Category Archives: suicide

From The Other Side

28 Saturday May 2011

Posted by in faith, miracle, numinous, spirit, suicide

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            My father, several years before he shot himself, told me where he wished to be buried.  It was during the trip home from my grandmother’s funeral.  He said he wanted to rest in my mother’s family-cemetery out in the country where there were trees and birds and farm sounds—not the cemetery plot that he and Mom had picked out two decades ago.  When Daddy died, I felt a great need to honor his wishes, but chose not to go against my mother.  She wanted him in the in-town plot.  It was closer and paid for.  There was enough stress without my making a big deal.  But still, I felt that we had put him in the wrong place.  It nagged at me.
            One day driving to work, window down, I heard bird songs along the country road.  My mind worked on a ridiculous plan to dig him up when Mom died and bury him in the right place.  That’s when I actually heard my father’s voice speak with that same grinning-tone that always tried to talk me out of things.  “Don’t worry about that, Karen,” he said, “I kinda like hearing the traffic.  It’s ok.” 
Hot and cold at the same time, I pulled over to the side of the road to let sink what had just happened.  For the last few weeks, yes, I had heard the memory of my father’s voice, but today—I felt him actually near me.  I heard his voice.  It was different from remembering it.
            I never knew how to explