, maybe she would still be alive. Maybe if I told her how much I loved and needed her. Maybe if I had picked up on the signs that only hindsight 20/20 vision reveals. 

It was never about me. Never.

Suicide is never about the people left behind. It is only about the one who wants to end their pain. 

It was always about her. Always.

I spent two decades blaming and shaming myself for not doing enough, saying enough, or being enough. I took the blame and guilt and shame when it was never mine to claim.

It was always about her. Always.

She didn’t love herself. She didn’t see her value. She was in pain. She needed relief. She thought we would be better off without her.

It was always about her. Always.

The healthier I become the more I realize it was never about me. Never. It was always about her. Always.

The following is an excerpt from The Gift of Second: Healing from the Impact of Suicide:

Many people fear working through the grief, expecting it will be too much to bear. They believe if they allow themselves to start crying, they may never be able to stop. And so, out of self-preservation, they refuse themselves the opportunity to grieve appropriately. They lock up all those feelings and emotions and avoid conversations pertaining to the death. Although they may feel they are protecting themselves, they are actually only injuring themselves further. When we do not grieve, the feelings do not simply go away. Instead, they simmer and boil beneath the surface until they can no longer be contained. When we prevent grief from naturally occurring, it is similar to pouring gasoline on a field of dead grass and shrubs. Eventually, an unexpected spark will come along and engulf the entire lot, leaving a blaze that is completely unmanageable. The repercussions of grief-avoidance are limitless. Not only does it impact our condition of life, it also impacts each succeeding generation. Substance abuse, broken relationships, mental illness, and suicide are just a few of the common consequences of unresolved grief.

The reality of working through grief: It is painful and exhausting. It’s true. It is called ‘grief work’ because it is just that: work. So why do it? We must work through the grief because when we do, we find healing. When we allow ourselves the opportunity to fully feel the pain, trauma, sadness, anger, devastation, betrayal, and abandonment, without censor, we can then also fully experience healing. Healing brings peace, comfort, joy, and the ability to continue living a beautiful life. The grief work is painful, but it is also temporary. Resisting the work, however, has lifelong ramifications. When we are courageous enough to do grief work, we fully acknowledge our own worth and the value of our loved one, and we choose to be honest with the pain.

This excerpt was pulled from the book, The Gift of Second: Healing from the Impact of Suicide. If you have not yet had a chance to check out the video trailer for the book, you can get a glimpse of the heart of the book here.

…”and a little child will lead them.” Bible, Isaiah 11-6b

A few days after my sister left this world via suicide, I had a dream like no other I had ever experienced. All of my senses were engaged. I could see our hometown as Amanda and I flew over it, side by side. I could smell the spring air, hear the sounds of the town below and feel the wind on my face and in my hair. We were both silent as we sailed over the places where we had grown up together. It felt so real that part of me still wonders if it was an “out of body” experience. I do know it was a gift from the Lord. It was my chance to have one more moment with her. It was our good-bye.

For over a year after that, I did not dream at all. You may have been taught that you always dream and that if you awaken with no memory of your dream, it is simply because your conscious mind has forgotten it. But contemporary science has determined that this is a myth. In times of deep grief, the brain is focused on survival, and, as a result, some non-essential activities – such as dreaming – may be set aside.

It was only when my dreams returned a year later that I even realized that they had been missing. My recovery had thus far been focused on Amanda’s pain before she left, the well-being of her child, and the grieving of my children and extended family. But what I had left for last was how much she had hurt me personally. She was my best friend, closest confidant, the “baby sister” that I had taken care of and even planned to grow old with, instead of pursuing romantic relationships after painful divorces. I’ve written before about how I had to force myself to be angry at her, because it did not come naturally.

This period of anger culminated in another dream. Like the one I had shortly after her death, this one was once again very tactile and vivid. The surroundings were unfamiliar and I was wandering aimlessly and emotionless. Suddenly my nieces and nephews and children – fourteen all together — came running up to me, exclaiming that they had found Amanda and I should come with them. I did not follow, disbelieving, until I looked into my daughter Abbi’s eyes. They were sparkling and filled with joy. She said to me, “Come see her. She wants to talk to you.” She led me by the hand through a maze of walls until we came into a small opening where all of my nieces and nephews and children were waiting in expectation. Amanda was there but was somehow separated from us. I could see her but not touch her. From across this invisible barrier, she looked directly at me and said, simply, “I did not do it to hurt you.” There was true regret in her voice, but she was not in pain as she had been in this life. I silently forgave her. Seeing her and hearing her words brought peace to my heart. I looked at my daughter’s sparkling eyes, so pleased that she had been able to lead me there. There was a sense of accomplishment and completion.

I am grateful for these infrequent but poignant dreams. They are signposts in the road of my grieving. Upon awakening, my heart still ached that we could not be together, but the dream had allowed a leap forward in the healing of my heart.

Surviving together,

Dianna

I haven’t blogged in a year. Something happened and I haven’t really wanted to write about it or anything else until now…so here I go.

It was a year ago yesterday that I heard my daddy say “I love you too,” for the last time. And it was a year ago today that I found out he had passed away. Actually, saying ‘passed away’ puts diamonds on what happened so let’s try this again.

It was a year ago today that my daddy shot himself. It’s such an ugly thing to say. It really is. And until you’ve been through the situation personally, lost someone to their own will, will you agree with me. I remember every ugly detail of that day. I remember my mom calling me to alert me what had been seen on Facebook. I remember other people calling me to see if I knew what was going on. I remember some calling to say, “There’s no way J.D. There’s no way.” I remember calling around to see if we could find him, because, I live five hours away…going door to door wasn’t an option for me.

And then I remember the squealing tires of a yellow school bus stopping in front of my house, my husband running through the door with fire and hurt and fear in his eyes. I remember the reluctance behind his face. He didn’t want to have to tell me what he knew, but he did. My poor husband.

I remember having to put my hand over my chest because I really thought my heart was going to leap from my chest. You read about that in books, and hear people say it in movies, but to experience it is a different feeling all on its own. I remember trying to take a shower and throwing up all over the place. I remember feeling as though someone’s hands were all over me and I pushed them away. It could have been an anxiety attack, but I could’ve sworn, in that moment, it was my daddy saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, forgive me.”

I didn’t want that though. I didn’t want apologies. I wanted him.

I remember pulling into Abilene, finding my youngest brother (who’s a foot taller than me), I let his arms wrap around me and I could feel the blood pulsing beneath his skin. And I cried. He didn’t. Not in that moment. Instead he was expressing his anger the best way he knew how and that was with silence.

I remember my other brother ordering me the strongest drink on the bar menu at Texas Roadhouse. He said I needed to not feel for a little bit. So I drank and actually felt nothing. Seriously. The alcohol didn’t effect me at all. I was already numb.

I’ll also remember how his family rallied around each other to be there for me and my brothers. I’ll remember the 400 plus attendants at the funeral. If anyone had tried to tell me my daddy was alone I would have laughed in their face. My daddy wasn’t alone. He had the world…he just refused to accept it…

I’m going to change the subject for a moment to talk about the ways I’ve experienced death recently. I’ve had the luxury to watch someone beautiful die twice now. The first time was in March of 2012. My husband’s Nana passed away after battling cancer. No, there’s really nothing beautiful in that, or death, but the experience…it was beautiful. I watched my husband’s family rally together, hold one another, sing her to her final resting place and bid her goodbye. Every time I entered the room, all eyes were on Nana, her every breath. You could tell everyone wanted each breath to be her last…but not really. If they had the option to hold on to her forever I know they would’ve. But. It was in the moment, when I was sitting on my husband’s lap, a few cousins were scattered around the room, and we were talking and gently laughing about something other than Nana did she slip away. It was as if she waited for the moment when everyone had a smile on their face, and when she knew all would be okay did she go.

The family fell, of course, on their knees, around her bed, into each others arms, to wail and pray. And in every heart breaking moment all I could think was, “this is beautiful.”

At this point in my life I’m watching my father-in-law wilt away due to the effects of ALS. Another ugly ugly situation. But again my in-laws are binding together and finding ways to hold on to every ounce of love they have. My sisters-in-law will smile the brightest of smiles to Gordon’s face and cry the moment he turns around. This isn’t weakness. This is strength and they have it. I’m watching my mother-in-law nurse another soul to the path of heaven with such grace that all I can do is lift her up in prayer. And I’m watching my husband stay busy, and loving, and act every bit as the man of the household…all the while knowing he will be losing two fathers in the span of two years. I’m watching this and again, there is beauty.

However, let’s get back to the ugliness.

I am past the anger phase. I truly am. I know it sounds like I’m still angry, but I think the bitterness is deserved. I loved this man with every beat of my heart. I was a daddy’s girl through and through and I’ve been marked with him quitting on life and on me.

My brother, David, has turned his life around in the last year and a half. I used to think he harbored a monster inside of him as a result of being in the army…which is partly true…but he’s found reason to live, to love others, and more importantly love himself. It’s a miraculously beautiful thing to see and my daddy is missing every moment of it.

Please please, I do not need to hear that “He’s in heaven’s balcony, watching the things we do,” bit. I want him here. I want him to see David. I want him to hug my brother and tell him that he is legitimately PROUD of how he is living his life. David deserves to hear that from his daddy because I don’t think he ever had. It’s one thing to have everyone else tell you, but to live your life in the shadow of your father and then to never hear those words from him is a story all in itself.

Now Michael. Michael has a lot of life left to live and experience. He’s nearly seventeen, and of course he “already has life figured out,” as all seventeen year olds do. Ha! He hurts differently than the rest of us. He has many vices and none of them are good. He finds peace in potions and I do raise my fist at my dad because that pistol caused a lot of this. He’d never admit this, but he lives life with fear taking control of most of his decisions. He’s afraid of new. He’s afraid of rejection. And he’s afraid to feel. He wasn’t like this a year and a half ago.

There is a future in my brother. I don’t doubt it for a second. He has the ability to find the value in his own life and make something of himself…but he has to learn how to deal with abandonment, and it’s not an easy thing to do. He’s going to graduate high school, college, get married, bring children into the world all without the wisdom and advice of his daddy. But, he was robbed.

And me. I’m pregnant. Something I didn’t expect, and I won’t lie, I didn’t necessarily want to happen. But it’s a little boy. Who’s going to teach this kid to pitch?! No that’s not my greatest concern, but hell, it was definitely a dream of mine to have my daddy teach a kid of mine the Slurve…or whatever that is. I am mad and angry and I do hurt, because a year ago when my daddy told me he loved me too, he had promised to come visit very soon. He told me he missed me and wanted to see the new town we lived in. He promised me the world in a ten-minute conversation, said he loved me and shot himself six hours later.

He had SO much to live for and so many people who loved him that I still sit here at a loss. Suicide is ugly! The people that love me will patiently sit by my side and listen to my words but it’s ugly and I hate burdening people with it. I miss my daddy and not one day went by for the last year where I didn’t think of his face, his last moments, and then wonder what more could I have done for him. Well, everything. I could have done more of everything. I could have stood up for his life when he was living and drinking his paychecks away with that woman. I could have told him how happy I was that they broke up because she was never good for him. No good person pushes that much alcohol into your life when you’re depressed at where your life is headed. She did that and I never stood up for my daddy’s life.

It’s possible that I was complacent with the fact that he WAS alive and now that it’s too late, I’ve worked the situation backward to see where I could go back and fix it. But I can’t.

I do know, that with God’s good grace I’ll be able to hug my daddy’s neck once again. I know that all the hurt he felt in the last couple years of his life stopped the moment he pulled the trigger. But it still sucks. And hurts.

I miss you, daddy.

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This piece was originally written by JD Doty for her website, Doty’s Dish. Thank you, JD, for your willingness to share your story with us. So many of us can relate to your words.

I’ve gone two years now and there’s always the feeling of grief and anger. Recently though, the feeling of being unnecessary is big. When I think about my daddy’s last moments (which is often and not just on this day) I think, why couldn’t I have been enough for him to stay alive, and then I think maybe he didn’t think of me in that moment…both of these thoughts are depressing because either he thought of me and I wasn’t enough or he didn’t think of me…which means I simply wasn’t.

The other morning I saw MedFlight in the sky while I was driving to work.

It jogged my memory of when my dad was in the hospital recovering from heart surgery in July of 2014. Not because he had to be MedFlighted there, but because we got a special tour of the helicopter and landing pad on the roof of the hospital while he was recovering. He needed to get out of his room, so one of the RNs arranged the excursion. And of course he knew somebody who was part of the MedFlight team, too, so up we went.

It was pretty awesome. We were shown every nook and cranny, inside and out, and got to walk out on the helipad to look over the city.

The other morning, though, as I thought about it, other thoughts crept in. Did dad really think it was awesome to be up there on the roof in a wheelchair getting some fresh air? Or was he just acting like it so the rest of us would be ok? Was he struggling that far back with the perception of this new life he thought he’d entered? And then I started crying. Because I don’t know the answers to those questions and I never will.

About four months later – two years ago today – my dad committed suicide.

Life for the rest of us has moved on, but I still think about him a lot. I do believe he thought it was cool to be up there, too. I recall how desperately he wanted to be out of that god-damned recovery room. The morning they discharged him he called me and I could hear the relief in his quivering voice. “Ryan, they removed that damn thing from my arm and I just…I got all emotional. What the hell?” he confessed to me. I told him that was completely understandable; he’d been through a lot! Physically, emotionally, mentally…”feeling emotional” was an understatement as far as I was concerned. I’ll always treasure that moment we had.

I’m not sure if I’d say things are easier or better two years later, mostly just different.

I still get sad a lot and I’ll admit that sometimes I still get upset. Every time one of my kids has a birthday. Every gymnastics meet. My son Sam received his black belt in karate last weekend after working hard for more than four years and Papa wasn’t there to see it and to celebrate and to tell Sam how proud of him he is. That kills me. It kills me. And I know people mean well when they say things like, “Oh, he was there watching, too!” and “He IS so proud of Sam!” but the truth is, it’s not the same. It’s not the same at all. He should have been there smiling and clapping and shouting and cracking inappropriate jokes with me in the stands. He should have been there to shake Sam’s hand and give him a big hug and be in the picture pointing.

My brother Joey got engaged last weekend, too. He NAILED the proposal. Had his friends hold homemade signs and play music at the Wisconsin Badger football game! Just perfect. Now, I’m not speaking for him because I know he handles this all in his own way, but for me…I’m devastated my dad isn’t here to congratulate Joe. I know he’d be proud of him. But, he won’t be at the wedding. And if they have kids, they’ll never meet him. It just sucks.

What’s so difficult about suicide is that the person is doing what they think is going to help everyone. My dad wasn’t trying to hurt us. He apologized and still did it. It was the only other solution he could come up with that made any sense…to him. In so doing, though, he left a hurt in everyone who loved him. And a lot of people loved him. That wasn’t his intention, but it was the result.

On a personal level, his not being here is hard because I’m learning so many things about myself that I want to talk to him about. My parents divorced when I was four and the fact of the matter is that both his presence and his absence in my life while I was young had a profound impact on who I am today.

Years ago a homeless friend of mine, Al, told me his story about his relationship with his dad. Al’s life crashed and burned because of his addiction to alcohol. One day he got a call that his dad was dying and he should come right away. Instead, he went on a week-long bender and never got to say goodbye to his dad, even though he had the chance. “If your dad is alive, talk to him. If there’s stuff you’re afraid to talk to him about, talk to him about it anyway,” he told me. I vowed I would and to a certain extent I did, but there’s so much more I know now that I want to talk to him about than I even knew back then. And trying to figure it out without him is hard.

So, what now?

Sure, there are times that are more difficult than others and grief still sits for spell, but by and large life goes on with only his memory now. Julie and I are both busy with the things we’re passionate about and the kids are probably busier than we are. We work, we relax, we do our best to focus on the future and the good things lying in wait for us there. It sucks that he won’t be here to see what happens next, but that’s the reality.

Dad, I miss you. I love you. That won’t ever change.

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This piece was originally written by Ryan Haack for Living One Handed. Ryan is a blogger, author, and motivational speaker. He recently wrote a book called Different is Awesome. To learn more about the book, you can read more here. Or check out his website and watch some of his videos to learn all about Ryan and what he does and what makes him so great.

“A Life Worth Living” was OHEL’s Feature Film at its 47th Annual Gala. The Roth family shares about losing their precious son, Jonathan, to suicide four years ago. This video is very well done and was created by OHEL, A Jewish Social Service agency in New York City. To learn more about OHEL, you can check out their website here.  Many thanks to the Roth family and OHEL  for allowing us to share it here on The Gift of Second.

An unexpected challenge developed for me less than a year after I lost John. I never considered I would have to answer questions about him, questions about my family, to people I just met. Everyone in my life at the time of John’s death either knew John or knew of John. There was no question of my sibling status.

Once I graduated from college and started a new job, I began meeting new people: people who did not know me or my family, people who did not know of my loss, thus the question arose, “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” The first time I was asked this question I froze. I don’t remember what I answered. It caused a lot of anxiety for me and prodded my still-healing and open wound. Not only do I have to grieve the loss of my brother, now I have to think about how to present this to new people I meet –people who don’t know John and never will.

Even today, a decade later, meeting new people is still difficult. I always find myself thinking: What will they ask me? When will they ask? How much do they really want to know? How will I answer? More often than not, the question inevitably comes, “So, do you have any brothers or sisters?”

Since John was my only sibling, this means I am an only child now. I never know how to answer. I want to contribute to the conversation, but I don’t always want to invite questions. If I don’t speak, I feel left out and alone. If I say “No,” then it’s like I am disrespecting John’s memory or I’m ashamed of how he died, which I’m not. If I say “I had a brother, but he passed away ‘x’ years ago,” the next question that typically follows is, “How?” This is a difficult first conversation and you have to be prepared for the comments/questions/judgments that will likely come your way.

The first few years after John died, if I met someone I knew I wouldn’t have much contact with, I would answer as if he was alive: “Do you have any siblings?” Yes. A brother. He’s eighteen and in college.” Obviously, this was easier early on. Now that I am twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, it gets harder to pretend, causing more questions, such as “Wow, why is there such a large age gap between the two of you?” Then, I am lying not only about his death but other things as well. This was a coping technique I needed to use more within the first five years of John’s death. As I moved into the final stages of the grieving process and was able to accept his loss, I can now answer this question truthfully or not at all if I choose to.

Another method I use to field questions I don’t want to answer is to answer the question quickly, without much depth, and immediately throw a question back at whoever is asking: “Do you have any siblings?” “No. How about you?” Or… “Yes, but he/she passed away ‘x’ years ago”… (do not stop, do not pass go)…“What about you?”

If I do not want to answer the question at all and I am in a position to do so, I pretend I did not hear the question or feign a distraction. Then, I barrel ahead with a question for them, hoping they will forget. There are many creative ways to get around answering uncomfortable questions, especially as you adjust to this change in your life. It is up to you to find out what will work best for you, but keep in mind it will likely change from situation to situation and that’s okay too.

Today we have the privilege of hearing from Mo Isom! Isom writes, “In my former life I was an All-American soccer goalkeeper, the first female to train with and tryout for an SEC football team, and LSU’s Homecoming Queen. Now I’m a New York Times best-selling author, speaker and blogger, as well as a wife and mom.” Today she is sharing with us an incredible excerpt on forgiveness from her book, Wreck My Life: Journeying from Broken to Bold.

“Loving others deeply doesn’t just apply to those whom we have peace with and whom it feels good to extend love to. Living boldly and loving deeply looks like forgiving freely, no matter whom that forgiveness must be outstretched to. That’s a hard concept to wrap our heads around. Because, in truth, there is probably someone sitting on the forefront of your mind that you have been so wronged by the thought of forgiveness is nauseating. Maybe it was the abuse. Or the rape. Or the theft. Or the deceit. We can think of ten thousand reasons why the people we don’t want to forgive don’t deserve forgiveness for all they put us through. But the fact of the matter is the longer you withhold forgiveness from another, the longer they own a piece of you. And if we believe Christ has bought us, in full, at the price of His own life, then we are robbing ourselves of the freedom that grace grants us when we allow another person to mentally or emotionally or spiritually hold possession over a piece of us.

Maybe it was the infidelity. Or the gossip. Or the abandonment. Maybe it was the suicide. That was the dark chain that still wrapped itself around me.

I had healed in so many ways. It had been years since my dad’s death. But I still harbored resentment toward a man I still believed, at the core, was a coward. A man who had run from the mess he made and taken a foolish way out. A man who had left a wife and two daughters to put back the pieces of a shattered life. Deep down, I blamed so much of my wandering and my promiscuity and my struggles on my dad. Sometimes that was the easier way to process things– to dismiss them as cause-and- effect results of another person’s shortcomings.

>But, in truth, my resentment and my anger and my frustrations were really just rationalizations for a heart that was calloused with years of unforgiveness. My soul still reeked of blame. And while I understood how all-inclusively Christ had forgiven me, I just couldn’t surrender the cemented belief, deep down, that my dad’s actions weren’t worth forgiving.

But in Ephesians 4:31-32, there was a word that stood out to me and helped peel back an unexpected layer in the process of forgiving freely. “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

Compassion. A sympathy and concern for the misfortunes of others. After coming across those words, compassion was a seed God planted in me and began to nourish. A new thought that began to slowly reframe my perspective of forgiveness. My prayers shifted from, “God, help me forgive more freely.” to “God, you have known the greatest compassion for me in my failings. I long to look more like you. Will you nurture a heart of compassion within me?”

I saw him first as a little boy. My daddy. With his soft olive skin and his round face. Carefree and joy-filled and innocent. A simple southern boy with two parents who loved him, deeply.

I saw him as a young teen, bouncing around from school to school with each of his dad’s job transfers. Bouncing around from football team to football team, trying to establish his footing. Maybe he was bullied—or struggled to feel like he ever really fit any one place. Uprooted and moved every time he’d finally made a name for himself amongst a team.

I saw him as a college football player and, eventually, a law student. Navigating the dating scene and balancing his course load. I smiled imagining what he must have been like so near to me in age—and laughed remembering the time he told me he once dated a girl with the nickname “Toot”. I wondered what his friend group had been like, and what had stirred his passion for law.

I saw him as a young man meeting and falling for my beautiful mommy. I imagined the butterflies he must have felt as he watched her glide down the aisle. The excitement and nervousness he must have felt as he took on the role of husband and they dreamed dreams of a future family.

I could almost feel the warm tears that rolled down his cheeks as he helped deliver my sister and me. As he navigated the highs and lows of carrying the title of daddy. As he wrestled with the pressures of raising preteen girls and the expectation of providing for a busy family.

I ached for how his heart must have broken with the death of his own daddy. How deeply he must have grieved. And I smiled thinking about the laughter he brought to the basketball court as he volunteered his time to coach Special Olympians and other athletes with disabilities.

I ached for the stress and pressure he must have felt when work was tough and money was tight and everything in him wanted to seem strong for his family. And I saw him in a new light as I thought about the demons he admitted to wrestling. The strangleholds that gripped him sexually, in regards to his struggles with pornography. The pride that must have felt so damaged by Satan’s relentless taunts and schemes.

I thought about his insecurities. His deep-rooted weaknesses. And how similar he and I truly were in so many broken ways. I saw the man who was always able to love others far more than he was ever able to love himself sitting on the edge of that hotel bed, his heart pounding and his hand trembling.

My heart broke for that innocent southern boy who truly believed life was worth giving up. The olive-skinned baby who had seen a lot of life and who was worn out and tired and aching.

Compassion bred forgiveness because it allowed me to see another human as just that—human. Worn and ravaged and navigating a broken world, just like me. It gave a history to the action that had wronged me and opened up a broader perspective to understand that even the people who have wronged us so deeply have a story—a reason why sin has a stronghold in their life. Hurt people hurt people. I wasn’t instructed to withhold forgiveness from the hurting, I was instructed to be kind and compassionate, having mercy for the lost and wandering, just as God had mercy for me.

Grace. It’s what had been extended to me. It was what was being called of me. By finally forgiving my father, I encountered an intimacy with Christ that stretched away from logic and made sense of the nonsensical and introduced me to a different kind of humility. A Jesus-kind of humility. That had everything to do with God and little to do with me. I had been foolish to mistake kindness for weakness—the strength of a lion can exist within the spirit of a lamb. Forgiveness is selfless strength. If we want to look even a bit like Jesus, we must embrace the willingness to forgive freely.

This excerpt is from Isom’s New York Times Best-Selling book, Wreck My Life: Journeying from Broken to Bold. To read more from Mo, check out her blog here or follow her on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

The following is an excerpt from the book, The Forgotten Mourners: Sibling Survivors of Suicide by Magdaline DeSousa. Magdaline gave us permission to share this excerpt as she wants fellow sibling survivors to know she understands the difficulties that come within a family when a sibling takes their own life. We will also be sharing a different excerpt from her book in an upcoming post. 

When you grow up for a significant portion of your life with this other person attached to you, how do you cope when that person is suddenly gone?

When they are not there to complain to, or commiserate with, about Mom and Dad being ‘unfair’…

When they are not there to play around with, sit on you, fart on you, or wake you up in the middle of the night to wish you a Happy Birthday…

What Do You Do?

To this day, my answer to that question is I don’t know. A part of me is gone forever. I am an only child now, but I did not grow up as one. Coming from a Greek family, it is hard to explain this to new people I meet. I am immediately type-cast and horror abounds when I say I am an only child. How could you be an only child? Don’t most Greek families have a lot of children? I hate it. I also feel like I am not acknowledging John’s existence when I say that because I did have a brother for two-thirds of my current life. I often wish I had another sibling so I wouldn’t be alone in mourning this. But that would not make this any easier.

The hardest thing about going from a couple to an only child is having the focus entirely on you. My relationship with my parents has been very challenging at points. Sometimes it feels like the weight of their happiness and their worry is on me. They became extremely overprotective after my brother passed away.

I still don’t tell my dad when I travel all the time because he worries about me leaving, getting there, and returning home. Additionally, it’s hard for me to show them any signs of sadness or depression because they freak out. Their biggest fear is something happening to me too, which is understandable, but stressful. While it is difficult feeling like I have to keep certain things from my parents, worrying about their anxiety is worse.

When I am feeling depressed or anxious over something regarding my brother, I have learned to find other avenues to express my grief. I can call any of my friends and lean on them. I can schedule an impromptu session with my counselor. I can drive to the beach, take my journal, and write to John, finding comfort in the sounds of the ocean and my memories of him.

The main guidance I can give here is to reassure your parents you are not your brother or sister. You are here, you are not going anywhere, and you will get through this. They may need to hear that over and over again immediately following your sibling’s death until they are confident you will not do anything drastic as well. Keep in mind you and your parents are going through an adjustment and it will not happen overnight.

What About Families with Multiple Siblings?

For families with multiple siblings, different challenges will surface. There are several scenarios that may occur here. Perhaps you lost the sibling you were closest to out of the three, four, or five of you. You may feel anger or resentment at being left with a brother or sister who no longer understands you, not the way your other sibling did.

Perhaps you lost the sibling you were not the closest to. You may feel guilty for not being closer to them, not getting to know them better. What if you tried harder? Maybe they would still be here. You may feel anger toward the sibling who was close to them. How could you not see this coming? You talked to them all the time!

If you come from an extremely large family, there may be small cliques amongst the siblings, where the three oldest and three youngest are close-knit. You have lost one of the Three Stooges and now the two of you are left staring at each other, wondering how you missed the warning signs and questioning how you will go on without your sibling.

In each of these situations, you may identify with some of the challenges of the now only-child discussed above, but you will also have the dynamic of redefining your relationship(s) with your remaining sibling(s). First and foremost, blame has no place in any of these situations. None of you is responsible for your sibling’s disease or actions.

Second, try not to direct your anger toward your remaining sibling(s) or any other family member. Yes, anger is a common and important part of the grieving process, but pointing fingers will only hurt those at the receiving end. In order to heal, you all have to work together.

Finally, get help. If you are fortunate enough to have a sibling(s) remaining in your life, see if they are willing to go with you to an SOS meeting. Maybe you can share books or other helpful resources amongst each other? You might even decide to honor your sibling’s memory together, holding an annual ceremony to toast his or her life.

If you were not close with the remaining sibling(s), this could be something you choose to change. Tragedies such as these often make us rethink the decisions and paths we take in life. You may feel guilty at first for trying to get closer to your sibling(s), as if you are replacing your lost brother or sister.

Whatever the reason for your change in relationship, as long as you don’t actually try to transform your sibling(s) into your lost brother or sister, I would say it is fine. I am sure your brother or sister would be happy to see all of you together, making meaning out of his or her death, and keeping their memory alive by maintaining the sibling relationship.

Turn to each other, learn from each other, and provide each other the support only another sibling can – the understanding of the loss of your precious brother or sister and the pain you are suffering together.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This excerpt comes from The Forgotten Mourners: Sibling Survivors of Suicide by Magdaline DeSousa. Check out the book to read more on sibling specific suicide.

If you want to connect more with Magdaline, you can do so by checking out her website or following The Forgotten Mourners Facebook page. 

Shanetta Brown, Grief Recovery and Empowerment Coach, recently put together a two-week video interview series for those impacted by suicide. Therapists, psychologists, and authors volunteered their time in order to get some important and valuable information out there to the suicide loss community. The series was fantastic with so much wisdom and honesty shared!

Here is the interview I did. We discussed self-care, the power of forgiveness, and what moving on really looks like. I hope you are able to pull some nuggets of truth from this video.

I lost my husband to suicide May 2008. At that time it felt like the end of the world in a sense. I had two daughters, one going into college, and one going into her senior year of high school. Watching their pain was harder than my own. I became withdrawn, very angry, weak, ashamed, guilty, hurt more than ever, and my gut had an unfamiliar ache as if holes were being eaten into it. I didn’t eat for weeks. It felt like the pain would never go away. It was too much. To me, suicide survivors are left to feel like it is the ultimate betrayal, ultimate rejection, and the ultimate pain you will ever receive because it is a choice that is made at the time they decide to take their life; The choice to leave this world and everyone in it. I have heard that that is not true. That they think of no one at the time, only the hurt they are trying to escape. It is still very hard to deal with.

I read many books on surviving suicide loss, and sure they help, but until you are ready to take on this war single-handedly, it just consumes you. After a few years, I turned to God. I gave him all of my worries and just decided that I would just have to trust in him to get me through this because there just wasn’t anyone else that would understand. I started trying not to overthink things and stopped trying to figure out why and to stop questioning what had happened. There would always be more questions, even if I had an answer.

I learned through all of this that God was my ticket out of this misery I was going through. I could let it continuously eat me up, or I could destroy it by accepting it for what it was. Sure it is horrible, but I believed that I could overcome it. At the time, it felt like we, as a family, were going through it alone. What I realized is that people go through it everyday. It affects so many lives. I started focusing on helping others cope. My hope was to offer hope to someone else. Eight years later, the pain is still there. But it does not control me any longer. I believe no matter how much something hurts- we have control of our minds. It just takes time to get there. I don’t believe it happens right away and is different for everyone.

I want people to know that this is indeed a horrible thing to experience. But I also want them to know that they do not have to let it consume them. One day at a time. Find the joy in things wherever you can. Find the fight in you to do some things you enjoy. Wake up every day knowing that there is something good out there and always something to be thankful for. Trust in God.

With the holidays quickly approaching and Thanksgiving just one week away, I wanted to share a bit as it pertains to grief and the holidays. Below is an excerpt from the book The Gift of Second: Healing from the Impact of Suicide. 

“One of the most difficult aspects of the first year is what is often referred to as the Year of Firsts. The Year of Firsts is all of the first times we experience an event, holiday, or tradition without our loved one. This includes birthdays, holidays, vacations, events, seasons, or any other life event we are now navigating without them. Survivors often talk about the difficulty of the first Thanksgiving or Christmas after the suicide and how to handle the typical traditions and expectations from others. Oftentimes, we have traditions we have always participated in, whether it be decorating in a certain manner, cutting down our own Christmas tree, or hosting a celebration. Maybe these were our loved one’s ideas originally, or maybe they simply loved participating in them. Whatever the case may be, it can sometimes produce dread as the season approaches.

This is a good time to evaluate if you want to continue with the traditions. You might need to look at them this year and ask yourself, “Do I really want to continue with these?” You might think, “We have to do it because my loved one adored participating in it” or “We always do that tradition. We can’t skip it this year.” This might be a good time, though, to look at those traditions and honestly assess if you have the desire, energy, and ability to continue with them. If you decide you do not, then it is important to give yourself permission to skip them.

This might also be a great time to create new traditions. These do not have to be permanent, they may only be temporary for the first year or two. I remember always celebrating Christmas Eve with my mom’s side of the family, but after she died, my dad, brother, and I decided it would be too painful to attend the celebration. We decided to go out to a nice dinner and then a movie together instead. We did this for only the first two years, but it was what we needed during such a difficult time that would have otherwise been a constant reminder of my mom’s absence. It did not make the season pain free; instead, it simply gave us an opportunity to choose how we wanted to spend those difficult days and lessen the pain just a bit.

The Year of Firsts might also involve how to navigate annual vacations or trips that have always been a family favorite. It is okay to continue with this trip if it is something you feel would be enjoyable and will find pleasure in. If, however, it is something you are dreading, it is okay to cancel the trip or perhaps change the destination. The important thing to remember during the Year of Firsts is that it is okay to say no to celebrations and change or cancel plans entirely. You need to do what you are comfortable with and what you can manage emotionally and physically. We don’t want to just endure events for the sake of keeping with tradition. We want to take care of ourselves the best way possible (see the chapter on self-care).

Often, society tells us we should be done mourning by the first anniversary of our loved one’s death. Sometimes we believe this ourselves. The truth is it is not realistic to expect our grieving to be complete and wrapped up nicely simply because we turned the twelfth page on the calendar. We do a disservice to ourselves when we believe everything will be easier once we make it through the first year and then later beat ourselves up when we recognize life is still hard. It is important to note the anniversary is merely one day; it is not the culmination of grief. As I explained in the grief cycle chapter, there is no absolute timeline when we can expect to be ‘over’ this incredible loss. To expect the first year anniversary to be the magic day when mourning and pain disappears is unfair to ourselves.

Unfortunately, many survivors share their second year was actually harder than the first. I mention this not to be discouraging but to give you insight instead. I remember walking around in a constant state of shock the entire first year and then slowly recognizing the finality of her death. It was then, in the second year, that life became less about ‘firsts’ and more about the new reality of life without my mom. Also, I think people expect us to have moved on by the completion of the first year and, thus, they stop asking us how we are doing, stop seeing how they can help, and stop thinking about our pain. It felt a bit lonelier beginning that second year. This is not to scare you but rather to normalize it so you do not have false expectations but a more realistic understanding instead. This is normal to experience.”

The Gift of Second: Healing from the Impact of Suicide is now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

Last week my sons performed in a Veteran’s Day concert at school. They invited all of the community veterans to attend and then these adorable elementary- aged children sang their little hearts out for all of those who have served our country. They even had a bake sale and gave unlimited free treats to the veterans as a small way to say thank-you.

At one point during the concert, they had each veteran in the audience stand up when their branch of the military was called. They also had them stand up depending on which war they served in. When they called out for all veterans to stand up if they had served in the war in Iraq, my eyes instantly became watery and I couldn’t hold back the tears. My cousin served in that war and shortly after returning home took his own life. As I saw his fellow soldiers stand up to be honored, I couldn’t help but think of my cousin and how much I miss him.

I went to the concert to watch my kids. I wasn’t even thinking of my cousin before the event but once they mentioned the war in Iraq, I was instantly brought back to thoughts of him and the devastation his suicide brought upon our hearts. I was in tears and unable to fight them back. This is how grief works. It just finds us when we are least expecting it and forces us to respond, even when it is not convenient.

I tell you this story as a form of encouragement. Sometimes we kick ourselves for “losing it emotionally” or having an off day. Sometimes we get mad that we are still crying or not “further along” in our grief. The reality is grief comes and goes. Some days (or seasons) are harder than others. Some days we go to a concert to see our kids sing and we leave crying because we are reminded of a family member gone too soon. Grief triggers can come in all shapes and sizes and, usually, they are unexpected. A familiar song, an old friend, or a photograph from yesteryear can all act as triggers that remind us of our loved ones and bring about a wave of grief we were not expecting.

The next time this happens to you, I encourage you to embrace it. Grief is never easy but it is healthy and part of the process. Although I was brought to tears at the concert, it was still a great time to honor my cousin for his service to our country and remember him fondly. I do not get to choose when grief comes into my life, but I do get to choose how I respond. Last week, I chose to embrace grief. Embracing it always gets me further along than avoiding it.

Here’s hoping you, too, were able to honor your military family and friends last week!

Have you lost a loved one to suicide? Are you feeling overwhelmed or stuck and you don’t know how to put the pieces of your life back together? Have you thought to yourself “Is the pain, anger or guilt ever going to go away?”

My friend and colleague Shanetta Brown has put together an amazing group of authors, therapists, psychologists, and more to create a dynamic video interview series where we truly show you how to find hope and happiness on the other side of grief. I will also be sharing during the series.

Here are some tools that you will learn:

-Recognize grief can be used as a transformation process to reach a fulfilling and purpose-filled life! (Thrive instead of just survive!)

-Move fully into your heart and body to process and release grief, mourn openly and grieve freely to reach a deep level of healing!

-How to handle the holidays after a loss and still finding reason to celebrate.

– Recognize ways to support your child through the grieving process.

-Determine things you can say to your child to help them with the loss.

-Recognize that you can maintain connection with deceased loved ones knowing that love lives on through them!

-Build supportive and caring networks and give yourself permission to share feelings, emotions and memories easily!

-Move from fear to faith that you can and will get through loss to find a new appreciation of life. (Be a victor over grief, not a victim!)

-Re-write your grief story and reclaim your life!

-Honor your loved one’s legacy with love, remembering a life well lived!

So, what does this all mean for you?

The experts in The Other Side of Grief speaker series will show you how to use their BEST tools to promote your healing and move through grief to heal with less struggle and hardship than necessary, so you can live again NOW with a life of purpose in honor of those you love. Support your healing with the best tools, tips, and methods to do so! The speakers are generously donating their time so you can get access to this value-packed online event at no cost. All you need is a computer to participate from anywhere in the world. Reserve your spot right away!

This series will help you embrace the fact that there is Hope and Happiness on the other side of grief.

Please take this opportunity to join me for this powerful interview series where authors like myself are generously showing you the way, and make this the first step of your journey toward healing!

See you there,

Brandy

PS: It’s easy! Just click this link and sign in with your name and email in the boxes! Leave the rest to Shanetta and her team!

Click This Link to Sign Up!

Dear Dad,

Tomorrow would have been your 74th birthday.  I still felt the impulse to buy you a card, then I passed the display and instead, began to weep. I thought this second birthday without you would be easier, I was wrong.

I remember when we reconciled, I learned to cherish & never take for granted the simple act of picking up the phone on a holiday or a birthday, to share in good wishes and special sentiments of love & joy. After all, we had endured six years of special days coming and going, marked only by our absence from one another and the silence that filled the void. Yes, it truly felt like we were embarking on a brand new chapter in our relationship, full of promise, forgiveness, rebuilding and a love that felt deeper, stronger and even more authentic because of what we had endured. But that chapter came to a violent and abrupt end 18 months ago. Now our story can only be told in the looking back. And the thought of all that could have been, the pages left unwritten, break my heart.

Eighteen months; I know it’s been a year & a half, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to count it in that way. I’m not ready to put the word year in that space. Isn’t that silly? It is, I know. I wake up almost every day at 3:00 in the morning Dad. We never did get a time of death for you, another missing piece to the puzzle of your suicide. My mind is still trying to make sense of it all. But how do you make sense out of something so very senseless. And yet, my eyes open at 3:00 in the morning and I wonder, is that when you died? Are you trying to give me something to cleave to? Are you trying to answer one of the myriad of questions that occupies my mind at some point each & every day? I’m beginning to believe it.

Oh Dad, I thought getting through all of the firsts would make these seconds without you easier to bear. But I’m told that the second year can be even harder than the first. That darn grief does not follow a linear path, that much I have learned. It’s a constant dance of forward, back and side to side. Right now I feel like I’m just spinning, dizzy, unable to find my center. Tomorrow is just another day I feel like I have to get through. Then some balance might return.

I wish I could have helped you more. I wish that I knew then what I know now. I wish that all that I have learned and all that I have done in the aftermath of your suicide, could help you. I wish it could bring you back. I wish, I wish, for so much I wish.

Why did you go Dad? What happened? What was that final straw that took you from us? Why didn’t you tell us that you were feeling suicidal? Why? I hate that word. Because I will never have the answer. I know the truest answer lies in the illness that consumed your mind. But why didn’t you feel like you could keep fighting on? What made that morning different from all of the others that you had pushed through?

Listen to me; it’s the eve before your birthday and I’m rambling on about me & what I feel. But what about you? Are you at peace? I hope so. Do you know, do you see how much you are missed? I hope so. Do you know how much you were loved? I pray you did.

Tomorrow is your birthday. I wish I could say that I’ll celebrate you, but I just want to get past it. Your suicide has made it deeply complicated to remember you in life, to touch upon the good memories and reminisce.  Maybe one day that will come. I’m told it will. It would be nice to savor a shared moment of joy without having trauma barging in on every darn memory I try to access.

I’m sorry that I couldn’t help you more Dad. I tried my best. I believe that you know that. But you didn’t tell me your whole truth. You kept a mask on and allowed me only to see a portion of your pain. Were you trying to protect me? You didn’t. You know that now Dad, right?

But I love you. I’ll always love you. And most days I forgive you. Other days I feel like you abandoned me. I can’t lie. You were not always easy, and goodness knows you could be a deeply complicated man. Ours was not a relationship without perils and pitfalls & for a long while we walked on separate paths. But we stood at a fork in the road and found one another again. I am eternally grateful for that. And even in your last months and weeks on this earth, stripped down to your most vulnerable self, you allowed me to know you on a deeper level. I felt like I understood you better, and I came to see that just like me, you were shaped by your own upbringing and all of the dysfunction that you endured. In short, I knew that you did as a father, the very best that you could with what you knew. Not every child gets to see that in their parent no matter how old they get. I thank you for that. I thank you for allowing me a glimpse into your own very human journey. I only wish I could have seen more.

Tomorrow is your birthday. So I’m going to try to end this note with a birthday wish for you…

I wish for you that the peace that eluded you in life, is now yours. May your soul be at rest. And may you always carry with you the knowledge that you were loved, even in your most broken state. Even when darkness blinded you to it, You were loved. And even when you felt most alone, you were loved. I wish you were still here. I wish that I could pick up the phone and call you. I wish I could give you a hug.

And it is my fervent wish that the love we shared can transcend

time & space

pain & sorrow

life and death

So that all that I’ve written can find its way to you with God’s grace.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This piece was originally written as On My Father’s Birthday by Deborah Greene. She writes about life and suicide at Reflecting Outloud. Follow her there for more heartfelt conversation around love and the aftermath of suicide.

My story starts on January 31, 2012. That day my mother took her life. It’s something I carry with me every single day, and I have the images that are engraved in my mind. I really can’t express the feelings I had after that, I was just so in shock and felt so guilty. We had a fight right before it happened and the last words we exchanged were not very nice. We never really had the greatest relationship. It is a struggle to deal with that alone. Knowing that I will never have that closure and realizing the permanence of suicide is unbearable. I stayed around my home for the rest of that year, but I knew I couldn’t do it any longer. There were memories everywhere. My dad was having a hard time and basically wanted to be by himself, and was not a good resource for me at the time. I had a one-year-old son also. I felt so alone. So January of the next year I moved with my son 9 hours away, where I had some family. I didn’t know what was going to happen with my life but I just knew that I had to get away. I had wanted to be a nurse for as long as I can remember and I started working on a few more prerequisites that I needed and got into a nursing program. It was hard, but that nursing program brought me back to life and gave me something to work for. The wonderful professors that I had were so encouraging, and were there for support when I needed someone. Two years later, I graduated nursing school with honors and won an award for “Outstanding Clinical Leadership.” I am proud to call myself a registered nurse.

When you lose someone to suicide, you need something that you can hold onto that will keep you going. I thank God every day for my son and my nursing career, which keep me going. It’s hard to reach out to people, because most don’t understand or know what to do for you. I still try though because I need people so badly. I have gone through the most darkest, horrible days of my life. I suffer from depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and PTSD. Certain times of the year, or going to familiar places are tough for me. I have never once felt angry at my mom. I feel sad – like a deep, empty sadness that stays with me. I ended up moving back home to be with my dad. We’re in the house that my mom died in and every day is a reminder of her and that day. But being here also brings back some good memories that we had. I have my really bad days, where I feel depressed and shut out the world and am stuck inside my head. Sometimes I sit in my parents’ closet and go through pictures and old things and just cry. Then I have my good days where I am able to focus on the good. This experience has softened me as a person. I am so different now than I was, and look at life so much differently than other people – it’s hard to even explain. It has made me more patient and kind with others, because I know what it is like to feel like you don’t want to be here anymore. As for my mother, she just couldn’t do it anymore. And I don’t want anyone to ever feel that way. I feel like I was put on this earth to be a nurse – to nurture and take care of others. To know that I can make a difference to others is what keeps me going.

I wanted to live on for my mother – the good memories and good parts of her that I carry with me. I try to forget the bad. She could not do it, so I am doing it for her. Go on for them, see the beauty in this world for them, and live your life in honor of them. There is hope. I have a ring that I wear every day that says “hope” because without it I would be lost. I choose to hold onto hope.

Week 2:  HOPE

Day 1:  It’s a big deal

(The following is from the free devotional Faith, Hope, Love by Jennifer Lane)

Read:

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.  For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope.  For who hopes for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.  Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.  And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” — Romans 8:18-28 ESV

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” — Romans 8:38-39 ESV

Observe:

I can tell you the day the idea hope became a big deal to me. I was sitting on a couch with my family, planning my little brother’s funeral. We were picking out scriptures to be printed in the bulletin, and hope was my life vest in a sea of numbness that I was feeling in that moment. The scripture that appeared in my head like a lightning bolt was Romans 8:38-39.

My brother had died by suicide, and I felt the need to clarify to every attendee that walked into that funeral that my brother couldn’t be separated from his Savior Christ Jesus, not by his loneliness, alcohol, drugs, or that choice he made or the gun he used.

Death is a powerful thing. It tramps around with fear as its shadow.

But praise His Holy Name that hope is more powerful. It is a tidal wave that rushes in with freedom, goodness, glory, and vital assurance in its wake.

We are weak, but we wait in patience for those things promised that we cannot yet see. In our weakness, we are helped by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit offers words to Heaven when our mouths and minds cannot communicate our hearts and minds.

I have hope that my brother is with Jesus.  I have hope that one day I will be with Jesus. These aren’t just ideas. These are promises found in His Word.  I can have assurance of these promises.

My brother was saved and baptized at a young age. He was so eager to pray to receive Jesus, so excited to be baptized. He was adopted as a son, and that adoption was finalized, sealed on high, and cannot be undone. Nothing in creation could cause my brother to become disowned by His Father.

I will cling to hope until I am reunited with my brother, Christ, and the rest of His Bride.

This post was written by Jennifer as part of a 3-week devotional called Faith, Hope, Love. If you would like to download your free copy, VISIT THIS LINK. 

Here is a sneak peek into the book, The Gift of Second: Healing from the Impact of Suicide. The book is now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in print and Kindle versions.

The following excerpt is from the book The Gift of Second: Healing from the Impact of Suicide. This passage discusses one aspect of self-care after a suicide.

You can read more from The Gift of Second: Healing from the Impact of Suicide by grabbing a copy of the book on Amazon now. You are not alone. You can watch the Book Trailer Here to get a sneak peek into the book.

I want to give readers a glimpse into the book,The Gift of Second: Healing from the Impact of Suicide. It is my hope this book will begin the healing process for so many impacted by a loved one’s suicide. You can check out this short 3-minute video trailer to see what the book is all about. The following excerpt is from a chapter titled “Guilt and Shame.”

Many times after a suicide, the survivor believes they failed in some regard, failed as a protecting parent, a lovable child, a supportive spouse, a safe sibling, or a caring and listening friend. We believe that if we had been more approachable or more helpful, or if our loved one knew how much we truly loved them, then they wouldn’t have been forced to choose death. We believe we failed and so we believe we are failures. We go through life shaming ourselves for not measuring up, not showing up, and truthfully, we shame ourselves for not being their Savior. We kick ourselves for not being everything our loved one needed to stay alive, and we blame ourselves for not keeping them alive. We carry the burden of a scarlet letter ‘F’ for Failure. We failed to protect and save our loved one because we were not enough.

I bought into this lie for far too long—decades, in fact. I believed all of the things mentioned above, and after several interviews and conversations with other survivors, I know I am not unique in this regard. We are not their Saviors, and to accept the responsibility of their choice to die is neither fair nor healthy. There is no other cause of death that wrecks the emotional psyche of a survivor quite like suicide. I have met people who lost a loved one to suicide forty years ago who still express feelings of guilt and shame. The emotional and physical toll this self-imposed blame takes on a survivor can be devastating. Countless survivors share that they have chronic health problems today, likely due to the stress of blame, shame, and guilt compounded over years.

Out of this entire book, there is no more important message that I want to share with you: You are not to blame, and you are enough. Our loved ones were sick. They were dealing with mental illness, they felt hopeless, and they believed their lives had no value. They were in an incredibly dark place which we could not penetrate. Professionals could not save them, medicine did not cure them, and love from others couldn’t touch them. Their choice to die was their last solution to end the unimaginable physical and emotional pain they experienced every minute of every day. They were not intentionally trying to bring us pain but rather desperately trying to end their own. We will not condone suicide, but neither can we continue to take responsibility for it or allow it determine our own value.

The Gift of Second: Healing from the Impact of Suicide is available now on Amazon. I encourage you to pick up a copy for yourself or anyone you know impacted by a suicide loss. 

I have spent the past year writing a book for those impacted by suicide. The book is titled, The Gift of Second: Healing from the Impact of Suicide. You can see a short video trailer for the book here. My hope is this book will be the best possible resource for a fellow survivor trying to navigate the waters of suicide loss. Below is a short excerpt from a chapter discussing grief:

Grief is neither linear nor does it adhere to a particular path. I created the image below to depict the manner in which grief really affects us.

The Realistic Grieving Path begins with a suicide, causing a surviving individual to begin the grief process. The feelings one experiences are overwhelming, chaotic, erratic, and all-encompassing. I liken this feeling to the destruction of an earthquake. Not only does it rock our worlds and bring devastation to our lives, but it also creates cracks in our foundation, causing us to doubt all that was. The picture depicts waves of grief similar to an earthquake’s seismic waves. One moment we can feel intense heartache and sadness, and then next moment we are full of anger and rage. Always unpredictable and never convenient, walking through grief can be unbearable much of the time.

As survivors works through their grief, they will eventually arrive at a phase titled ‘New Normal.’ New normal is labeled as such because we will never return to the person we were before the suicide. How could we? This phase becomes our new status quo, the phase in which we go about our days, no longer so consumed with grief. Life begins to carry on in this new normal stage until a ‘life event’ occurs. A life event can be positive, such as a wedding, the birth of a baby, or a graduation, or negative like the anniversary of the suicide, a serious illness, or a job loss. Regardless of the event, this scenario acts as a trigger and causes the survivor to walk through the grief path again as they process the death of their loved one once more in light of the new events.

As I prepared for my wedding, I thought very little of the absence of my mom for the ceremony. Nor did I think of her at all during the honeymoon. Upon returning from the honeymoon; however, while setting up house with my husband, something out of the blue, it seemed, occurred. Two days after returning, my husband and I sat down to make our first grocery list as a married couple. Every idea he had for meals seemed horrible, and I began to snap at him for each suggestion. Eventually, my wise husband asked, “What is the matter? Why are you so frustrated?” Without pause and without thinking, I began to sob. The only thing I could get out between deep crying breaths was, “My mom should have been at my wedding and she wasn’t.” To me, at the time, (and I am sure my husband as well) this seemed so odd and unexpected. In reality, it is a perfect example of a ‘life event’ as described above in the Realistic Grieving Path.

The wedding took place seventeen years after my mom’s suicide and, leading up to the wedding, I had been relatively unaffected by her death as it pertained to wedding preparations. The major life event, though, rocked my world and caused me to walk through the process again as I mourned my mom missing my wedding.

The events do not need to be big; they can be small, such as running into an old friend you haven’t seen in years who reminds you of your loved one or even simply hearing a song your loved one enjoyed. The idea is that events happen our entire lives, and many can trigger different parts within us to feel the loss of our loved one more fully. It is then that we must work through the death again. Walking through the grief path again by no means negates any grief work we have done before; instead, it brings to light different aspects that need more healing or attention. Grief is both cyclical and never-ending. We will never fully ‘get over’ the suicide of a loved one, and I believe this model best depicts the reality of grief. When discussing his son’s suicide, Tony Dungy, former NFL Coach of the Indianapolis Colts, wrote in his book, Quiet Strength: A Memoir, “First, there is no typical grief cycle, and second, it’s not something I went through. I’m still grieving.”

The Gift of Second: Healing from the Impact of Suicide is available now on Amazon. I encourage you to pick up a copy for yourself or anyone you know impacted by a suicide loss. 

My mission in life is to eliminate the stigma related to suicide loss. I lost my brother to suicide in 2002. For a long time, I hid from the reality that I was impacted by sibling suicide loss. The unfortunate reality, up until 2014, is my friends didn’t even know about my deepest loss. They didn’t ask and I didn’t share it.

Why did I not share? I was afraid of being judged. It is hard to understand and my experience has been that people generally don’t want to enter into this pain. There are obvious exceptions to this and for this, I’m forever grateful.

All I wanted was someone to listen to understand rather than try to respond to make everything better. Nothing is going to make it better. We can’t bring Brian back…

We can listen to understand. What does this mean? At least, in part, this means listening without trying to fix anything. If I share this with you I’m not looking for you to fix my situation. I just want to know that I matter and that my emotions matter.

I am a therapist, author, and speaker by profession. This is exactly what I provide in my office, through my book and through any opportunity I have to share my story.

If as a therapist I start to listen to respond then I am no longer providing a helpful opportunity for my clients to learn, grow and process.

Let’s be the best listeners. This isn’t something that we spend a lot of time talking about, but society needs those who are willing to listen to understand- not to fix the situation. There is a time and place to work through and problem solve.

I think by genuinely listening to understand we can help support others in their grief. I believe that the most helpful thing a few of my friends did at the beginning was listening to understand. They didn’t try to provide answers. I didn’t want answers.

I think writing our thoughts and feelings down in a journal is a tremendous way to express our deepest emotions and to be “listened to.” The great thing is that the journal always listens and it only provides “answers” over time.

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Nathan S. Wagner MA LPC is a therapist in Harrisburg, PA. He is the author of Sibling Suicide: Journey from Despair to Hope. Pick up a copy at Amazon today. 

This past weekend I had the opportunity to speak at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Out of the Darkness Walk in Auburn, California. There were over 300 people in attendance and there is something really special about getting to speak with folks who know the specific pain and hurt a suicide brings to a family. There is an understanding that nobody else quite grasps.

I had several individuals come up to the booth I was hosting for The Gift of Second, and they were unable to finish a sentence without sobbing because the pain is still so fresh and raw. To be able to sit there with them, in their grief, and understand their sorrow without having to say a word brought tears to my eyes each time. The thing about suicide is we feel so alone. We feel as if nobody could ever understand. But, for one morning, 300 people did exactly understand. We know the questions we continually wrestle with in our minds. We understand the pain, the guilt, the shame, the unique grief, the stigma, everything. We get it. This weekend, 300 of us got the chance to be together and support each other on this journey.

There are about 50 AFSP Walks every weekend in cities all over the USA through September, October, and November, bringing people together to raise awareness, support prevention, and offer connection with one another. It’s beautiful and it’s powerful. The Auburn event had a really cool photo booth donated by the generous folks at Classic Photo Booth Rentals. I decided to pose for a few pictures alone, trying to repeat a strong message so many survivors need to hear.

Dear Anderson Cooper,

You don’t know me and I don’t know you, but we do share something in common. We are both survivors of suicide loss. In 1988 you lost your brother Carter to suicide and 17 months ago, on April 20, 2015, I lost my father.

In just a few days you will join Martha Raddatz at Washington University in St. Louis, to moderate the 2nd Presidential Debate of 2016. This is a chance to speak to some of the biggest challenges that our country is facing, and open up a dialogue with each candidate as to how they might solve those issues, or at the very least, tackle them in such a way as to make a meaningful difference. And so, as a fellow survivor of suicide loss, I am asking you to raise the issue of suicide.

Every day it is estimated that we lose 117 people to suicide; people like your brother and my father. And every 12.3 minutes in this nation another family is left to navigate the painful aftermath that your family and mine has had to face. You understand better than most in the media, that every person who dies by suicide is more than a statistic; they are parents, children, siblings, spouses, friends and neighbors.

The most recent federal data analysis tell us that suicide rates in the United States have surged to a 30 year high. The same research showed an alarming increase in suicide among girls 10 to 14, whose suicide rate, while still very low, had tripled. The suicide rate for middle-aged women, ages 45 to 64, rose by 63 percent over the course of the study, while it increased by 43 percent for men in that age range, the sharpest increase for males of any age. And men over the age of 75 have the highest suicide rate of any age group.

Add to that the fact that we lose 20 veterans a day to suicide and that the suicide rate among female veterans is six times higher than the rate of non-veteran women.

Anderson, these are statistics, numbers, and they are staggering to say the least. But they are so much more than that. These are the casualties of a war that is being fought in the dark. These are deaths so often cloaked in shame, stigma and silence, that those of us left to grieve a suicide loss, often find ourselves feeling alone and isolated in the experience. But you can help to change that.

Don’t you think it is time that we shine a national spotlight on the realities of suicide loss, Anderson? Don’t you think it is time that any conversation about our nation’s healthcare include issues of mental health and suicide prevention? Isn’t it time that we normalize those conversations as part of our national dialogue? And I might add, isn’t it time to change the discourse in the media and on the campaign trail when it comes to the language we use, being mindful not to belittle and further stigmatize those living with mental illness?

It’s been 17 months since I lost my father to suicide. And not a day has gone by, where I have not tried to make some meaning come from his death. I have shared my story openly in the hopes that doing so can help spare another family the pain that mine has endured, a pain you are intimately acquainted with.

You told People magazine, in a March 31, 2016 interview that your brother’s suicide had a definite impact on your career.

“I started going overseas and going to places where life and death was very real and where people were suffering tremendous losses. Hearing their stories and hearing people talk about it sort of helped me to get to a place where I could talk about it, I think.”

This Sunday night, with millions of people watching, you have the chance to further the conversation about suicide in this country. The suffering of those who die by suicide is very real and families like yours and mine are living with tremendous loss. You’ve learned to talk about it, and so have I. So let’s use what we have endured to make a difference. Let’s talk about it. Let’s ask our nation’s potential leadership to talk about it. The spotlight is yours to shine, as a fellow survivor, I hope you will use it.

Sincerely Yours,

Deborah Greene

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An Open Letter to Anderson Cooper from a Fellow Survivor of Suicide Loss was written by Deborah Greene. If you would like to read more by Deborah, head over to Reflecting Out Loud, where she writes more about life and the impact of suicide.

My son left our family on 7/7/15. He died by suicide.

Our hearts have never been the same. After months of shock and denial, we entered the holiday season. It used to be my favorite time of year. We have two more sons so we put up decorations for them to be as normal as possible. Holidays were horrible. I cried a lot and didn’t know to get through the devastating time.

We were surrounded by love but we just wanted to hide and wish the holidays away. I find, as we are drawing close with the starting of fall, that I still don’t want to participate in the festivities- so we are going to leave town and start new traditions to get through.

I miss my son so very much and Christmas was his favorite time. He loved the house decorated. I have good memories of those times and will forever hold them in my heart.

So I guess the lesson is to do whatever you can to get through the year of first holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries. Do what you can to survive this. Be selfish. Do what you need to do to get through this. It won’t be easy but you will survive. And that’s all we want to do at this point!

Love to all,
Mother of an angel

Often times, as survivors, we feel alone and isolated. We feel as if nobody could ever understand our pain and hurt. Too often, we suffer alone because we don’t know anyone else who has ever experienced a suicide. Fortunately, there is a way to connect with fellow survivors in your community and also raise awareness around suicide.

During the months of September and October, The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) hosts community walks all over the United States in hopes of raising awareness, offering support to fellow survivors, and bringing the community together. If you have never been to one, check out the 1-minute video below to get a closer look at what you can expect when attending. Each weekend you will find people in your own backyard fully aware of the pain and devastation suicide brings. We no longer need to feel alone.

I encourage you to head over to AFSP and check the schedule for walks in your area. It’s a great way to connect with others in your own neighborhood. Who knows, you might even gain a community of fellow survivors to lean on during the upcoming holiday season when it is often difficult to cope.

If you do attend a walk, let us know how it went by leaving a comment or writing about your experience.

I didn’t think it could happen to me. I thought God was done with me after being hit by a drunk driver and having a miscarriage in my third month of pregnancy. I was so wrong.

Suicide, how could this happen to me? I quickly learned that suicide does not discriminate, no matter what you may think. It has nothing to do with color, race, age, or any other beliefs you may have.

It happened to me on a fall night in September of 2014. Sleeping in my bed, my husband woke me from a deep sleep. Two police officers stood outside with the news that my daughter had been found less than a mile from our home and that she had died. I stood outside in disbelief, saying “no, no, no, this can’t be happening!” That night would forever change me.

Suicides are sometimes planned by those attempting to do it. My daughter, having a medical background knew how much medication it would take to get the job accomplished.

I would no longer be able to talk and laugh with my daughter, friend, and confidant. She has now forever gone to heaven to live with God. I stumbled through the next days of my life with a heavy fog of helplessness. It was tough to make a simple decision and other people had to make them on my behalf. With raw emotions, I went through my days like a robot. I didn’t realize how many lives she had impacted with her friendship, love, caring, and kindness. I just wanted to hibernate from the world and cry. My heart was shattered like a broken piece of glass on the floor, spreading in every direction, my emotions raw with pain. My life has forever been changed.

The out pouring of love and support from people for us was an act of pure kindness and love I never expected. Friends, family, and neighbors gathered around us to offer their love, support, and whatever we might have needed at that time.

Professionals say you go through 5 stages of grief. I probably went through all of them many times. It has been two years now, and now I call myself a survivor. I am still going to therapy, take my medication, and have had many talk sessions with a grief counselor. It has made a such a positive impact on my life. I am still grieving for her, but moving forward. I have screamed, cried, gotten angry at God, and even bargained with him. Journaling and talking have been the best things for me. I was told to feel my feelings, and not hold them in. I will continue to do that. I have days that are wonderful and days when I just want to be left alone with my thoughts. I have become much more spiritual in my thoughts. I still ask the question “Why?”

I will walk down this path for the rest of my life without her. It is a long, hard and rough road that I will be on. It is said it takes an army to raise a child. I now have my own army of love and support for which I am so grateful. My journaling is a great outlet for my feelings. It gets the haunting thoughts out of my head, and I can release them if only on paper. Over and over, I may write the same thing. We all grieve differently and in our own way.

I still deal with many feelings, moods, and things I don’t understand. Her memory will live on in me, her daughter, and all the other people that love and miss her. I would like to mentor other people traveling down this rough, tough, lonely road in my future. I am still working on me and hope one day I can help others as I have been helped by professionals, and the love and caring friends, and family. I pray for guidance and direction every night, and for God to watch over my angel.

I can’t take the blame for the choices she made, and I won’t. I choose to survive one day at a time.

My granddaughter is now 2, has a wonderful father, and a man I am blessed to have in my life.

I am a survivor, and for that I give thanks.

Dear Mom,

The last time I spoke to you was from the phone in Jeff’s apartment. I loved hanging out there with him, my big brother. I called to tell you I was going to stay all night at Dad’s house.

You chose that night when I was twelve as the one you would take your own life.

I was not enough to live for. Do you realize how embarrassing and awkward it makes a kid’s life when she has been abandoned by her mom? I didn’t cry, didn’t grieve, for about eight years. When the tears eventually came, they were agonizing.

You weren’t there to teach me how to apply makeup, when I started my period, or had my first crush.

You messed with my head by leaving me, and I closed up and kept everything emotional inside for years. I eventually mixed drugs and alcohol with the trauma; my goal being to either numb pain or make another kind of pain.

You weren’t there when I was nominated for prom queen and then got kicked out of prom for drinking. You weren’t there when I dated losers, when I married a non-loser, moved to another country, gave birth.

I wonder if you assumed I’d be better off growing up with my dad and stepmom. Did you plan ahead or did you make a rash decision that night when you were drunk? It shouldn’t matter but it does. But alas, I can never know.

By the way, if you did think I’d be better off, you were incorrect. No fault of theirs – but my new parents weren’t really looking to take in another kid and didn’t really know how to handle someone so damaged.

I was left by you. And I was left alone by them.

There’s no decent place in a letter to tell you this, but I should let you know that your firstborn, Jeff, followed in your footsteps and died a drunk by his own hand and left two children behind. He was 34. Five years younger than you when you did it. I’m 45, so I have you both beat.

What have I been up to? Well, here’s where things get weird. You won’t believe it, but my life is completely remarkable. My heart is so full of love and joy and compassion, sometimes I think I will explode from all my blessings.

You’re probably wondering if I’m serious since I have mentioned all the crap I had to deal with. But it’s true. I am one of the happiest people I know. I never expected anything good to come my way, but somehow I won the life lottery. My life is so great it’s almost not fair to others.

My life is sweet, but it’s not without constant heartache. Almost every time I’m alone in my van in the garage, I think of you and how you were in a garage when you died. I think of suicide every day. Every day.

It’s not an easy, shallow happiness I carry with me though. No, I have deep inner joy. Contentment. I have met depression and anxiety, but still I am able to have a joyful soul.

In a way, this is possible because I used your bad example as the motivation to get my life cleaned up. When I was a wretched, drug-addicted drunk before I was even legally allowed to drink, I recognized I didn’t want to live an unhappy life. Suicide was not going to be my way out.

So, uh, thanks, I guess, for giving me a perspective that not many people get to have.

I also knew that I wanted God, so I searched for him. I wanted peace that came from somewhere beyond me and the world. I realized eventually that Jesus had been with me all along, weeping for me when I couldn’t and drying my tears when they did fall.  Oh, that you could have seen Jesus in your life, that you could have seen that tomorrow is always a new day and the sun will rise. Always.

I mourn the idea of you probably more than I mourn the real you. I have to fight off jealousy when I see friends turning to their moms for babysitting and recipes and traditions and advice. I was cheated. When a friend’s mom drove two hours to deliver chicken soup to her sick daughter, I physically hurt with envy.

I am fiercely devoted to my own children. I’m deliberate about my mental health and will not let them have a disinterested, damaged mom. They are having an incredible childhood and they know they are loved.

I have cried all the tears I can cry for you. I’m emptied of that grief.

I want to share what I’ve learned. That we can all overcome hardships, heartaches. That we are all valuable and worthy to be alive. We all have strength we haven’t tapped into. Life sucks a lot of the time, but life is fabulous most of the time.

My story convinced a friend to change her plans to jump to her death. She mustered up strength to take one more step, even in her utter despair and weakness. One more step is always possible.

Who knows where I would have ended up had you stayed…

It’s a frightening thought, because I absolutely love where I am.

I was in chains for years but am completely free now. I surrendered to God’s love for me. I knew my wounds would either keep me chained or set me free. I decided to build on the pain and make a way to peace.

We have all been given one time around. My hope for others is that they choose to live untethered to those who have harmed them, but choose rather to dance in the joy of freedom.

My hope is that others will choose to live.

That’s it, JJ

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To read more from JJ Landis, check out her website or look for her book, Some Things You Keep, which is about growing up after the suicide of her mom at the age of 12.

Whenever you’ve lost someone to suicide, one of the most difficult things about your new normal is figuring out what to say. The stigma attached to suicide is unlike anything I have ever experienced before. It makes the whole matter so murky, it can be tough to navigate.

As I have begun to heal from the loss of my brother, I have felt more empowered to speak out, to drive away the darkness of that stigma by shining the light of the hope I have in Christ.

There are times, like as I write this now, I feel strong when I share about living with my brother’s suicide.

I even begin to think it is my responsibility to speak up, to elevate the stigma, to be a crusader that educates every chance possible. Doing any less feels like a disservice to my family.

But there are other times when I just don’t have the peace or the braveness to talk about my loss. Worries about making others uncomfortable or how others will think about me creep into my brain, and I stay silent.

Another thing that makes it difficult is reactions I have received when sharing about my loss with friends that have experienced losses very similar to mine. I can get a range of reactions.  Sometimes they are thankful that I have reached out and brought up how difficult our loss feels. They are grateful someone else recognizes that about their life. But sometimes I have gotten puzzling responses that seem to just change the subject.

In receiving those reactions, I have to remember that they are in the same murky “what to say?” waters I am. I have to have grace. I also hope to receive grace when I’m having a tough moment with no words.

Grace always applies, especially to yourself. Don’t criticize yourself, thinking you are responsible for pushing back all the stigma, when you find those moments when speaking out and sharing seem impossible.

The ugly truth is that some people are incapable of giving grace and understanding. Sharing your story of suicide loss might be completely wasted on their ears. They will judge you and decide you’ve done something to warrant such a devastating time in your life.

These judgements grow out of their fear. They don’t want to think that a person just like them could experience this loss without deserving it.  They want to think that there is something they can do to make sure they are never in your position.

But we all learn something as we experience a loss from suicide. We all now know this could happen to anyone. It happens to typical, everyday families about 117 times a day in the United States.

Don’t let fear rule your life, but don’t take it personally when someone treats you ungracefully because of their fear.

Even well-meaning, kind people who are trying their best will say offensive things. It is just so easy to be ignorant of what loss from suicide is like. Before I had lost my brother, I would have had no idea what to say or how it felt. I pray most people will never experience this type of loss.

Even people who have become familiar to the issue of suicide through research will never be able to have enough information to know what this loss is like. They can be more sensitive with their words and actions, and that is such a gift to someone who has suffered this type of loss.

What to say, now that you are a survivor of suicide, will always be an internal struggle. What might be right in this moment will be wrong in the next. Just know that you are far from alone in feeling the ache from the stigma. Let grace be abundant in your life in the times full of brave truth and times full of silence.

That day started out as any other day. It was a Monday in the final days of winter. I had gone to school like any other Monday. My mom had picked me up and took me home after school, just as she had done every day. We got in a fight that day, over something that didn’t matter, it was just harmless teenager and mom bicker. Something, I knew we would forget about quickly. 

 

 

I left the house that evening to go to a sports banquet, I was there most of the night; my mom and sisters remained at home. I didn’t notice anything different or out of the ordinary with my mom or her personality. It had been a relatively normal week for us. We had our talks about life and how after winter- things will get better for us. “Just a couple weeks Mom, then spring will be here and things will be better!” They would’ve been better. I was so sure of it. Life was not easy for us during that time, but I knew things would be better. 

 

 

I talked to my mom all day, everyday, and we were together all the time. We were the same person and it was actually scary at times how much. Our laugh and our sense of humor always had us laughing hysterically.

 

 

When I got home after the banquet that night. The front door was locked. This was unusual. I was banging on the door and my mom finally opened it. She didn’t say a word to me. I went upstairs and changed in to my pajamas and got ready for bed. My mom came in my room to talk to me. I never knew, in any way, that this would be the last time I heard her voice. The last time we would talk to each other. We got distracted by my dog who decided to relieve himself in the house. My mom cleaned up the mess. We said goodnight and that was it.

 

 

That was it. I had no idea what I was about to face and I would never think that last moment together would be it. That “goodnight” was our final moment.  

 

 

About an hour later, as I was laying in bed, our dog started barking at me. I felt like something strange was going on because the dog is always by my mother’s side. I got up to see what the dog was barking about. I went downstairs and my mom wasn’t there. I saw the basement light was on……I went to check why. 

 

 

Within moments, I was collapsed on our front porch as the ambulances were approaching my house. I was screaming for my mom. I knew it was too late. I was too late. All I could do was scream. My younger sisters were upstairs. I made them stay upstairs on the second floor. I made them stay. I would never want someone to experience what I had when I found my mom. Now, in an instant, at 16, I am the one that needs to protect my sisters. I was left to pick up the pieces.  

 

 

The days after were mostly a blur. Friends and family, people I didn’t know approached me with an awkward “I’m sorry for your loss,” not knowing what to say. Everything seemed surreal and a blur. Life doesn’t do this. But it had, and it had done it to my sisters and me. 

 

 

In the end, my mom wasn’t happy. She hid this from us a lot of the time. I wish she hadn’t. I loved her and would have done anything for her. I was devastated, my sisters were devastated and after she was gone I honestly didn’t see happiness in my future. We were heartbroken. I was in shock. It was the hardest days and months I would ever go through. 

The support of my family and family is the only thing that made me want to survive. And I did. I survived. At my mother’s one year anniversary memorial, with the most important people in my life, I thought to myself – how did we get through this?  How did we survive? I  wouldn’t wish this on to anyone or anyone’s family. Depression is just as real as any disease. People may not show it on the outside but it can tear your life apart inside of you. You can be screaming but nothing is coming out of your mouth. You can be standing in a crowded room but feel so alone. YOU ARE NOT ALONE. My mother was so loved by everyone she met. She was such a special person that I will cherish knowing her and having her for the rest of my life. Everyone is a fighter, so let’s fight this. Let’s fight depression by showing kindness, and spreading love to everyone you meet.

 

 

Sometimes I look around my life now and I wonder “how did I get here?” ….and within moments, I realize that this is my life now and I am going to keep on living it for my mother. She would want that for me. I will live it for her and for me.  I will be her voice now for anyone who may need. I may be 17, but I am beyond that in years for what I have lived through. I am here to help any young adult I can, anyone I can. I love you, mom. 

 

Anne-Marie Varney April 2, 1979- March 30, 2015

As both a therapist and a two-time suicide loss survivor, there are a variety of topics that I hear on a daily basis from fellow survivors. My heart breaks for the amount of pain and torment a suicide brings to those still living. In response to this, I decided to write a book to address each of the issues in order to speak truth and give hope to other survivors. The book is written as both a therapist and a survivor and includes clinical information as well as my own personal experience. Hundreds of fellow survivors also contributed to the book by offering advice, tips, and encouragement. The book is called The Gift of Second: Healing from the Impact of Suicide and it will be available in October. (You can subscribe to this website to be kept up-to-date on the exact date the book will be released).

Below is a list of 5 things every survivor should know. Each one contains a small excerpt from the book.

1) It was not your fault. “I think we sometimes hold on to the guilt as our last sort of connection to our loved one. We often have a false belief that if we stop feeling guilty for not preventing the suicide, then we, by default, consent to it. It is simply not true. In one of the most beautiful pieces I have read on the subject of loss to suicide, LaRita Archibald writes in “Reinforcement in the Aftermath of Suicide”:

“To assume responsibility for this death, or to place responsibility upon another, robs the one who died of their personhood and invalidates the enormity of their pain and their desperate need for relief.”

We cannot accept responsibility or assume guilt for our loved one’s decision to end their life.”

2) Their suicide says nothing about you or your value. Often times survivors feel they have no worth or value if their loved ones could leave them permanently and sever the relationship. “Our loved ones were sick. They were dealing with mental illness, they felt hopeless, and they believed their lives had no value. They were in an incredibly dark place which we could not penetrate. Professionals could not save them, medicine did not cure them, and love from others couldn’t touch them. Their choice to die was their last solution to end the unimaginable physical and emotional pain they experienced every minute of every day. They were not intentionally trying to bring us pain but rather desperately trying to end their own. We will not condone suicide, but neither can we continue to take responsibility for it or allow it determine our own value.”

3) You are not alone! “Far too often we go through life alone, refusing to mention the suicide for fear of how others might react and what they may think, or fear of the emotions we may, ourselves, produce. It’s a shame that any of us would ever suffer in silence.” There are millions of fellow survivors worldwide and support groups are available almost everywhere both in-person and online. You are not alone. We understand the pain.

4) You don’t have to live with PTSD and the constant reminders of finding your loved one dead.

Finding our loved ones after they killed themselves can be scary, devastating, graphic, and traumatizing! “The trauma of a suicide does not end the day we bury our loved ones. Like the water in a ripple effect, after a stone has been tossed in, we continually feel and experience the consequences of that stone in our lives. To deny the impact is to deny ourselves. Recognize there is no shame in needing help. Often, the survivor becomes angry or sad their loved one did not seek help from family or professionals, but when it is time for us to seek help, we dismiss the need for assistance and suffer alone. A licensed psychologist or therapist, trained in trauma work and with a great understanding of PTSD, can dramatically improve a client’s life by working through the trauma with them.”

5) Self-Care is a Must! “If we are not consciously taking care of ourselves, something or someone will fill that void for us. This is a dangerous place to be. In his book, What to Do When the Police Leave: A Guide to the First Days of Traumatic Loss, Bill Jenkins writes, “It is very easy to see the allure of alcohol to dull the pain and the temptation to punish myself for something that is not my fault. But the sobering truth is that if I step onto the path of self-destruction, I know I will never come back. ” Taking care of ourselves is a must.

Yesterday, my four-year-old son and I were looking through a box of old pictures. When he saw one of my mother and I, when I was about the age he is now, he asked a question I’ve been anticipating for years, but was somehow unprepared to answer.

Where is Grandma Sue now?

“Well,” I said, “Grandma Sue is an angel.”

My son only knows death as the process by which one becomes an angel. I am not a religious man, but “Grandma Sue is an angel” was better than “Daddy doesn’t know,” and infinitely better than, “Grandma Sue died by suicide.”

“I know,” he said. “But why did she die?”

I didn’t want to lie, but couldn’t possibly broach the subject of suicide, not yet. After about 20 seconds, I figured out a gentle, but honest answer.

“Well…Grandma Sue was sick, and she didn’t get to the doctor in time to get the help she needed.”

I’ve heard the best way to learn something is to teach it. Explaining the loss of my mother in a way a four-year-old could understand helped me make more sense of it, and brought me a degree of peace I hadn’t experienced in the 20 years since she ended her life. It’s one thing to know suicide is one piece of a complex mental health puzzle, but it’s quite another to fully grasp what that says about the losses we’ve endured.

“Why she didn’t go to the doctor?” my son asked.

“Sometimes people don’t know they are sick, or they think they can get better by themselves. That’s why, if we don’t feel good, we should always let someone know.”

And that’s how I started what I hope will be a lifelong conversation with my son about family, love, and the importance of self-care.

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“The Sound of Silence- Helping Others After Suicide Loss“ originally appeared on Girlfriend’s Guide to Good Mental Health. If you would like to read more by Carol, you can check out her blog here. 

Ever since my son Charles died by suicide in June of 2015, I categorize everything as either before his death or after.

His death literally split my life in two and I am forever changed.

I still instinctively scan family photos taken after his death looking for him. And when I don’t see him I feel shock and ache that loss all over again.

I have always heard when you lose a limb it takes a while to get used to the fact it’s missing and you feel it’s still attached to the body and moving appropriately with other body parts. They call this a phantom limb. That’s how I feel sometimes about Charles. Phantom child.

My family of 4 is now 3 and it feels unnatural and incomplete. Learning to live without the person that was my purpose is probably the hardest part of my grief journey.

Before his death, I knew what I wanted to do and where I was headed.

Charles’ suicide triggered a complete about face and reassessment of my life.

Once I lost something precious to me, the reality that I was not exempt from tragedy inspired a fear that it could happen again.

I often feel untethered, like a kite cut loose, flapping uncontrollably in the wind. Those are the days I feel unsure of myself. That is often followed by a grief relapse after which I come back fighting.

Slowly I have gotten back on my feet and started to find myself. I fall backward still and I respect that I am not always the captain of this journey.

Things that meant a lot to me before, mean nothing now. My family has always been important. That hasn’t changed. But my purpose definitely has. And it changed the moment I heard the words, “Your son Charles killed himself.”

My mission as a mental health advocate is now a passion that I won’t give up until the day I die.

I can look at a person now and know they are hurting. I can instinctively pick up that someone else has lost a child. I reach out more. I am bolder about exposing my failures, my grief and my guilt as well as my joy.

Some days I feel worthless. Other days my heart is so full I swear it will burst.

When people ask if I have children I tell them my oldest child is living his dream as a filmmaker and that my youngest died by suicide and suffered from addiction and depression. I feel no shame. I honor my son’s struggle. I use the word suicide; I talk openly about my son that died.

I tell my friends I love them. I have wisdom that I didn’t have before. I stand up for people others dismiss. I push the envelope daily.

I tell my own story before audiences without fear or admonishment. I give back to help me fill that hole in my heart. I worry less about what others think. I stop and smell the roses. I hold onto hope despite having suffered the most devastating loss of my life.

I listen to others tell their stories because each and every one of them is important and woven into the tapestry of life.

I am determined what I do after his death will mean something. That from the ashes of despair will emerge a new person who will make a positive change.

I feel if I can survive this, I can do anything.

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To read more from Anne Moss, you can find her blog at Annemoss.

This article is difficult to write, because re-living the fresh pain of losing a loved one to suicide is not enjoyable. But, I feel compelled to put this out there, because it involves some of the most helpful and relevant advice I received after my sister died by suicide in May 2015. And when I talk about this with other survivors, it is always received with knowing nods of agreement. So, onward.

The days following Amanda’s suicide were a blur. I travelled by plane to be at the side of my family of origin including Amanda’s only child. One of the necessities in the wake of any loved one’s death, is the spreading of the news by various means: the obituary, Facebook, phone calls. In this case, Amanda had left strict instructions: no funeral, no wake, no grave, no headstone, only the scattering of ashes in a faraway city. We had to contact a lot of people.

Dianna’s sister, Amanda, as a small child.

It was almost immediately clear to me that the fact that Amanda died by suicide was going to influence how people reacted. Suicide is misunderstood, scary, taboo in our society. Often the deceased is judged as cowardly, selfish, ungrateful. Some religions teach that it is a ticket straight to hell. (Note: This historically-based opinion is categorically false.) Could there be a more uncomfortable subject?

In light of this, one of my surviving sisters shared with me some advice that she was given by a bereaved mother of a young man who had suicided months earlier. She was a long-time friend of but we had never expected to walk in her shoes. Her advice: “Appreciate the scraps.”

She gravely recounted that acts and words of compassion in the wake of her son’s suicide had been few and far between. She and her husband were well known in their community, so it was not for lack of friends. Was it for the reasons I listed earlier? Regardless, it was the truth. HER truth and soon to be mine, although I was yet unaware.

But I took it to heart and I am so glad I did. Because that attitude of painful but honest expectations helped keep me sane and aided in keeping relationships intact while I was grieving long and hard.

Appreciate the scraps of compassion.

Only a few notes of sympathy when everyone in my life was aware? Many thanks to that small cadre of souls. And shun the thought of “why don’t more people care?” Appreciate the scraps.

Words of acknowledgement when I ran into people who knew the story were so rare. I was often greeted by silence. For those who ventured to say “I’m so sorry” or took the time to mention Amanda by name, I was grateful. Appreciate the scraps.

Those who I thought of as close friends who initiated no contact at all? I understand it’s hard to know what to say. I will call YOU when I am feeling stronger and we can still be friends. Appreciate the scraps.

Hurtful comments? “You must have seen it coming.” “Suicide is so selfish.” “You’re her sister, you should have known.” “Isn’t it time to move on?” I’ll sweep them away into the back of my mind and replace them with the kinder thoughts I hear. Appreciate the scraps.

The well-intentioned but painfully inappropriate advice? They just don’t understand, but they care. Appreciate the scraps.

I’m not recommending that you lay down and give up. There is a time to advocate for suicide and mental health awareness, but for me, that was not the time. If your expectations are rooted in the reality of how suicide is treated by our society, you can more easily move through what could have been devastating encounters, or lack there-of.

And, the unexpected feasts are so much sweeter.

To the tattoo artist who listened to me cry and looked at pictures of Amanda as he penned her name on my arm, and then waived the fee? I will never forget you.

To the former coworker kindly met for coffee promptly after finding out, and then listened to the horrifying details for two hours while barely flinching? Your compassion has a place in my heart forever.

To my best friend and my Pastor who dropped everything the day I got the news, and managed every detail of my entire life for me and didn’t leave me alone for a moment? Both of you are precious gifts from heaven.

To my ex-husband and his wife who upheld the kids, went beyond the call of duty, and even presented me with a flower and cupcake on my birthday (as I still cried on my couch)? I will always be amazed at your reflection of God’s grace.

To my Pastor, whose door was open for months to listen and encourage as I grappled with one spiritual question after another? There were days I would have burst if I hadn’t been able to talk to you.

To the suicide grief group I found in a neighboring town? Words cannot describe what a relief it was to be surrounded by so many understanding hearts at my first meeting.

So I learned…

“Appreciate the scraps” …

But also …

Savor the feasts.

In memory of my sister, my heart, my Amanda.

I was fourteen when my Aunt Missy killed herself. It was the last day of June in Alabama when a police car pulled up to our new house, which was still under construction. I remember how hot those 2×4’s were, as they baked in the sun. Per the officer’s instructions, we loaded up in the minivan and drove down the hill to the fire station where my dad worked, so Mom could call her parents. Very few people had cell phones yet, and my Momma wasn’t one of them. I’ll never forget the way she screamed, “My sister!” as she dropped the grey receiver and it swung out and slammed back against the concrete wall, there in the lobby of Fire Station #1.

She’d been missing three days. And this wasn’t her first attempt. She’d had many episodes in recent years and as hard as my grandmother tried to help, there was nothing else anyone could do. Even with all the training I’ve taken and books I’ve read, I don’t think you can stop someone who is bound and determined to end their suffering. And even though we all carried the eerie expectancy of that dreaded phone call, my mom’s sister was dead, and my cousins had just lost their mother.

I was a pallbearer at the funeral. It was my first time to be a pallbearer, and carrying my aunt in her final resting place was an unusual burden to bear as a preteen. I remember letting go of the metal handles as we set her mauve casket down, my lip quivering as I turned around. I walked right into my Dad’s chest and sobbed as my head landed there.

Aunt Missy was my favorite aunt: tall, thin, blonde. Beautiful. She looked like she’d just walked off the set of The Dukes of Hazzard, and she had the most infectious laugh. I loved to stay at her house during the summer with my cousins, her daughters. We would play in their above ground pool until all day long and by the end of summer, we’d be as dark as a glass of iced tea. They lived just up the hill from my Grandparents’ house and we would walk along the dirt roads between the two houses, often.

In the immediate aftermath of her suicide, the days crawled by. I remember being visited by the associate pastor from our church and the question at the forefront of everyone’s mind was, “where is Missy spending eternity?” We’d heard mixed signals about what happens to someone who willfully kills herself. The days are blurred together in my memory, but the loss left a hole in my heart that only Aunt Missy could fill.

Eventually, life went on. Her birthday is still marked on the calendar at my mom’s house, and so is the day she died, year after year. Just last week, we shared tears and laughter, thinking back on the past nineteen years without her. But she’s not a topic of daily conversation anymore. Mom goes over and visits her grave on rare occasion. She never talks about it. She says she thinks of her sister when she sees a butterfly, but how often do you actually see a butterfly?

Aunt Missy was the only person I knew with mental illness, though no one ever called it that. I had never attended a funeral of a suicide victim before hers. For a fourteen-year-old, only very old people, like Papaw Thompson, died, unless they were sick with some rare illness. I never knew a brain could be ill.

As a teenager, I expected grief to be over in about six months. A year, max. Nobody tells you that grief can last a lifetime.

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“Suicide: One-Time Event, Lifetime of Grief” was originally written by Steve Austin for Patheos. To read more from Steve, check out his website, I Am Steve Austin.

Four days before Christmas, when I was seven, my mother suffered a devastating brain injury in an automobile collision. For the next six years, her recovery was an inspiration to everyone around her. She never regained her pre-accident self, but in many ways she became something better. I believed she was the toughest person in the world. Then, three days after my 13th birthday, she ended her life.

There is a lot of information out there about suicide. You can research the causes, the aftermath, prevention and coping techniques. But one thing you don’t understand until you experience it up close is the way that type of death affects the way you feel about the life lost, and about yourself.

I thought suicide was something that only happened to people who were mentally weak or selfish. When the toughest, most selfless person I knew took her life, it created a series of questions that only one person could answer, and she was gone.

Every birthday I’ve had for the last 21 years has been accompanied by the lingering cloud of the anniversary of my mother’s suicide. For most of those years, that meant focusing on my perceived shortcomings as a son.

Last year, I started volunteering for the local chapter of the AFSP. At the first meeting I was asked about my mother. I started to describe the circumstances of her death until I was stopped by the woman who leads the chapter.

“No, don’t tell me how she died. Tell me how she lived.”

That was such a turning point in my loss journey. Last week, I was able to celebrate my birthday with my wife and two young sons without the lingering cloud, because for the first time in two decades, I don’t see the anniversary as a time to focus on her death; I saw it as an opportunity to focus on her life. I don’t try to figure out what her death says about her or me. I think about her toughness and resilience, and the way she loved me while she was here. Because she, and all those we’ve lost, should be remembered for how they lived. That celebration makes it easier to attack the way they died, and try to prevent others from having to fight this battle.

The Gift of Second will be taking a vacation for the rest of July. We will return with new and wonderful content August 1st.

If you would like to share your story with us, we would love to have you. Just click the link on the bottom of the page that says, “Write For Us.”

Have a wonderful July.

When I was a kid, every 4th of July, my family and I would drive four hours north of Phoenix to a small town called Pinetop. About 100 family and friends gathered to play a weekend tournament of horseshoes. It was our most fun vacation each year because we got the chance to see our good friends and get out of the horrible July weather Phoenix is prone to! Also, it was a tradition our family had participated in for years and years, even before I was born.

My mom died July 12, 1991, and, in 1992, my family decided not to go to Pinetop because we feared we would get one million questions about my mom. The people attending the horseshoe tournament were from all over Arizona, so it was likely many had not even heard she had passed away, much less that it was a suicide. We stayed away from the tournament for years because it was too uncomfortable to go back. Our favorite family tradition was ruined!

In 2008, my fiance and I were looking for wedding venues and found the perfect place. We wanted to get married in July and the only dates they had available which also worked with our calendars were the 4th and the 12th. My fiance wanted the 12th because it was not a holiday and I told him there was no way I was sharing my wedding day with the anniversary of my mother’s suicide. We agreed on the 4th. 

I am so happy we chose to get married on the 4th. It feels like the beloved holiday my mom’s suicide stole the joy from all those years ago has been redeemed. What was once a painful day of looking back at what and who my family was missing is now a day of celebrating all that my life has become. Sometimes we feel guilty for moving on with our lives and we become stuck. The truth is, though, that our lives continue and we get to move forward living life. Our lives can and will be beautiful again if we allow it. July 4th was once an amazing and fun family tradition as a child until it became tainted and painful after the tragedy of my mom’s death. Today, it is beautiful again and worthy of much celebration with my husband and three kids! Happy Fourth of July!

My grandfather, Mendel Ham, grew up on a farm in rural South Carolina. Although racial inequality was rampant, I’ve been told that one of his best friends was an African-American farm hand. And that pretty much sums up my grandfather. The stares and jeers of others weren’t strong enough to break his spirit.

Throughout my childhood, Paw Paw, was a figure of strength in my life. He was my rock.

I didn’t know him as a young man, but I try to envision him approaching my grandmother to ask her on their first date. Or, as an eighteen-year-old marine, serving our country in Japan, which he once told me was the loneliest time of his life.

I only know about his younger days from the stories he shared over our weekly breakfast when I was in high school or the occasional reminiscing of my own father as he shares old family photos.

There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t thank God for those memories with my Paw Paw. Those memories are all that I have left. A year after his much-deserved retirement, Paw Paw began a battle with cancer that ravaged his body.

I remember the hope I felt when he told me, “When you finish your freshman year, I’ll be done with my treatments.” But that’s not how his story would end.

On Sunday morning, June 24, 2001, Paw Paw took his own life.

The Day I Saw My Rock Crumble

June 24, 2001 was a beautiful summer day in coastal North Carolina. I was home on summer break and had just left church with a friend, headed to the Goody Goody Omelet House for lunch. My cell phone rang. It was my mom and she was crying. Through her tears I heard, “Something has happened to Paw Paw.”

My friend and I rushed home. Before the car had come to a complete stop, I jumped out of the passenger seat and began running toward my parents who were in the garage. My father was pacing and seemed angry. He was shouting, but I couldn’t make out the words. My mom was frantically trying to comfort him and I was confused. The emotions were thick, like a heavy humidity that filled the air.

Somehow, in the midst of the hysteria, I heard someone say, “Paw Paw shot himself.”

The crushing weight of the news collapsed my knees from underneath me. I fell in our yard as confusion mixed with heartache to create a nauseating sensation. I wanted to yell. I wanted to cry. I wanted to throw up. Somewhere inside I hoped that this was all a mistake, that somehow, this wasn’t real.

In moments that seemed like hours, we learned that Paw Paw was still alive, but on life support. To this day, I’m not sure how I gathered the strength, but I went with my dad to see his father. Fear filled my young, nineteen-year-old mind, but I stood by my father as we went into the trauma unit to see Paw Paw.

The hallway to his room seemed endless, a never-ending pathway to a place I didn’t want to go. As we turned a corner, I saw him. Paw-Paw was lying on a bed, his life sustained by a breathing apparatus affixed to his mouth. His head was in bandages. His eyes were closed. The rhythmic beep of the heart rate monitor acted as a countdown timer. My grandfather was going to die.

I was simply an onlooker, able to experience the moment, but paralyzed from speaking. My father was in front of me, slowly approaching his dad. As he dropped to his knees, I gently placed my hand on his shoulder. I could feel his anger and his heartache on my fingertips.

Through questions and tears, I heard my dad say, “You were a great father.”

The memory of those words will forever be imprinted on my soul.

Shortly after that exchange, our pastor and friend, Tim Russell, came in to pray with us. We stood in a circle, our hands on each other’s shoulders, and we prayed for Paw Paw.

A few minutes later, the countdown timer stopped as the heart-rate monitor flatlined. My grandfather had taken his last breath.

Perspective in the Midst of Tragedy

For years these memories have haunted me—circumstances beyond my comprehension. And the more people I talk with, the more I realize that these stories exist for all of us.

Only in time have I come to realize: Sometimes questions have no answers.

The truth of that statement doesn’t make it any easier to write. I want answers. I want to know why. But I’m learning that maybe it’s not our purpose to have answers. Maybe it is our purpose to choose how we will respond when answers aren’t readily available. Maybe the answers we’re looking for will only be found through perseverance.

In these moments, we must recognize our ability to continue with strength that isn’t our own. It is in the valleys of life where God has taught me that He is my rock. And as I press into my faith, I’m reminded that I have been given a choice. These moments will define me, but I get to decide how.

I have come to realize that I have the power to carry on my grandfather’s legacy. I will remember him for who he was, not what he did.

As I think back now, Paw Paw and I had a little secret. We parted ways with a handshake almost every time we said goodbye. And hidden inside his weathered palm was a twenty-dollar bill. These handshakes, coupled with his soft chuckle, are the very thing I will hold on to.

His generous spirit gave me far more than twenty dollars with each handshake. He was passing on his legacy to me. And that is the legacy I will pass along to my sons. It is a legacy of strength mixed with gentleness, faith mixed with action, and joy in the midst of pain.

Whatever adversity you face today, I pray that you understand that you still have a choice to respond. In fact, your response has the power to create a legacy that will be a beacon of hope for those who are walking through the valley.

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“The Hardest Blog Post I’ve Ever Written” was originally written for mattham.com. To read more by Matt, head to his website or check out his book, Redefine Rich.

I lost my only sibling July 25, 2002. From that day forward I found myself grieving the loss of the memories that I longed to have. This impacts me to this day. I want to offer hope that you can become stronger through this loss. The number one thing I did after losing my brother to suicide was to journal. During the first six months after my loss, I often wrote my raw emotions. This was not easy. I now realize that it was courageous. It was necessary and so helpful. I don’t think I would be where I am today without my journals.

I find that it is difficult to continue to grieve the reality that I can’t have a relationship with my brother. I also realize that my current relationships are impacted by this loss. I find that I am not satisfied with surface level conversation. I want that deep relationship. Not everyone understands this and it is difficult to communicate.

The greatest hope I have to offer those who are recently going through a suicide loss is the idea that each of us go through  loss at a different pace. We can’t rush things. I realized that I needed to go through my emotions. Sometimes this was incredibly difficult.

An illustration that really helps me think about this is the effort that it takes for a new highway to be built that needs to go through a mountain. I can only imagine how much effort and specific attention is needed to make that happen. This is similar to my own journey through this grief. It isn’t easy. It isn’t pretty. No one wants to do the work, but I’m the only one who can do it.

If I could only share two things that helped me in my journey I would talk about the importance of journaling and how important exercise was to my recovery. I didn’t always want to go for a walk or run, but it was very helpful in providing the energy to do the rest of my life.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was on the summer break before my senior year of college. It rocked my world and almost immediately took away my energy. Any type of exercise helped provide the energy and the strength to do what I needed in my classes.

Going back to college and finishing school was a great decision for me. I believe that if I would have stayed at home I would have felt sorry for myself and I would have been stuck in my grief. Taking that step and going to back to school even if it meant I needed to drop a few classes so I could make it through was worth it.

I know that my choice to go through, not around, my grief and my emotions is what helped me to become who I am today. My mission in life is to help those who are going through suicide loss.

I am a therapist and I am in the final process of writing my memoir called Sibling Suicide: Journey from Despair to Hope to be released in September 2016.

Today I was reading a bit of Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott and found this paragraph that speaks so pure and honest of the way grief works in our lives. I thought I would share it with you all as it is so fitting for many.

“The depth of the feeling continued to surprise and threaten me, but each time it hit again and I bore it, like a nicotine craving, I would discover that it hadn’t washed me away. After a while it was like an inside shower, washing off some of the rust and calcification in my pipes. It was like giving a dry garden a good watering. Don’t get me wrong: grief sucks; it really does. Unfortunately, though, avoiding it robs us of life, of the now, of a sense of living spirit. Mostly I have tried to avoid it by staying very busy, working too hard, trying to achieve as much as possible. You can often avoid the pain by trying to fix other people; shopping helps in a pinch, as does romantic obsession. Martyrdom can’t be beat. While too much exercise works for many people, it doesn’t for me, but I have found that a stack of magazines can be numbing and even mood altering. But the bad news is that whatever you use to keep the pain at bay robs you of the flecks and nuggets of gold that feeling grief will give you. A fixation can keep you nicely defined and give you the illusion that your life has not fallen apart. But since your life may indeed have fallen apart, the illusion won’t hold up forever, and if you are lucky and brave, you will be willing to bear disillusion. You begin to cry and writhe and yell and then to keep on crying; and then, finally, grief ends up giving you the two best things: softness and illumination. “

How about you? What are you doing to avoid the pain? Better yet, what are you doing to walk THROUGH the pain? It’s a tough road, for sure, but if we don’t face it head-on, it will only swallow us whole eventually.

July is PTSD Awareness Month and I couldn’t be more excited to bring some education and truth to the subject. Most people are unaware of what it is exactly and reserve the diagnosis for those in the military coming back from war. And even then, it is hardly talked about and treatment is rarely sought because it seems ‘weak.’

A large number of folks I have spoken with have downplayed their symptoms because they were either unaware their symptoms were serious or they felt ashamed and embarrassed they couldn’t just ‘get over’ the trauma. So, instead of reaching out for help, they continue to unnecessarily suffer. Here are some questions to ask yourself pertaining to the trauma.

Do you have continued thoughts or memories related to the event?

Do you have recurring dreams about the event?

Do you have flashbacks of the trauma?

Do you have a difficult time when anything triggers a memory of the event?

Do you try to avoid thinking about the trauma or avoiding memories of it?

Do you try to avoid people, places, conversations, objects, or activities that are associated with the trauma?

Do you have a difficult time remembering details of the trauma?

Do you have negative beliefs about yourself such as ‘I am bad’ or ‘people are untrustworthy’?

Do you blame yourself for the trauma?

Are you in a continued state of feeling guilt, shame, anger, fear, or horror?

Do you have less interest in activities you used to enjoy?

Do you find it difficult to experience love, joy, happiness, satisfaction?

Are you have difficulty sleeping?

Do you have difficulty concentrating?

Do you have anger outbursts?

Are you in a constant state of worrying about something bad happening?

Do you behave recklessly or engage in self-destructive behavior?

 Did you answer ‘yes’ to some of these questions?

If some of the above symptoms resonate, it is important to seek professional help. As much as we would love to believe these signs will disappear with time, the reality is the opposite. As time progresses, without proper treatment, the symptoms will only intensify. These indicators will eventually make it difficult to even function in life. Far too often, a level of shame enters into our being. We stop talking about it and begin to isolate from others. Once we isolate, we have little to no resources in place and life becomes unnecessarily difficult. There is help available, though, and it is critical to seek it out. Please recognize there is no shame in needing help.

Michel Templet wrote, “Always remember, if you have been diagnosed with PTSD, it is not a sign of weakness; rather, it is proof of your strength because you have survived!”

When I was little my father had a magic trick. He would light a cotton ball on fire and put it in his mouth to extinguish the flame.  It never failed to impress.

Then one day, an actor who was famous at the time for his role in Grizzly Adams had an accident. A flaming drink set fire to his beard and he was hospitalized with severe burns. News of that accident caused my father, who also had a beard & mustache, to stop performing his magic trick. It turns out that trying to swallow fire could be far more dangerous than he believed.

I think of that trick often these days as I reflect on my father’s suicide. Depression is the flame not extinguished when swallowed. Rather, it grows and festers in the darkness. And in time, it was the depression that consumed my father. Like a sweeping brushfire its power was overwhelming, it progressed too fast to be put out. Anxiety, an added accelerant, fanning the flames, further & higher. A wildfire bent on destruction of spirit and soul. Still, he kept the full truth of it contained.

No, depression is not meant to be swallowed. It needs to be exposed to the light. Because left to smolder on the inside, its flame will smother the embers of hope and ignite despair.

Once upon a time my father knew that swallowing fire could be dangerous. Until one day, it was the fire that devoured him. And we who loved him most are left standing in the ashes.

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Swallowing Fire was originally written by Deborah Greene for Reflecting Outloud. Check out her site for other great pieces written by a fellow survivor. Thanks, Deborah! 

I contented myself with whiskey, for medicinal purposes. It helped numb my various aches and pains. Not that the alcohol actually reduced the pain; it just gave the pain a life of its own, apart from mine.- Haruki Murakami

Dealing with the death of a child is difficult enough.  Make that death a suicide, and for many, the pain becomes unbearable and they look for ways to cope.  When I talked about dealing with depression at a recent Community Forum, I talked about the signs of depression and how eating too much or too little, as well as the abuse of alcohol and drugs, can play a role in the battle to dull the pain.  For me, I turned to whiskey and milkshakes.

As a staff, we were excited when they opened a Chik Fil A in front of the school.  Now we had access to decent fast food within walking distance. Their salads sustained me on days when I forgot, or was too lazy, to make my lunch.  It was easy for me to walk over during my conference period, grab a salad and store it in the fridge in the coach’s office until lunch. Unfortunately, it also meant I was within walking distance of their milkshakes, one of my biggest vices.  After Peyton’s death, their milkshakes became a crutch for me.

The days and weeks after Peyton’s death were a fog for me.  I worked, coached, picked up my daughter, and went home. Some days I don’t remember, others, I don’t want to remember. After particularly bad days (and there were a lot of those), I would swing through the drive-thru and buy a shake, usually a large cookies ‘n cream. It became almost a habit. It got to the point that when I picked up Emmy, she would look in the cup holder to see if I bought a shake that day. For a while, I bought one almost every day. It helped me ease the pain as I escaped into the cold, frosty goodness.

One day, I stepped on the scale and realized that I had been eating my feelings. It wasn’t just shakes, but other sweets and fatty foods that gave me momentary release from the pain. I knew what I had been doing, but never did anything to stop it. I knew exercise would have helped, but I chose to go the other way and ate and ate and ate. Maybe it was comfort in a full belly or that tired feeling that helped take away my anxiety. Regardless of the reason, I knew it was time to make a change.

The rational part of my brain told me to get off my ass and exercise, which I did. Once track season was over, I used my downtime to run, or I took Earl the Fat Corgi for walks. The emotional part of my brain told me that the exercise was helping, but not enough, and if I wasn’t going to drown my pain in milkshakes, then I needed something else. Enter whiskey.

I have never been one to down shot after shot. In my younger, dumber days, I was not above taking a slug straight from a bottle to prove just how stupid macho I was, but I never developed a taste for hard liquor until later in life. I began with vodka chilled and moved on to brown liquors, particularly whiskey.  I developed a taste for single malt Scotch and single barrel whiskey. I also learned to appreciate sipping rather than shooting it. I discovered that it took a while for me to down a couple of fingers of my favorite brown water either neat or on the rocks. Often I would take my drink to the back yard where I could sit by myself and be alone with my thoughts. Unfortunately, when those thoughts turned to Peyton, the drink went down a little faster in order to dull the pain. Whatever brief respite I got from the emotional pain would vanish soon enough, and the pain would be back, often with a vengeance.

I finally decided I needed to concentrate more on ways to deal with my pain that didn’t make me fat or kill brain cells. First of all, I went back into therapy. I know this is not something I can go through alone. I tried therapy once, but felt that I had gotten as far as I could with that therapist and stopped, but as time moved on, I realized I needed more. I threw myself into my writing, especially my blog. It gave me not only an outlet for my pain but also a platform to call out what I see as problems in how our society deals with mental illness and suicide, especially in schools. I also escaped into books. The writings of Brad Thor, Brad Taylor, Ace Atkins, and others allowed me to not only escape into another world but to also hone my own style as a writer. I submerged myself into Netflix, especially DareDevil, Jessica Jones, The Flash, Arrow, and Peyton’s favorite The Walking Dead. When I spend my time hoping Pike Logan will save the world, or will Quinn Colson keep law and order in Tibbehah County, or who Negan was beating up during the season finale, I don’t delve into the pain.

I made the mistake of letting my grief get away from me the first time. I don’t plan on allowing that to happen again. My heart and my liver can’t handle it to begin with. If I take care of myself physically, it actually helps with the mental aspect of recovery. Yes, there are times I spend too much time reading or watching TV, but the alternative is worse. I still grieve on a daily basis. Not all days are good, and not all days are bad. On the bad days, I try to find a constructive way to take away the pain. I read, write, or watch. It’s not perfect, but I know by now that whiskey and milkshakes don’t dull the pain.

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‘Whiskey and Milkshakes Don’t Dull the Pain’ was originally written for Peyton’s Heart. David writes over there regularly about suicide, the impacts of it, and how we can better respond as a society. Check out his site for more. 

My husband Troy took his life when our daughter was 16 months old. We stayed in a hotel for 10 days, moved into a new apartment and did the best we could to move forward. She was only slightly verbal at that point so the extent to which she understood what was happening, was her walking around saying “dada” and looking for him in the usual places. I told her “daddy’s not here” and that seemed to placate her.

I started driving his car and she’d say, “dada’s car” whenever we’d get in and I’d tell her, “yep, mommy is driving daddy’s car.” Around this time the car song game started to become a part of our routine. She’d yell out a word and I’d make up a silly song about whatever that word was, “grandma”, “milk”, “baby”, whatever, all to the same tune, of course, because I’m just not that creative. One day she asked me to sing “the dada song” and I was gutted. I had promised him though when we did the viewing before he was cremated, that I would tell her about him every day, so I took a deep breath, and came up with a song to tell her about her daddy. The first dozen times she requested it, it made me want to puke, but I sang it all the same. She eventually stopped asking.

I had enough child development classes to know that children will ask questions to the degree to which they can understand. I had been telling her, “daddy’s not here” when she’d been obviously concerned about where he was, and that was enough, until the day it wasn’t. 

I don’t even really remember what she asked or said, but I remember it was right before her second birthday and I just knew that “daddy’s not here” wasn’t cutting it. I held her in my lap and said something to the effect of, “we’re not going to see daddy anymore”. And I watched as our beautiful perfect child had her world collapse. She cried and cried and cried, and I held her and did all that I could not to throw up. I composed myself and told her, “it’s okay to be sad, mommy feels sad too.” As time went on, I’d repeat, “we’re not going to see daddy anymore”, “it’s okay to feel sad, mommy feels sad too” and “even though we can’t see him, we can feel his love” and “we can talk about daddy and look at his pictures.”

I saw a therapist specializing in children and loss the week after I told her that we weren’t going to see her daddy anymore. I saw her for a few sessions on my own to insure that I was saying the right things and she assured me that I was. She told me that children don’t understand death until about 4, and to, as I had done, answer her questions to the extent that she asked them.

Around this time, I put up all the pictures of him in her room. When we’d moved I had stashed them in the closet but hanging them in her room seemed like the right place for them. The wedding photos and all the photos of us together were hung. It became our ritual. When she’d get upset, we’d go to her room and I’d tell her a story about her dad. Sometimes when she was sad about daddy, and I told her I was sad too, she’d say, “don’t worry mama, we can look at his pictures.” 

And of course, my beautiful, sweet strong little 2 1/2 year old girl has an extraordinary emotional bandwidth. She picks up on how others are feeling. She can tell you when she’s mad, sad, frustrated, nervous, happy etc., and ask you how you’re feeling and respond appropriately. All very good things that I’m so proud of. 

But the books and the research says 4. Kids don’t understand death until 4. And tonight, my sweet child asked me where her dad was. She asked if he was at work. And I tried what I had been saying, “we’re not going to see daddy anymore”, “it’s okay to be sad, it makes mommy sad too, but we can talk about him and look at his pictures.”

I looked back at her face reflecting in the mirror positioned in front of her car seat and she said, “I want my daddy to come out of the pictures.”

Me too sweet girl, me too.

As another May comes to a close I have decided that this year I will do something different. This year I will use my experience and emotions to help others. Most people know that May is Mental Health month, but what most people don’t know is May 7^th was the day my little brother was born. This year that beautiful boy would have turned 30 years old but, instead, he will forever be 19.  It will be 11 years this August since we lost him to suicide. May always seems to weigh a little bit heavier on my shoulders. It is something that others cannot always understand. I can honestly say thank goodness they have not had to experience this same type of loss. When May 7^th comes around each year there is an empty pit in my stomach and I often feel like that day somehow has more than 24 hours in it because the hours seem to pass by so slowly. Friends and loved ones often say, “Don’t be sad, he wouldn’t want that,” or “We should celebrate. He would have wanted that,” or “It has been so many years- it should be easier now.” I forgive these comments because I know they are not said to hurt me. They are said because people just don’t know what to say. I can’t blame them and I know that now. I wish every year I could go out and buy him a birthday present.  I often wonder if he were still alive what things would he have wanted for his birthday. Would he still have been a music lover and wanted an iTunes card? Would he have bought his own car shop or wood-working shop and needed something for his work?  I satisfy my need to get him a present by buying a balloon and writing him his birthday card, which I watch drift up into the sky and get smaller and smaller as it makes its way to its destination. And I can’t help but smile knowing that wherever he may be he will never go a year without receiving a birthday card from me.

As a survivor of suicide, we are often faced with these types of specific dates that trigger a flood of emotions. We are also faced with questions that trigger these feelings as well, but they are probably not the questions that you are thinking of. I love meeting new people and am one of those people that, from a very young age, could strike up a conversation with anyone around me.  As an adult, I talk to strangers differently now and am more cautious about the themes I choose to ask about or the way I choose to answer. When I meet someone new, those simple questions people often ask make me cringe and I find myself assessing the person and situation to see how to answer. A question like, “How many siblings do you have?” or “Is your sister your only sibling?” can make my heart pound a little faster. Of course I have more than just my sister and I always will, but the line of questioning that follows and the awkward silence at the end can be deafening.  There have been times when I just say ‘yes, I only have a sister’ because I can’t handle, “How old is your brother?” When people find out he passed away, they then ask, “Oh how old was he when he died?” Then, when they learn he was young, they ask, “What did he die from?” And finally from more people than you would think the unthinkable question, “How did he do it?” or “Did your family know what was going on and try to help?”  It is amazing how many people ask that but they really do. Like I want to spill all the horrible details about the worst day of my life for all to hear when I first meet someone. This is the point in the conversation where it abruptly dies and crickets can be heard in the silence. This is also the point where I get THE LOOK. Those who have lost someone by suicide know which look I am speaking of. The look where they are judging, questioning and at a loss for words.

The stigma behind suicides is real. I did not have a horrible childhood; in fact, it was actually just the opposite. My siblings and I were very fortunate and grew up in a loving home with two supportive parents. We went on family vacations, had water fights in the backyard, and snuggled on the couch on Christmas day to watch movies we got from Santa. We supported my brother in every way possible. He was in and out of treatment but nothing made him feel better. I remember borrowing different cell phones at night from friends in my dorm when I was away at college just so he would pick up an unlisted number and I could hear his voice and see how he was doing. When someone dies by suicide so many people ask, “Didn’t he/she see that so many people loved them?” and the answer is no. Depression is an illness and they are not able to see that love. They are not able to shake it off. They are not able to think of their families or their children because the thought of getting themselves out of bed in the morning is unbearable.  The question, “Why didn’t their family do more to help them?” You can’t help someone who doesn’t want the help. We would not ask these questions about someone who has decided to no longer receive treatments for their cancer, so why does it change when it comes to depression? I hope and pray for a day that the stigma no longer exists. A day when talking about my wonderful and beautiful little brother does not stop the conversation like a needle coming to a scratching halt on a record. It has taken a long time to be able to share all of this, but I do it to support all those who struggle with mental illness and for all the families who have gone through what I have. I know wherever my brother Stevie Joe is right now he is no longer suffering and he is with me every day in everything that I do. I know when I started reading other people’s experiences it helped me heal and know that I was not alone. I hope that this helps others know they are not alone either. Happy Birthday, Baby Boy!

I can count the number of times I’ve been angry on one hand. Since I’m almost 51 years old and I have raised five children, most would see that as an accomplishment or evidence of extraordinary self-control. However, I know the truth. And the truth is that I am afraid of anger. I am afraid of losing control.

A little over a year ago, I awoke to the news that my “baby sister” and “best friend” had shot herself the night before. She had not survived. I live over 800miles away from my family of origin; my pastor and my best friend arrived at my house within the hour. The first day’s emotions were intense sadness, shock, confusion, pain, and denial. I attended to the mechanics of finding each of my children and telling them in person. I made arrangements to travel for her funeral. I cried. A lot.

The following days, weeks and months, I was in survival mode. Not just for myself, but for my children, my parents, my sister’s child and my extended family. I couldn’t manage this and my demanding job so I resigned. I experienced a myriad of emotions that summer, fall and winter: abandonment, pain from missing her, intense sadness for what she went through, guilt for missing the signs, responsibility for keeping my family afloat, heartbreak for my parents, fear of losing another family member, shame as I discovered the double life my sister had been living, despair and wondering if I even wanted to go on, and finally, determination to do so. I cried every day, at least once and usually more, for months.

While all of this was normal, I never experienced any anger. Part of me wondered why I didn’t, as it seemed to be at least a portion of what “everyone else” was going through. And it was widely reported in suicide survivor literature. It was around ten months after her death that something shifted.

One day, I was at the post office and saw a woman from my suicide support group. I hadn’t been there for several months and I didn’t think she’d recognize me, so I just observed her. I came to the realization that, even if I didn’t know her story, I would have known just by looking at her that she carried a huge burden. It was almost visible like Santa’s bag, but not stuffed with goodies. As I descended the stairs to my car, I suddenly knew that I, too, was carrying this burden. I loved my sister more than my own life, but the memory of how she left this world had become a huge weight on my shoulders that I carried everywhere. I said to myself, “my sister has become a bag of bricks.” And for the first time, I felt angry.

I went to my therapist a few days later and announced it because it was a new feeling and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. It felt wrong to be mad at a deceased person, especially one who had experienced so much pain and despair that they took their own life. My therapist sagely asked, “How does your anger hurt your sister?” And I realized it did not. It did not hurt anyone. Handled properly, it was probably necessary.

I gave myself permission to be angry at her. I made a long list of the “bricks” I was carrying. Anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide knows the reality that comes with not only the emotional issues but the logistical issues that remain after saying goodbye. A good example is that I had left a lucrative job in the weeks of pain that followed. I turned this over in my head and pondered all of it. Finally I gave myself permission to express it out loud. First, to my mom when she was expressing her anger to me. “I feel like I was climbing the same mountain of life with Amanda, and then she suddenly gave me a kick which sent me reeling down the mountain, before she herself jumped off a cliff.” That summed it up. We had both been battling depression, recovering from ugly divorces, struggling with money, re-entering the workforce. Together. And then she left, in a way that set me back years. That sucked!!

As the calendar turned and a full 365 days had passed, I was able to know that I was not “stuck” in my grief. That slowly, I was making progress. And, awash in tears, I realized that, for me, letting myself experience anger was part of that.

In memory of my amazing sister Amanda,

I made the following video for the Huffington Post to share with the general public in regards to joking about suicide. It seems these jokes impact all of us as survivors so I thought I would try to educate folks in honor of May being Mental Health Awareness month.

You can check out the video here. 

What do you think about when you hear the term “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?” The first thing I think about is the military. We so often hear about our veterans returning home from war with symptoms of PTSD. We are also all aware that this untreated PTSD often leads to suicide. But, what we do not often think about is PTSD experienced by survivors in the aftermath of a suicide. In fact, I believe that PTSD after a suicide is more prevalent than we think.

The National Institute of Mental Health states that, “PTSD develops after a terrifying ordeal that involved physical harm or the threat of physical harm. The person who develops PTSD may have been the one who was harmed, the harm may have happened to a loved one, or the person may have witnessed a harmful event that happened to loved ones or strangers.”  Essentially, PTSD can develop after someone experiences a traumatic event. I think it is important to discuss the trauma associated with suicide in order to identify how PTSD can develop in survivors.

The night my father took his life, my sister was the one to be notified. Around midnight, two policemen and a grief specialist rang her doorbell. Her husband quickly jumped out of bed, bewildered by who could be at the door at such a late hour. My brother-in-law answered the door while my sister stood on the stairs. She quickly ran to the door when the policemen asked, “Does the daughter of Robert L. live here?” She has expressed to me the pain and shock she experienced when the men told her that our father had taken his life. I flew back to Colorado shortly after receiving the call from my sister. I remember sitting up with her those nights following my father’s death. We were both somewhat creeped out and could not figure out why. My sister expressed to me the sickness she felt when she looked at her front door, and the fear she had that more bad news would come to her front door if she fell asleep. She discussed the jumpy feeling she had when someone rang the doorbell. I remember her saying, “It’s like I have PTSD, but how is that possible?”  It is possible because my sister and I both just experienced a traumatic event. Something happened in our lives that would forever alter our path. The world as we knew it had changed.

My sister and I played detective after my father’s death. I am ok without knowing the details; in fact, knowing them makes it that much harder for me. My sister, however, needed to know every last detail.  Within a week of my father’s death, we knew the gun he used, where and when he purchased it, where he was sitting, the angle of the gun, etc. You name it, we knew it. Talk about trauma! There isn’t a movie out there that could make me feel so ill. Why did we do this to ourselves? Because we wanted answers. As a survivor, you are always searching for answers that often do not exist. This search can expose you to more pain and trauma than the suicide itself.  Experiencing this level of trauma can ignite symptoms of PTSD.

I did not speak to the pain and trauma experienced by those who may have witnessed or been the one to find their loved one.  I have never been one to pretend to understand something that I simply cannot. I can only speak to my own experiences. What I can say as a licensed therapist is the risk of having symptoms of PTSD is greater for those who were a witness or found their loved ones. I want to also pass along the signs and symptoms of PTSD for those who are unsure if what they are experiencing is PTSD. You can read them by clicking that highlighted link.

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, please know that you are not alone. Know that what you are experiencing is a normal reaction after you lose a loved one to suicide. I encourage everyone to speak with a licensed professional when they feel ready. And if at first you don’t succeed, try again. Remember you are paying them, they aren’t paying you.  So, if you do not feel a connection with the person who is treating you, don’t keep going. There are plenty of great therapists out there!

This piece was originally written for Our Side of Suicide. Jessica is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and the co-creator of Our Side of Suicide. It is a fantastic site and worth checking out to relate to other survivors.

Talking about your story will help you heal.  Being in a suicide-focused grief support group will help you heal.  Finding and talking with a counselor or therapist will help you heal.  Those things are healthy and good, and I recommend you do those things as you heal from the loss and navigate your grief.

Today I want to point out that there is something that is being done on The Gift of Second website that I believe is helpful in a different way: sharing stories.  I want to tell you why these stories matter.

The day I lost my brother to suicide, a family member gave my parents the book called No Time to Say Goodbye by Carla Fine.  In that book, there are numerous stories with various experiences losing a loved one to suicide.  The stories were all so very different.  There were all kinds of ways that suicide took place, how that person was found, and reactions to the suicide.  There were people in the book who were extremely open with others about their loved one’s suicide.  But there were also people in the book who had never shared about their loss to people who were very close to them, who had been in their lives for years.  Knowing that gave me permission to choose how I shared with others about my brother’s death.

Reading such a big variety of stories helped me.  Hearing stories that I didn’t identify with at all was even helpful.

Here’s the common thread about stories: They are all complicated, messy, and always unique.  God created us all unique.  Because every single person is different, their suicide story will be different.

There is comfort in knowing that we are not alone in suffering this type of loss, a loss of a loved one to suicide, but there is also comfort in the knowing that our loved one and the circumstances around their death are unique.

We might think that what we have gone through in this loss is too weird or too morbid or too strange.  Look long enough and you will find a story more “weird,” “morbid,” or “strange.”

We might think that our reaction to our loved one’s death was not normal.  As we hear others stories, we see that there isn’t a normal reaction to suicide.  Reactions run the spectrum of possible reactions because the world contains a full spectrum of personalities and feelings.

I felt better about my own story as I saw not only similarities with other in their loss, but differences with others in their loss.

These stories helped me get to a healthy place.

Coming to the Gift of Second for posts from others who have survived a suicide, I sometimes find stories that I can relate to and I sometimes find stories I don’t relate to.  I find comfort in both because there is comfort in knowing that we are not alone, but there is also comfort in knowing that both our lost loved one and ourselves are individuals, uniquely created.

Stories matter.

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Today’s post is written by Jennifer Lane. To read more from Jennifer, please check her out at Jenniferllane.

My dad made a decision that would forever change MY life. My whole life was destroyed. My world was turned upside down. My heart was shattered. My chances of making new memories with him were over. My, my, my…

I couldn’t see past these thoughts. I was consumed with how much my life was affected, that I didn’t even notice my husband was grieving the loss of his father-in- law. When I finally stepped out of the “my” fog, I felt incredibly selfish that I had taken a chance away from my husband to grieve with me. I’m not great at opening up about my emotions and thought I should grieve on my own in private. When I made that decision, I then made a choice that affected more than just myself. I realized I was no different than my father in that way.

My husband needed me to let him in so that we could grieve together. Not only did he need me, but I needed him as well and hadn’t even realized it. I wasn’t strong enough to grieve alone and make it out on the other side. My staying silent tore us apart. There was this giant cloud looming over us that neither would acknowledge.

Over a year went by and we were still stuck in the same place. He couldn’t mention my dad without me instantly breaking down in tears and completely shutting down. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him because I felt it would show weakness. The thing was, I was weak. I was emotionally exhausted. I was burnt out on trying to hide my tears. I woke up one morning and realized that this was not how we should be coping with my dad’s suicide. That’s when the words started pouring out. When I couldn’t say anything else, my husband started talking. I realized that he was feeling a lot of the same emotions I was. We were BOTH angry. We were BOTH confused. Most of all, we were BOTH heartbroken. Hours went by and eventually, our tears turned to laughter. We began reminiscing about my dad. We told stories that neither of us had heard before. I finally understood that my husband had a unique bond with my dad, and it was unfair of me to downplay his grief.

Making that decision to open up was one of the best things I could have done. I don’t regret trying to grieve on my own. It’s just who I am. I try to fix everything first, and if I can’t, then I call in reinforcements. I just wish I wouldn’t have waited so long to let him in. We did need each other to make it through such a difficult time. Letting him in also gave me a chance to learn about a different side of my dad. Sure, I spent 20 years of my life with him, but I didn’t have the same kind of relationship with him that they had.

Drew knew my dad in the same way a son would. It was the little things that they did that made an impact. Drew would invite my dad along to get a haircut and grab a beer. I can honestly say that those are things I would have never thought about doing with my dad. They would work on the Mustang together, and enjoy it. I’m pretty sure my dad would pretend to enjoy me being out there with him, but I mostly complained when it came to working on the car. Drew was able to fill a void in my dad’s life that no one else could, and for that, I will be forever grateful to my husband. I know my dad looked up to him and told me numerous times that he was so happy I found someone like Drew to spend my life with.

Drew and I have since been able to have conversations about my dad together. At times, we still cry together when we speak of him. He was a huge part of our lives and still is. My dad somehow makes his way into our conversations almost daily. We finally enjoy talking about him. Sometimes it’s just memories or laughing about little things my dad would say or do, but occasionally, we like to imagine what our future would have been like if he hadn’t made the choice to leave. It’s refreshing to have someone to share these moments with, especially since suicide has become so taboo in society. I have noticed that I tend to make people uncomfortable when I mention my dad. I don’t do it out of anything except habit. It’s become natural to me to bring him up. My hope is that others will be able to feel comfortable with talking about their loved ones who chose suicide. We shouldn’t feel ashamed of a decision they made, nor should we stray away from the topic.

Ashley Gamble writes over at Riding Without Dad. You check out her blog for weekly posts about her journey after losing her dad to suicide. 

There was a moment as soon as I found out that my mom had committed suicide where time stood still. I’ve never experienced anything like the loud ringing in my ears that came seconds after hearing the news. I clenched my ears as hard as I could, trying to drown out the deafening noise that left a migraine for days long after it stopped. For hours that night, I found myself staring at walls, switching between utter brokenness and complete numbness. I went through every stage of grief within minutes and found myself circling right back to denial every time.

I will forever regret ignoring my mom’s phone call the day of her suicide. I probably wouldn’t have known what was going on, let alone been able to change her mind, but just telling her “I love you” one more time might somehow help my grieving process.

Despite the regret of not answering her call, I quickly learned how far adrenaline can carry you in the beginning of grieving. Some part of me thought that the faster I ran, the sooner I would reach the finish line of this whole process. Perhaps I could just bypass it altogether if I stayed busy enough. I quickly realized, though, that no matter how fast I run, reality always catches up.

One of the hardest things to process has been my lack of anger over the entire situation. So many other loved ones seem to be angry, and I believe that they have every right to be. It seems like everyone else wants me to be angry with them though. As if knowing I am angry is easier than knowing I am simply broken. However, even after 5 months and a lot of genuine self-reflection, anger just simply isn’t there. A lot of people keep telling me it’s ok to be angry, but surprisingly, I’ve had to keep telling myself it’s also ok if I’m not.

I used to think suicide is so selfish. I still do, to be honest. But so am I. On my best, happiest, most clear-headed days, I am selfish. In little ways and big ways… intentional and unintentional… I make decisions every day that are all about me. I’m not proud of that, but I know there is grace for me in those moments. So when I am selfish even on a great day, I cannot possibly expect someone to be selfless on the darkest, most desperate day of their life. I cannot be angry that in a very confused and lonely state, she was imperfect. I must have grace for that. And I’ve found that allowing her to be imperfect and selfish during such a vulnerable time has given me a lot of freedom, and it has kept anger from robbing me of my joy.

Please know that I am in no way minimizing suicide at all or saying that loved ones have no right to feel anger and betrayal. The trail of brokenness that this has left behind is immeasurable. The guilt, what if’s and confusion is overwhelming. I simply want to highlight the fact that how my mom passed is not at all what I’m focusing on. It does makes the sting deeper and the list of questions longer, but I get to choose how I remember her.

So I choose laughter. I choose dancing. I choose memories of the mother who made me who I am today, and I am honored to be like her in so many ways. I choose to remember my mom as she was before getting so physically and mentally ill. She was little, but with the biggest personality you could imagine. A woman who lit up every room she entered and made people feel better about themselves by loving them so well.

I know I won’t ever “finish” or be fully done with the grieving process. But I also know there is a day ahead with no more nightmares. No more living in a constant state of nausea. No more “If only’s” or guilt or shame. I have no idea how far away that day is, but I certainly know now that sprinting isn’t going to get me there.

The way my mom left this life does not negate the way in which she lived it. And she lived it beautifully. Mom… You are loved, cherished, forgiven and missed deeply. I hold onto the hope that you are finally free of all pain.

Darnell Young writes over at It’s Only a Tent. Feel free to stop by and see her other posts. It is a great website. 

Our last labor and delivery was completely silent. A void of sound so deep, only someone born hearing, now deaf, could fathom. No beep of monitors, family chatter, or happy banter with the nurses. Our Ruby Claire slipped silently from me. We had 20 weeks of pregnancy with our precious daughter. This May, she would have turned 6.

I was thinking of her today, as I often do. I realized that I didn’t quickly change the subject in my mind. I was thinking of her, all the way back from the store, and..I could still breathe! I was no longer immobilized by my grief. It changed nothing about the heartbreak; my love for her didn’t diminish in any way as a result. The importance of her life didn’t lessen with the sharpness of her loss. But, I had released the guilt that was a part of our story. Mine and my daughter’s. Mine and my sister’s.

My sister, Shannon, flew in soon after we had lost Ruby Claire. I wrote a poem, The One Who Came, I have no idea where that is. The faith I had relied on to paint lovely pictures of my daughter’s heavenly home, had crumbled. I didn’t share a lot with her. Only the poem, and the tiny wrap they had put Ruby Claire in. We sat on my bed and smoothed that little scrap of satin and lace, a piece of someone’s wedding gown. Did you know, there is a special cabinet on maternity wards? It holds disposable cameras for photos many will not be able to develop. Hand-sewn wraps, in all of heartbreak sizes.

I was greedy with what little I had left of my baby. It was a drastic change from sharing everything with her. She was understandably hurt, and confused, by my unwillingness to open up. I was furious with grief. Seething under the surface so long, my attitude cool and removed. For years. She told me that I had changed. My heart was not so tender.

One month from her saying this, 4 years since Ruby Claire, I lost my sister to depression. I hadn’t softened the edges of my fury enough to really see that her illness was winning. I unconsciously, and in ways, consciously, minimized the depth of her sadness because I had given my own loss such weight. She hadn’t lost a child, I thought. She doesn’t understand how deep, how dark, the places in my heart. Oh, the selfishness of my grief!!

I navigate the minefield of regret several times a day. Suicide survivor’s grief is described as ‘complicated’. It’s very difficult to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it. So far, for me, the best memories don’t come to mind when I think of Shannie. Instead, it is more like what I imagined being in the judgment seat would be like. The slideshow is every negative word, thought, or deed that involved my sister. The last weeks of her life, everything that I missed. All the ways that I failed her.  Far back to childhood, innocence is no longer an excuse. I have put myself on trial for her death.  Our closeness only compounds the weight of my guilt. She was my person, and I, hers.
Not that I haven’t had blame that I was willing to share. I have. I do. It is still no respite from the responsibility that I hold. Years have passed, with no shift from this mental maze, this ‘complicated’ grief. That I had noticed anyway.

Then today. Today, I thought of my precious daughter. I forgave myself for not being able to share her with my sister. One reprieve. I understand now, that the rage was the glue holding me together. That I relied on it to move forward. It was my momentum to get up, be a mom, and a wife.  Healthy? No…probably not.  But it wasn’t without purpose. It fueled living. My Shannie, my sister, ran out of fuel for living. She would forgive me for using my fury to continue on. Today, I do too.

Three days after I lost my husband I went to a local retail store because I had to. I didn’t want to be there, the lights, people, noise were too much but I needed a phone card for my cell phone. The cell phone I have uses pay as you go cards that only this store sells and of course, they are all the way in the back. I didn’t care that my hair was a mess, that I hadn’t showered, that my face was swollen from days of sobbing. So I put my head down and walked toward the back of the store and picked up my phone card. I didn’t want to look at anyone let alone see anyone I knew. Talking was too much for me, I couldn’t do it without falling completely apart. I saw someone I thought I recognized and turned quickly  down an aisle to avoid her.

I came upon these little notebooks…journals. I looked at them and immediately knew I needed to get what I had in my head onto paper. I grabbed one without a second thought and walked briskly to the self-checkout. Soon, I was back in my car and sobbing. The confusion, devastation, agony, fear, overwhelming sense of loss, not knowing where “home” was anymore, complete and utter chaotic emotions went down on the pages of that little journal I bought the moment I got back in my car. I wrote and wrote until I finally ran out of things to say. I had written about 5 pages. 

I am new on this journey so I haven’t filled the whole journal yet but I keep it with me always. I have written everything I think, prayers, what I am afraid of, how I feel inside and triggers that cause me the most pain. That little book has become a lifeline. I have not looked back to previously written pages very far because in my mind, I want and need to move forward, one baby step at a time. I may not always be able to take a step ahead but that little journal reminds me of where I’ve been already and it shows me how many little steps I’ve already taken. I didn’t notice it before but the word on the front of that journal is DREAMS. I’m figuring out how to have those again and journaling has become a part of my “new normal”.

Adjusting to life after losing a child is like shooting at a moving target. Just when you believe that you have leveled up in the game, you fall through a trap door and you’re back at level two. Although there is never a day that I don’t think of my son, it isn’t always a moment that makes my heart stop. Sometimes, it puts a smile on my face to remember his quirky humor or how he put the empty cereal box back in the cabinet. Those thoughts often pass through my mind but, like an airplane, I am able to fly above the clouds and stay focused on the horizon. When the sky darkens, I simply keep moving until I get to the other side.

Yesterday, as I sat waiting in a physical therapy office for my husband, a mother and her young son came in. Her son was a lanky boy of 12 or 13, who had injured his arm playing baseball. I watched them as they sat together in the waiting room. The unspoken language of their bond drew me in and I felt myself beginning to slip through the trap door. They were engaged in a conversation just a few feet away, but I couldn’t hear their words. Instead, I heard my son’s voice, newly deepened, and his laughter played loudly in my head. I could feel his thin but muscular arms as he hugged me and tried to lift me off the floor. He was only a boy– almost 15. Still trapped between the man he would become, and the boy who wanted to hold his mother; he would be forever fourteen for me. I would never see how beautiful his smile would be without braces or watch him walk in a cap and gown. The life that was out in front of him fell over the horizon line and it took part of me with it.

My plane was stalling. I could see the ground rising up to meet me. I had the controls in front of me, but I sat paralyzed, unable to move as the nose veered straight down. Conflicted about whether to let it crash, or to save myself, I was rescued by interruption. As the boy was called back, I watched him walk away and realized how far I had fallen. I looked away for a moment, took a long deep breath, and the plane began to level out. I sat numb in a quiet daze. What felt like an hour, had only been moments of time that I had lost.

I suppose that I will always experience “stalls” in my momentum; times where I sit helplessly by and watch myself spin out of control towards the ground. It’s a sort of out-of- body experience and you can’t predict when you may be overcome by it. For me, it happens frequently when I see a mother and son together in the grocery store, or at a shopping mall or restaurant. There is a unique bond and a closeness that I relive when I see them, and it sometimes makes my body ache from the loss. In those moments, I try to breathe in gratitude for the life I have, breathe out the pain, and look out over the horizon again. Sometimes it takes more than a breath or two, but at least I’m still in the air.

Sometimes You Stall was originally written by Amanda Blue for Survival and the Silver Lining. Check out her blog to read more beautifully written pieces “for those living with loss and a life that may not have gone the way they planned.”

On June 12th, my sister-in-law woke me up with a phone call that shattered my world as I knew it. Splintered in two with the fragments having such an emotional impact. Everything I thought I knew about my life and family changed. My brother had tried to commit suicide. Six weeks later, he tried again and was successful. My little brother. Husband. Father. Soccer Dad. Cheer Dad. Businessman. His life and the life I knew was and is over. As I dealt with the pain of my grieving, shocked, and shattered heart, the guilt was overwhelming and immediate. I searched my texts, emails, and relived conversations I had had with him, trying to find answers to my many questions.

As I thought back to our lunch four days before he died, I saw the deadness in his eyes – all hope was gone. The next day when he came over to kill my carpenter bees in my pergola, I recognized the frantic energy and pace that he was moving, but I didn’t know what to do. As I go over each minute of our conversations, could I have changed the outcome? Should I have recommended him to talk to my friend who had similar troubles – could that have triggered his suicide? When I asked him to come over last fall for a BBQ and he never responded, why did I blame it on his wife not wanting to be around us? Why didn’t I see him pushing away from us the last two years? When I learned he wasn’t sleeping and working 18 hours a day, why didn’t I recognize the signs of mental illness? The guilt was consuming as I pondered these questions with no answers.

As I work with a counselor trying to handle the guilt and to seek answers, I am learning that what I’m experiencing is survivor’s guilt. I’ve learned that “People who die by suicide don’t want to end their lives, they want to end their pain.” And the challenge is that my brother only showed us what he wanted us to see – he hid his pain very successfully from not only his wife, but also his children and me. So as I contemplate guilt and the many “what ifs” – I’m challenging myself to turn this pain into a positive call in my life to make it mean something. I want to turn it into what I’ll call “productive guilt”. Guilt by being consumed by things or emotions that really do not matter in the big scheme of life. Guilt when I miss the new budding of the fragrant jasmine vine in my backyard because I’m too wrapped up in my grieving thoughts to see that yes –spring will come again. Guilt when I’m impatient with the bagger at Kroger (he’s someone’s brother) who is enthralled with telling me about the newest Star Wars movie instead of enthusiastically bagging my lettuce and tomatoes. Guilt when I’m too busy being busy to throw the tennis ball to my bouncy energetic yellow lab and miss seeing the joy in her sweet brown eyes. Guilt over obsessing with the number on my scale that I miss seeing that spectacular sunrise that is painted in the sky. These are moments in my life that I can control as my broken heart begins to heal on this emotional journey of life.

While my heart has been shattered and I slowly pick up the pieces as I continue the grieving process, I’m learning so many lessons that I really did not want to learn. Yes, the guilt over the “what-if’s” is still there, but there is so much to learn about mental illness and suicide survivors. The fragments of grief are there still waiting to be picked up, but there is a sunrise and a sunset every day. The jasmine vine is starting to bloom and produces the gift of a heavenly fragrance. And the tennis ball is waiting to be thrown to my lovable, enthusiastic yellow lab that puts a smile on my face every day.

It was a Monday afternoon when my husband’s phone rang. The number was not saved in his phone so confusion showed on both of our faces, but when he answered, I heard a familiar voice and I just knew. He hung up the phone and looked at me in fear and all I asked was if it was an accident. He said nothing. Suddenly, time stood still and I instantly thought of my next move. At the time, I lived halfway across the country from my dad. I needed to make plans on how I was going to get to him. The next day I loaded up my toddler and we drove two days and a total of 25 hours to Texas. The next month was chaotic. I was exhausted. Not only was I a single mother during this time since my husband was stuck in North Carolina, I was also a new Graduate student, and an only child trying to figure all of this estate stuff out.

After a month of being there, I couldn’t take anymore. I couldn’t handle the pettiness that was surrounding me. I needed out. I called my husband and asked him to fly down and drive back with me, and he did. During my month in Texas, I really didn’t have a chance to grieve. It wasn’t until I was back to my “normal” life that it all hit me like a giant boulder continuously rolling over me. It was when I would least expect it. When the house was quiet and I needed to focus on school- I would instantly start crying. In these moments, I so badly wanted to call my dad and yell at him. How could he leave me? He wasn’t just a father to me. He was the man that came into my life when I was a child and chose to love me when he didn’t have to. He was the man that backed every crazy decision I made even when he shouldn’t have. He was the one I always called when I needed to be lifted up. He made me feel like I could conquer the  world with just one conversation. How was I supposed to exist in a world where he no longer did?

At the time, I was already seeing an amazing therapist. I needed “life help.” When I started back at my regularly scheduled visits I explained that I couldn’t concentrate on anything. There were so many emotions that I couldn’t begin to sort through and I needed something to help me! I needed a tool out of her valuable toolbox to work through this so I could start enjoying life again. My husband and daughter were suffering because I couldn’t figure out how to breathe. My friends were seeing less of me since I just wanted to be a hermit. That’s when she suggested writing to my dad.

Sounds crazy, right? How can I write to someone that isn’t physically here to read it? Well, the letters weren’t for him, they were for me. I started a journal for the first time in my life. Each page started with “Dear Dad.” It wasn’t until the words just started pouring out on the page that I realized what I was really feeling, anger. Before this, I had fallen into the habit of what everyone else was doing, making excuses for what my dad chose to do. When I started writing, it freed me from that habit.

The journal gave me an outlet. Any time I felt unable to focus, I would pull it out, look at my dad’s funeral program and my eulogy, and just write. I wrote often in the beginning. Then, the journal entries became less frequent. I started to feel human again after a while and I could finally breathe again. I no longer hated him or was angry with him. I was no longer consumed with guilt over his decision. It took almost 2 years, but I finally felt like I could be a wife and mom again. I saw myself living my life instead of just trying to make it through each day. I still have days where I find myself in tears. Everything reminds me of him and I wish he was here to enjoy life with us. I wish he could have met my daughter and could be here to celebrate our son being born later this year, but he made a choice that the rest of us have to figure out how to live with. That part is never easy, but eventually you find a way to finally breathe.

I sat alone on the fading brown and orange sofa as the film projector portrayed Sunday afternoon of many years earlier.  I chased him behind one side of the brand new brown and orange sofa; we emerged on the opposite side.  Grinning and giggling, we ran around our grandparents’ living room again and again.  As the film cycle-clicked into darkness and the projector clicked off, the silence screamed.

His brother and I sat on the chilled floor of his dimly lit, abandoned room.  We sifted through remnants of his possessions…  Searching for… peace for our own souls.  Quietly, we intruded into his belongings.  His brother uncovered a tidy stack of Sports Illustrated magazines featuring the trials and triumphs of the Denver Broncos and the University of Nebraska Cornhusker’s football teams.  As he flipped the pages, he voiced, barely above a whisper, “Remember how we use to fight about football?”

Rummaging through his top desk drawer, I discovered a stack of photographs.  Slowly, I turned toward the lamp and placed one behind the others to see each photograph.  His strained family portrait taken three years earlier introduced the stack, followed by my school pictures from the past four years along with two of my dance team shots.  A couple friends school photos.  And one snapshot, he captured in Seattle just as a lowering drawbridge silhouetted in the dusking sun, completed the stack.

On top of his desk, his brother noticed a stack of perfectly clipped Calvin and Hobbes comic strips.  Scanning them, he read them slowly to me.  Quietly, we snickered together.  Calvin and Hobbes framed his humor and his brilliance within its simplicity; and somehow, despite the heaving unknowns, we experienced a transfer of humor and brilliance.  An unconscious weight… we carry.

A couple decades before, two young brothers married to two young sisters in a small country church planted on the prairie in Wyoming.  A couple years later, he- Carlton Jamison Plinsky– was born to one couple.  Seven weeks later, I was born to the other couple.  Since our families lived so close, we grew up nearly inseparable.  Great-Grandma Ruth often chanted her revised version of the “Jack & Jill” nursery rhyme.  “Jamie and Heidi went up a hill to fetch a pail of water.  Jamie fell down and broke his crown.  And Heidi came tumbling after…”  Jamie sat on her right knee while I sat on her left as she told us story after story with her ageless grin.   “Jamie gets so tickled!” she’d say time and time again.  I can still hear his laugh echo in the confines of my mind.

We shared family; we shared memories.  We shared humor, as well as questions, as we grew older.  Our extended family’s structured strictness often stirred us to question.  While we recognized the necessity of guidance, we often discussed our opinions of what we perceived as harsh rules.  We wondered.  We may have mocked.  Mainly, we navigated our childhood together. 

We no longer make memories, share humor or questions. My Dad quietly told me the news.  Dropping to my knees, I sobbed hysterically.  Time froze.  Sleep evaded me.  Shock overtook me.  Thus, I wrestled to rein in every pelting thought until we arrived at his home pulsing with people, but lifeless without him.The Sheriff’s Report read, “On January 18, 1992 at approximately 7 p.m. 17-year-old Carlton Plinsky committed suicide while visiting the lodge with a youth group.

Just two months earlier, at Thanksgiving 1991, he and I spent hours watching football, sharing thoughts, and exchanging questions.  Although his gaze -distant and sad-, his stance appeared more confident and his demeanor more peaceful.  Our family, our holiday, our lives sighed “normal.”  My parents and I took him to the airport.  As he walked slowly down the terminal ramp, my Dad yelled some crazy (maybe even bordering on coarse) joke.  Jamie turned his head over his left shoulder and LAUGHED.  I saw him laugh.  I heard him laugh.  But, sometime between Thanksgiving and January 18, he stopped laughing.

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This piece was written by Heidi Paulec and originally posted to her personal blog Shadows Presence. To read more from Heidi, check out her blog!

The following piece was picked up by the website The Mighty and is a great piece to share with anyone that has been impacted by the suicide of a loved one. Please share it with others so they may know there are resources available and are not alone.

My mom’s funeral had over 500 people in attendance. She was a high school English teacher and well-loved by her 200 students. She was the leader of my Girl Scouts Troop, and the snack mom of my soccer team. She had countless friends and colleagues that enjoyed her humor and her ability to bring a room together. She was the glue in our family, organizing events and maintaining traditions. Her influence was significant in the lives of others. When she died by suicide our community was rocked. Her suicide impacted more than six.

Continue reading the rest of the article here.

Shortly after losing my father to suicide, I was watching a television interview with a fellow survivor. There was a particular part of her interview that has stayed with me throughout this grief journey. She talked about a “psychological autopsy.” When we lose someone to a physical illness, the autopsy, if performed, is left in the hands of the physicians. When we lose someone to suicide, it is left to the family and loved ones to try to piece together what it was that led them to end their life. Yes, we may know the

method by which they died. But the “why” of it all, well that eludes us.

I’m sure I am not alone in sharing that as my wounds were fresh, raw and wide open for all to see, there were questions that continuously doused them with salt.

Were there signs?

Did you have any idea he might do this?

Had he tried this before?

I had to endure many variations of the above.

There we were, examining the rearview mirror, trying to look for the clues, the answer to the unanswerable question of why my father would leave us this way. We were troubled by guilt, wracked with grief, desperately trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle to find what it was that we must have missed; and those questions continuously came.

I wanted to scream, “Don’t you think that if we saw signs we would have gotten him more help?” “Don’t you think if we thought he might attempt suicide, we would have hospitalized him?”

I wondered if they thought all suicides were preceded by large flashing yellow lights and bold signs that stated, “Warning, Danger Ahead.” I wondered if they thought we simply chose to bypass those signs, take a detour and treat my father’s struggles with depression and anxiety simply as a bump in the road he could just plow through. I wanted to say those things. But I didn’t.

Instead, I tried to answer them. And with every answer I had to give to that unsolicited question, my guilt intensified and my anger began to grow. Because what I heard in those early days, lurking at the root of those questions was, “What did you miss?” What didn’t you see?” And that only added to the burden of my pain.

Eleven months later I have come to understand much more about the signs that were there. I’ve learned them in hindsight. There were drastic changes in my father’s mood, changes in sleep and eating patterns and more. There was talk of being a burden. And above all, there was a sense of hopelessness. Today I know these are some of the signs that somebody might be in crisis. I’ve completed the mental health first-aid training, I’ve read the articles, and I know now that there were indicators that my father was in danger. I know now what I didn’t know then.

I have re-framed my guilt as regret. Guilt can swallow you whole. Regret, while painful, is something that slowly, I can come to live with. I regret that I didn’t know these things when my father was still here. I regret that I did not ask the question of him, “Are you feeling suicidal?” And I regret that I did not know how to answer those who pondered what it was that we, who loved him most, might have missed?

Today I would ask people to honor my pain and my loss. I would ask them to consider why they are asking the question in the first place? Today I know that I need not answer curiosity, that there is rarely a good reason to ask those questions of a survivor. Even when asked with the most innocent of intentions, we must acknowledge that at their root they are an attempt to draw a line in the sand. On one side, is the survivor, and on the other a basic human desire to know that what happened to them can never happen to us. Because surely we would see it coming, even if they did not.

Of course, there will be those with loved ones who are struggling with mental illness, who might ask in hopes of preventing this tragedy in their own family and community. That is an honorable intention. Still I would encourage, a thoughtful and honest statement instead, such as, “If and when you are ready, I was wondering if you’d be willing to share what your father was experiencing. I have a loved one that I am concerned about.” And then let the survivor answer, or not answer, when it is right for them, if it is right for them. And know that for some survivors, that day may be very far down the road.

Yes, suicide loss and grief have placed in my path some of the most painful lessons I’ve ever had to learn. I am a survivor, navigating this difficult road toward healing. This is my story to tell, on my terms, in my way, and in a manner that honors my father and me. And that is true for so many survivors. So please, when you encounter us, before you ask a question of our experience, consider your motive. Consider that we are working through vast layers of trauma and grief that are not visible to the naked eye. And consider whether the answers you seek are helpful or hurtful to the one you are
questioning.

And after all of that, consider setting your questions aside, and stand with us in loving silence instead. Because in truth, the answers you may seek are the answers we will never find in full. So be present, hold our hand, extend your comforting embrace and when it comes to your words, be guided by compassion and “proceed with caution.”

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This piece was written by Deborah Greene for The Mighty where it originally appeared. You can visit the original post on The Mighty. You can also visit Deborah’s blog Reflecting Out Loud.

I looked around at all of the faces while my other Mom and I stood in line to check out.  The young couple with the brand new baby; the man who had to get around the store in the motorized scooter; the lady with the long weave that was red and yellow and the lady behind us with the adorable little girl.  Everyone was living their lives, buying Easter baskets and candy, greeting cards, Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls, toilet paper….all of those things that make life, well life.  Just another day at Walmart!

But as I stared at those people,  I wondered how they could go on with their mundane tasks of Walmart shopping when I was standing here surrounded by my grief. When my heart was overwhelmed with sadness for my Mom and my family. When a limb from our family tree had broken off in the abrupt and deadly wind.  Didn’t these shoppers know I was mourning? Didn’t they know that they needed to not be so normal? Didn’t they know that inside I was screaming?

On Saturday, March 19, 2016 my Stepfather took his own life.  He had dealt with depression for quite a while.  His job was very stressful, especially in the last two years under different supervision, his relationship with his parents was broken, and he used alcohol as medication. I know that the demons inside of his head, mixed with vodka is what caused him to take that final step.  The one that made him say “enough is enough”; “I’m done”; “no one will care anyways”; “I’m worthless”; “I’m a burden to my family”.

At times, he was a burden. You didn’t know which guy you were going to get.  The sweet, funny, quirky helpful one or the one who had self-medicated and slurred a few words.  But he was never worthless.  Never did we want him gone. Never did we want him to say “I’m done”.  And the demons were wrong….we do care. And so many others do as well as evidenced by the over 200 people who showed up to his Celebration of Life Service.

He was a smart man. Brilliant many have said.  He worked tirelessly to make the lives of our soldiers better. He developed projects that helped to save their lives. Besides his family, his entire world revolved around the Green Suiters.  The military has lost one of their more formidable advocates.  Our family has lost a presence for the past 26 years.

The saying “he’d give you the shirt off of his back” was created for him. That’s the kind of guy he was. Always wanting to help. Always wanting to make life better for someone.  I remember one time making a dumb comment about a waitress in a small town restaurant. I don’t even recall what it was but I do recall how upset he was at me and how he defended this young woman he didn’t even know.  He was always a proponent of the underdog and fought tirelessly for them.

He has, in one way or another whether financially or through physical labor supported everyone in our family.  If someone was in need of a computer, he found one.  A car? He gave one to someone for minimal cost because he cared about her future. Food? Always handing someone food. Always trying to feed someone.  Always wanting to nurture.  The times I tossed him out of my kitchen for “helping”.

He was a quirky guy but much of that can be attributed to the fact that he was truly brilliant.  We’ve all been around people like this. So smart that they can’t hold a regular conversation? That was him.  He would try to explain something to you but you’d tune out within minutes because he used words that you never heard of. He wasn’t doing it to show off his intellectual superiority. He was doing it because it was all he knew.

Depression started to change him and it finally took full hold.  He is at peace now but has left behind a slew of people who are wondering what happened. Why. Him? No way. Not him. Scratching our heads. Wiping our eyes. And wondering how to move forward.

Worthless? No.  Loved greatly? Yes.  Not cared about? No. Missed terribly.  Yes!  The demons have lost control over him and now, he can truly rest in peace.

And when we see him again, and we believe we will, I believe he will have finally realized how much he was loved and cared about.

This piece was originally written for dktyriver

I didn’t get it then. I was 13. A pre-teen who lived with my mother, step-father & sister Cindy a couple of months a year, due to being caught in the Custody battles between my Mother & real Dad. Cindy & I argued. She was 15. I was a little bratty sister who idolized her & would steal her cool clothes to wear them to school so I could feel cool too. We were best friends before we got torn apart by those custody battles. I idolized her. She was smart, pretty, funny-loved. I was always in trouble. The one who wanted acceptance like her. Cindy was my Mom’s favorite. My Mom didn’t accept me because I loved my Dad, & she hated him. Any time we got to spend together was precious. She’d hide my hamster on me. Kid stuff. We had fun together, until THAT day. The day I woke up lying next to my sister in her bed, & watched her eyes roll to the back of her head as she became unresponsive.

I have nightmares to this day, & can’t sleep through the night. My sister was taken to the hospital & put in ICU for 13 days & nights in a brain dead coma because my parents argued over life support. Cindy had decided 2 weeks prior to end her pain by taking a few pills daily over a 2 week period & was now in organ failure. They hadn’t even waited to turn off life support before my mother moved me into her bedroom & started painting the walls. They weren’t going to be sleeping in there, in that room, that bed. Sure-just cover the walls, cover it all up! Cover the guilt & shame in a new shade of lavender. At 13, I watched my Dad get escorted out of the ICU waiting room & told he is “not allowed back or able to attend her funeral because my mother was a Paralegal & could have any fancy documents printed up that she needed to fuel the fire in the insane custody battle that tore my life apart. My Dad was destroyed. My life & childhood was destroyed. My childhood ended at 4:18pm on March 31, 1984, the day the hospital called to let us know Cindy was gone. Gone because she was depressed. Gone because I didn’t live with her full-time & it was my fault according to my mother.

I never told my mother she was sad. NOW she wanted me around because I was the replacement kid. The void-filler. I missed 2 days of school. They whispered about me in the halls. Now I was the center of attention. Suicide. No one talked about that. Kids were cruel. “Was your sister crazy?”, & when I stated “I would have done it if she hadn’t, people now paid attention to the replacement kid & to the goings on in my Mother’s house. People should listen to kids. My mother blamed my Dad, my Dad blamed himself, I blamed my step-father but you know what?-everyone is to blame! Suicide is the silent Cancer that eats away everything you thought you knew. Cindy had planned this & when she finally confided in me what she had done, it was too late to save her.The secret Cancer was destroying her organs inside. I can still hear the sound of her hospital room & the vent breathing for her. I work in the ER now & always tense up when I see that long tube being used on a patient who can’t breathe for themselves. There I see my idol, my childhood, my sister as her organs shut down. In my heart I know why she did it, but she didn’t really want to die. She just wanted to end her pain & sadness. That’s what it’s all about right?

Losing my best friend at 13, forced me to grow up real fast. Her death opened my eyes & taught me so many things I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. I can’t stand seeing anyone unhappy. What if they are sad & have no one to talk to? I never want anyone to feel the way Cindy did. Hopeless.There is help. Be the Voice for them when they feel they don’t have one. Give back. Healing is hard, but it happens. Speak out. Join support groups. Raise awareness for Suicide prevention by walking in Out of the Darkness Walks. There’s no better therapy than being around hundreds of other people who “get it”. They took their own life; don’t let them take yours too. I get it all NOW. 

Nearly 40,000 Americans die by suicide every year and for each person who dies by suicide, there are an estimated 6 survivors who cared deeply and are left trying to pick up the pieces.  Many of these survivors are left with anger, sadness, frustration, guilt and shame.  How do these survivors move on or even attempt to cope and return to some type of normalcy?  Well, here is my story.

Friday the 13th, March 2015 was the worst day of my life to date. Simply put, my dad committed suicide.  Devastated was an understatement for myself and my family, he was the best man we knew and we couldn’t comprehend what had occurred or the reasoning.  I had no idea what to do, I was in shock and it didn’t feel real.  From that point on it seemed like everything in the world revolved around suicide or somebody had their own story or family/friend affected. You become more aware of suicide around you,  it seemed that every movie I watched had somebody committing suicide or attempting.  You also become more aware/sensitive (not sure which one) to people joking around, saying F my life and pretending to place their finger to their temple or in their mouth, pulling the fake trigger due to some irritant at work, being overwhelmed or irritated by some person.

For my personality getting back to work right away was the best thing to keep my mind and body busy.  I had trouble sitting doing nothing since I was having flashbacks and with any downtime my brain wouldn’t shut off.  Despite the tragedy, time doesn’t stand still. Unfortunately life continues on and we have responsibilities, like work, but most importantly for me I had my spouse and kids to care for as well.  Eventually going back to work too fast was not the best idea as it resulted in being easily frustrated, irritated, more tired and increased my anxiety at work and home.  It got to a point where I needed a change or something else to focus on.

I started simple and for fun I grew my hair out from the end of August to New Years before cutting it.  It went from a nice short fade to a feathered 70s look and after 4 months, I succeeded this test and even won a burrito.  But that was too easy, If I wanted to test myself and resolve, I would have to do something that I hated.  I would have to accomplish something both physically and mentally challenging. Something that was unrealistic mentally in my mind but physically doable, yet highly frowned upon by my orthopedic surgeon after having multiple left knee surgeries; half marathon it was!  I mean Forrest Gump did it after tragedy, he just kept running, and running and running, so why not me.

Have I ever told you how much I hate running?  For me the only running I do is for sport, like running while dribbling a basketball, running to get to a loose ball in soccer,  running to first base after hitting a groundball to shortstop, or occasionally running to grab my 2 year old as she attempts to go into the street.  Running just for fun to me was just plain stupid and I made sure all the runners I knew heard about it.  I researched running a half marathon and before you could even start the 10 week training program, it was recommended you were running 2-3 times per week 1-3 miles at a time.  So I started slowly in October/November running 2-3 times per week to get myself in shape with a heavy dose of foam roller sessions after these runs.  I ran with a Garmin GPS watch my wife bought me for Christmas which was great to keep track of time and miles run, but so truthful and humbling at the same time.   I was increasing my distance around my neighborhood and surrounding ones, thinking I was running 5 miles at a time, but in actuality I was barely running 3 miles at a time.  Eventually, running started to be part of a routine and I was able to tolerate increasing distances, even if it was just going from 1 to 2 to 3 miles over weeks of running, it began to be slightly addicting. Although this wasn’t always the case, I had difficulty in the beginning making it out the door and telling my brain to stay on task.  It was like going to the gym. You know it’s good for you and once your there its not a big deal and sometimes even enjoyable, but just getting there was really difficult.  This was the same for running, I just had will to myself to get out of the door. I would go run after helping put my kids to bed 3-4 nights a week and it started to become a release for my days anxieties.  I would run and think of old stories of my dad, have flashbacks of my dad, or think of nothing and  have random songs playing in my head on repeat since I was without music due to my poor electronic intelligence.   I had a collection of music in my head like the Chainsmokers- “Roses”, Empire of the Suns- “Walking on a Dream”, anything Bieber, and even some Big Pun- “Still Not a Player”.  One time I had the acoustic version of “Stitches” running in my head for nine miles!  Although it wasn’t traditional meditation, it was my form of meditation and it helped put me at ease.

January started the ten week training for the Shamrock’n half marathon, which coincidentally happened to be on March 13th, 2016, the one year anniversary of my dad’s passing.  I signed up for the race before even knowing the date, it must have been meant to be, or like I always tell my wife…fate.  I ran 4 days a week for nearly ten weeks, with long runs on Sundays, getting up as early as 5:30am and increasing my distance each week.  I was getting stronger with each run and although I was told not to run on my left knee, it was actually the strongest it had felt in years and without pain. The physical part of running was getting easier, but the mental part was difficult to adjust to.  Each run I found myself wanting to give in to thoughts of stopping or bargaining to shorten a run time from 45 minutes to 30.  I realized why running is so difficult  and why more people don’t do it.  I get it, it can be hard on the body, but mentally its draining and tough to muster up enough will to get out the door to train after a long day at work.  You battle yourself with each run to keep up with the training and to stay on track.  It’s like having the good angel on one shoulder telling you ‘you can do it, keep going’ and on the other shoulder the cartoon devil saying ‘this is dumb, just walk the rest of the way’.  But if you stay on track the results will come. For me is was dropping 10-15lbs over 3 months and having the best lab results I’ve had in years, including lowering my normally high cholesterol levels.

Over that ten week training period, there’s no doubt honoring my dad pushed me through, because running flat out sucks.  Lets face it, I’m not a runner, but I run for my dad.  And although I hated it, it helped me through this past year. It decreased my anxieties and helped me meditate while pounding the streets of Elmhurst, Tahoe Park, Oak Park and East Sac.  Running allowed me to express my emotions without having to talk about it, which  at times was difficult. Kinda like this blog, a way to put my thoughts on paper, because sometimes I feel like I can’t really articulate how I feel.  Running gave me perspective because no matter what happens, there’s always somebody that has it worse.  My job is unique as a PT in the hospital, I see people at their worst daily.  Although I have a love/hate relationship with running, at least I’m able to physically do it.  It’s difficult to complain about having to complete a run when your 30 year old patient has an inoperable brain tumor that’s left them to use a wheelchair or another patient being dependent on a ventilator and stuck in a hospital bed for over a year.  Perspective is amazing, but being able to keep perspective for more than 5 min is the real feat. So when I fatigued and was mentally weak, I leaned on my dad and just thought how lucky I was to be able to run.

Eventually Sunday March 13, 2016 came and of course El Nino was rearing its ugly head, with rains and wind pounding the Sacramento area all week. What a welcome to my first organized run.  Yeah I know it was only a half marathon, but for me this was an impossible feat being made possible, especially with all my knee troubles.  The race course was changed multiple times due to some flooding from the river and before the race it was miserable with angle rain and winds.  8am sharp my wave started and there I was with my Donald Duck race shirt to honor my dad so he’d be with me the whole race.  I had a temporary semi colon (;) tattoo to match my wife, on our left wrists to honor anyone with or affected by mental illness, addiction, self injury or suicide.  Composure was hard to keep while making my way over the tower bridge, nearly breaking down in tears multiple times.  So I would look down at the semi colon to remember to pause, take a breath and continue on.  I had a goal of breaking 2 hours but time wasn’t important.  My main goal was to run the entire distance.  I was cruising up to mile 7 when I saw my family cheering me on which gave me some extra juice.  I weaved my way back for the 2nd half of the course and saw my sister in law and coworkers running and the streets filled with cheering fans. James Bay’s “Let it go” was on repeat in my head, despite how many times I tried to pick a new song all I heard was ‘come on let it go, just let it be, why don’t you be you . . . ‘ I don’t even know what the song is about, but was it a sign that it was time to finally let the past year go? Or maybe it was just a really catchy chorus.   I continued to run and thought to myself “I could do this again, maybe I’ll run the Shamrock’n every year”.  That all changed after hitting mile 11. I started to think “what the hell are you doing?  You are never doing this again!  Just walk the rest”.  The last 2 miles were part of the changed course and were uphill against the wind with rain. Pretty messed up if you ask me.  I struggled and wanted to walk so bad, and I nearly walked a few times up until the last mile, but somehow something kept me going.  At about 2 hours and 5 min I crossed the finish line with the mc calling my name overhead as I finished.  My daughters and wife found me through  all the people, with rain and wind.  Then my mom, aunt and brother followed.  Tears of joy came when seeing my family as I was bent down trying to rehydrate.  This was ~4 months of training that not only involved me, but them as well and I was grateful for them giving me the opportunity.  Tears of sadness followed because I missed my dad, and I knew how proud he would have been.  I would have given anything for a hug and a “Timbo!”out of his mouth.

It was a day to honor my dad, 1 year to the day of his death, and a weight had lifted off my shoulders. I was able to run a half marathon without stopping.  I still don’t consider myself a runner, I was just running for my dad.  But I have a new respect for it and its healing powers for anxiety and its meditative ways.  Over the months of training I never got that so-called ‘runners high’, but I did get to a point where my body was moving and my brain was focused on something else, almost disassociated, which was pretty cool.  Training for 4-5 months put my body in the best shape I’ve been in since high school.  Better yet, the training put my mental conditioning in the best shape its ever been and really tested my limits.  Without that mental training it would have been very difficult to run the whole race without walking.  This journey has taught me to always try and have perspective, no matter how difficult it may be .  Also to remember a semicolon is a place in a sentence where the author has the decision to stop with a period, but chooses not to.  A semicolon is a reminder to pause and then keep going.  Push yourself and try something new, life is to short to stay in that box.  I’m reminded of a quote from my favorite movie of all time, ‘Rudy’,  “Having dreams is what makes life tolerable.”  So dream big!

This piece originally written for timmy5blog

The year 1998 started with the discovery that my dear Dad was struggling through an intense season of despair and depression.  Summer arrived, we joyfully celebrated at my youngest brother’s wedding, and Dad seemed to be pulling out of the worst of it. Then one day he fainted and hurt his head in the fall. After a trip to the emergency room, the doctors delivered the bad news that his liver was failing.  They were uncertain of the cause, but suspected it was some sort of reaction to one of his medications.  Immediately, they took him off not only his cholesterol medication, but his antidepressant as well.  We learned that he needed a liver transplant, and he was sent home to wait.  It was very traumatic for him, and the depression returned with a vengeance.  He struggled with coming to terms with this huge medical battle he was facing. Fears about being a financial burden and no longer being productive overwhelmed him.  It seemed to threaten his identity of being the provider, the one who took care of everyone else.  He hid most of these thoughts from us.  We were unaware of the depths of this struggle for him. 

I will never forget the panicky phone call from my brother that Sunday afternoon, a few weeks later, telling us of Dad’s suicide attempt.  We quickly drove back home to be with him, trying to sort through feelings of anger, sadness, and confusion. When we arrived, the mood was grim and doctors held out very little hope.  We felt as if we had stepped into a dark, surreal, nightmarish world. Ultimately, there was little the doctors could do and on a Wednesday in late July, he died.

Thus began my journey through darkness and confusion, trying to understand that which is not understandable. I experienced the range of sad, scared, and angry emotions shared by the survivors of a loved one’s suicide—with conflicting feelings of guilt & anxiety thrown in as well.  Questions loomed large.  Why didn’t we see this coming?  Why didn’t the doctors warn us about this possibility? Would my mom and my brothers be ok?  Would my three young children who lost their beloved granddaddy be ok?  Would I be ok?  How come he couldn’t see how much this would hurt us, the ones who loved him? And, I questioned where God was in it all…how come He didn’t stop him?

I don’t have answers to these questions.  And this side of heaven, I don’t think I ever will.  But I’ve come to believe that perhaps God gives something more valuable than answers. Isaiah 45:3 says, “I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.” The pain and suffering surrounding Dad’s death led me to a deeper, more intimate place with the Lord.  He offered Himself and His presence to me in ways I had not experienced before.

One of these ‘treasures of darkness’ was opening the door to creativity.  I had always loved art but in the busyness of my life, I didn’t do much with it. It was during this desperate season of grief that I signed up for an art class through a city program. Once a week I would drive across town to my painting class and pour myself into the project for the day.  Time, which seemed to move so slowly in my grieving, would pass without any awareness.  I could lose myself in making something.  Over time, I realized that this act of creating was actually bringing healing to my broken heart.  I have come to believe that creativity is one of God’s most powerful gifts to us.

Creativity offers a less threatening way to access our hurting souls.  Our thoughts and feelings become clearer to us as we do something creative, which leads to healing and wholeness.  It brings hope to our broken places and reminds us that life is indeed good and will continue. And although I will never be the same person I once was, I’ve experienced that healing and new life comes in time.  God has graciously provided “treasures of darkness,” riches rising from a very dark season, to usher in hope and joy and to remind me that I am deeply loved. 

My mom’s funeral had over five-hundred people in attendance. She was a high-school English teacher and well-loved and adored by her two hundred students. She was the leader of my Girl Scouts Troop, and the snack mom of my soccer team. She had countless friends and colleagues that enjoyed her humor and her ability to bring a room together. She was the glue in our family, organizing events and maintaining traditions. Her influence was significant in the lives of others. When she died by suicide our community was rocked. Her suicide impacted more than six.

My cousin made every holiday gathering such a delight. He was hilarious and we played pranks on each other like we were children. I would often find baby carrots at the bottom of my soda and upon discovering them glance over at my cousin to see him uncontrollably laughing. He was a joy to be with and loved by all. He served in the military and was deployed to Iraq. Shortly after his return, at the age of thirty, my cousin took his own life. Our family was devastated again, his friends were in shock, and his Army buddies grieved their brother. His suicide impacted more than six.

Statistics typically estimate each suicide ‘intimately’ or ‘directly’ affects six people*. Six people?!? When we account for family members, friends, colleagues, neighbors, church congregations, participation in community organizations, and military involvement, the impact of a single suicide can be catastrophic. Suicide always directly impacts more than six.

There are organizations in place to help reduce suicide. Prevention phone lines and text lines are available 24/7 to assist people thinking about taking their own life. There are hospitals that exist to keep individuals struggling with mental illness alive when their depression tells them death would be best. We designate our money, time, and efforts into keeping people alive. And we should! Once a suicide takes place, however, the resources are minimal at best. There are, on average, 117 suicides in the U.S. every single day.* Only in the past five years have more realistic numbers become available to account for survivors. In his article Estimating the Population of Survivors of Suicide: Seeking an Evidence Base, Alan Berman estimates that although it is difficult to determine the exact number of survivors directly impacted by each suicide, the average could be as high as thirty-two, not six. If we use this more realistic number, then we have approximately 3,744 people becoming survivors of suicide loss every single day in the United States. At the end of one year, in the U.S alone, the number of survivors would exceed one million people. And for some reason, those one million people feel completely alone, isolated, and believe they have no one that understands them. How is that possible?

I want to change this for survivors. Today, when those 3,744 unsuspecting individuals become survivors, I want them to know what is in place, where they can turn, and who they can talk with. I want them to know they are not alone because millions of people worldwide know this same loss. To say that only six people are directly affected by a suicide is to minimize the impact on a survivor and glance over the devastation it causes. In his book Deaths of Man, E. Schneidman wrote, “The largest public health problem is neither the prevention of suicide nor the management of suicide attempts but the alleviation of the effects of stress in the survivors whose lives are forever altered.”

Suicide postvention is the best prevention and because of that, we must reach out and do all we can to connect survivors to resources, reduce the stigma, and talk about suicide openly. We must take care of those impacted by the suicide of a loved one. After my mom’s death, it took me thirteen years before meeting another person affected by suicide, but statistically that cannot be accurate. I believe it took me thirteen years because A) nobody wants to talk about suicide, B) nobody knows how to respond to survivors within society, and C) the stigma around suicide is far too great and creates such an uncomfortable setting that we would all just rather ignore suicide completely. If we refuse to openly discuss suicide though, we only reinforce the stigma!

After a suicide, our feelings are ever-changing. Some days we are filled with grief, shock, trauma, pain, and millions of unanswered questions while other days the loneliness, betrayal, isolation, anger, and despair are too much for a survivor to process. And, in the midst of all this pain, to feel alone and believe that nobody understands us is sometimes just too much as we contemplate our own suicide.

When we pretend something only impacts six people directly, it is easy to overlook the need for resources to be made available. When we look at numbers honestly though, we see a sincere shortage of assistance and available programs. We cannot magically make new resources become available overnight, but we can point folks in the direction of existing resources. Sometimes, programs exist in our own backyard and we are unaware of them because such little dialogue is taking place.

There are some fantastic resources currently in place:

The Gift of Second– Offering hope, encouragement, and connection through blogs and videos for anyone impacted by a loved one’s suicide.

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention– contains resources for survivors as well as a search option for in-person groups in your area.

Our Side of Suicide– offers blogs written by survivors for survivors.

Friends for Survival– offers in-person support groups in California and a national newsletter sent out monthly.

Heartbeat Grief Support– One of the national pioneers of in-person support groups. Located in AZ, CO, HI, IN, LA, KS, MN, WI, WV, WY and internationally as well.

American Association of Suicidology– offers online support as well as an annual national conference for survivors.

In honor of the 112,320 people that will become a survivor in the month of April alone, I want to challenge you to share this piece 112,320 times. Share it with someone you know that has been impacted by suicide so survivors are made aware of resources. Then, if you know of other resources that are currently available for survivors, comment below or head over to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and use #morethansix to share those resources with other survivors and to start the discussion for postvention care being just as important as prevention. It’s a long time overdue and yet invaluable to this demographic.

Regardless if the suicide took place forty years ago or just last night, the grief lasts a lifetime. Most people not impacted by a suicide will never fully understand this. Let’s make sure anyone affected by a suicide knows there are people that understand. Let’s let survivors of suicide loss know we see them, we haven’t forgotten them, we know their pain, and we are here for them. Let’s start talking.

Mostly, I just want other survivors to know they are not alone and to never have anyone go thirteen years again without finding someone that understands.

*Statistics pulled from Center for Disease Control and Prevention as well as American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

The following post is a chapter in an upcoming book I have been writing. This information is the result of countless interviews, surveys, and conversations with other survivors. This is not the finished product by any stretch, but I would like your input as a fellow survivor. Would you please read it and respond to me at thegiftofsecond@gmail.com to share what you like, what you hate, what you would add, etc. The book is intended for anyone impacted by suicide and this chapter simply serves to normalize what you may be feeling and experiencing when we, otherwise, feel all alone. Your insight and constructive criticism will help make this book the best it can be and help other survivors in their journey as well. Thank you in advance! 

Suicide is devastating for those left behind regardless of their relation to the one who died. The guilt, shock, and grief are universal and even overwhelming at times. After talking with and interviewing countless survivors for The Gift of Second though, I began to notice some common beliefs, emotions, feelings, and experiences within specific loss groups. I created subgroups (parents, children, spouses, siblings, and friends) and then began surveying folks in order to get a better understanding for the commonalities within these subgroups. I share this research with you now in hopes of normalizing your own feelings and also allow for you to hear from fellow survivors who have expressed similar experiences.

Of course all the information shared below is not absolute, but these are the most common responses received and hopefully you will be able to find common ground with others and recognize again that you are not alone.

Losing a child:

The resounding emotion for parents who have lost a child is the intense and profound feeling of guilt. Parents expressed this sentiment more than all other survivors in all of the other subgroups combined. Parents articulated time and time again feeling guilt as it pertains to not being able to save their own child. Approximately 95% of parents interviewed and surveyed explained they feel guilt for not seeing their child’s pain and the impending suicide, not being able to save their child, and for not doing more to get them the help they needed. Several parents interviewed also expressed a level of second-guessing themselves in the way they parented. “Was I too hard on him?” “Where did I fail as a parent that my own child could not come talk to me about how he/she was feeling?” “Did I not convey how much I loved them?”

Most parents also shared the common fear for the safety of the remaining living children. “Will they also kill themselves?” is a common question for which parents find themselves ruminating. The fear of a repeat suicide within the home caused parents a tremendous amount of anxiety and pain. Some parents; however, used this fear to become more protective of their children and also more involved in their lives. They became more proactive in talking with their children as they were, this time, more in tune with the symptoms of depression and the benefits of open dialogue.

I asked each survivor if they had wisdom or advice to share with other survivors within their specific subgroup and the following is for parents who have lost a child.

“You are not alone. You did nothing wrong. It is not your fault. It is horrible. It sucks. There are days you don’t know how you will live on, but you do. You have to. Take your experience and use it to educate and raise awareness. One day at a time. It’s okay to not be okay.”

“Keep moving forward, keep talking about it. Don’t let the way they died be a secret. Keep your face toward hope. If we keep talking about it openly we can help save others.”

“This is the hardest thing you will ever deal with in your life. Nothing hurts and breaks you like losing a child, especially to suicide. Don’t let anyone tell you when to do things or tell you how you should feel.”

“Grief counseling is very important. You never get over it; you work your way through it. It helps to talk with others who have suffered a similar bereavement as others (who have not) don’t understand how we feel.”

Losing a parent:

This subgroup had several common themes dependent on the age of the child at the time of their parent’s suicide. All participants in this study were adults at the time of this interview, but the age of the individual at the time of their parent’s suicide varies greatly. Small children, for example, expressed an intense development of anxiety and fear. They conveyed that after their parent died they constantly feared the other parent would also die, leaving them to become an orphan. Several expressed a continuing struggle with anxiety in adulthood as well.

A similar belief in several children, regardless of age at the time of their parent’s death, is the feeling of not being valued enough by their parent to want to stay alive. Several children expressed not feeling loveable, worthy, valuable, or enough in the eyes of their parents. Almost all of the participants expressed the suicide impacting their ability to trust others, explaining, “if my own parent could abandon me like this, how can I ever trust others to stick around for me?” These doubts of self-worth and the inability to trust others have continued throughout life.

Children also expressed intense levels of anger toward their parent for leaving and abandoning them. Some children, who were adults themselves at the time of their parent’s suicide, expressed great sadness for their parent missing out on major milestones in the child’s life such as getting married, having kids (the first would-be grandchildren), and job placements.

Some wisdom from others who have lost a parent to suicide:

“The pain does eventually become less intense. I would encourage you to seek out a support group for survivors of suicide loss. Connecting with others who “get it” can be just the help you need.”

 “Write them a letter or do some journaling and tell them that you love them and in time you will forgive them for leaving you.”

“Your parent’s choice to take their own life speaks nothing to your value or worth. It merely speaks to their own mental state.”

“Let yourself be angry and not okay. Let yourself feel all of it. Focus on all the good memories but also accept the bad ones, too. Work on it. It’s going to be a long journey but don’t do it alone. The worst thing you could do is not talk about it.”

Losing a Spouse:

Many spouses expressed intense grief at the loss of their future together with their spouse. Several survivors conveyed a deep sadness and could remember feeling an overwhelming desire of wanting to join their spouse in death in the aftermath of the suicide because the grief was simply too much. Each survivor expressed feeling lonely. One woman shared, “It’s a couple’s world. I never noticed it before. It’s really lonely to all of a sudden be single.”

This subgroup explained the unique struggle of trying to help their children through their grief while grieving themselves and not wanting to show too much pain and emotion for fear of scaring their children. These parents also explained that one of the only things that got them through the pain and devastation initially was the responsibility of continuing to care for children in their home.

Anger was a common theme within this subgroup, but the cause of anger varied. Some were angry with their spouse for leaving them to raise children alone and angry their spouse caused so much pain to their offspring. Many were angry about the financial burden they now carried alone. One sentiment that was repeated endlessly was anger about both being single again and anger toward friends and family for trying to set the survivor up on dates because “it was time to start dating again.” One survivor remembered feeling, “I don’t want to go on a date with another person, all I want is my husband back!”

Many spouses expressed feeling betrayed because they had no idea the depth of pain their spouse was experiencing or they discovered a ‘hidden life’ their spouse was living (such as an addiction or debt) that the survivor can never get answers to, causing the survivor to question how much of their relationship was real.

Some wisdom from other spouses:

“You’re going to be okay. It doesn’t feel like it right now but you are going to be okay.”

“I have been angry at what my wife did to me and our children. I have found that talking with other survivors of suicide loss has been the most helpful.”

“Our loved ones were thinking with a broken brain that was more powerful than their heart, which was still full of love for us.”

Losing a Sibling:

Many of those who have lost a sibling explained they feel looked over and minimalized. They conveyed that their parents received a lot of emotional support as did the spouse and children of the sibling, but the surviving sibling received minimal attention and care. Many expressed feeling as if friends and even family members discounted their loss.

Guilt is a recurring theme within this subgroup as well. Several siblings conveyed being best friends with their sibling and feeling guilty for not doing more to help them or even recognizing the amount of pain they were experiencing. One sibling expressed guilt for not helping her brother more and instead “waited on the sidelines for something to change.” Overwhelming anxiety is commonly shared within this subgroup as well, “I suddenly feel like life is fragile and anyone could die at any moment.” Anger and grief were expressed as well with one person sharing, “I feel grief for happy childhood memories that are now tainted.”

Many siblings expressed the suicide strengthening the relationships with their parents and being able to talk openly with them about their sibling while others conveyed the overwhelming stress and responsibility of having to now care for the grieving parents that seem unable to move forward. One survivor wrote, “I’m now an only child and provide the emotional support to my grieving parents who can’t seek external support on their own.”

Some, not all, siblings have felt the pressure, whether consciously or sub-consciously and whether expected or not, to fill in the gap from their now absent sibling; whether it be personality traits like humor and interests or being readily available to other family members. One sibling expressed, “I feel the pressure to be smarter, healthier, and funnier. I’m always trying to be like my brother to keep my dad happy.”

Some wisdom from other siblings:

 “Don’t let your sibling’s life choice affect you to the point where you can’t live your own life.”

“I am not sure there is a right set of words. I would hug them, tell them I understand and let them cry or talk or be quiet or whatever they need to do. I would just be with them.”

“No two people grieve the same way. Your relationship with that person was your own and therefore your grieving might be different than others.”

“Don’t blame yourself and be kind to yourself.”

Losing A Friend:

The overwhelming feelings for friends are feeling alone, isolated, and discounted! Several friends expressed feeling left out and forced to grieve alone because they were not family. One friend shared she wanted to be more involved in planning her best friend’s memorial service as a way to honor her but the family refused to allow her to help. Some friends explained the difficulty in not being known by the surviving family because they lived in separate cities or states but had been extremely close to the one that died. As a result, the family, despite her close relationship to the friend, treated the surviving friend as a stranger. Others explained if there were not mutual friends to grieve with, the surviving friend is isolated in their own pain.

Guilt, again, is a common feeling within this subgroup as these friends shared everything with one another and to not know the enormity of depression and agony their friend felt is overwhelming. Frustration that their friend did not speak of their pain is common. Some expressed anger and confusion as they had made plans with their friend in the coming days and then their friend killed themselves without any clue. Some conveyed sadness that the one who died left a note to the family only and without any mention of the friend.

One survivor expressed not feeling like he fit in at a grief group he attended because he was ‘just’ a friend and felt the family members in the group discounted his grief as minimal because he did not lose a family member.

The themes for this subgroup were alone and lonely. These were mentioned time an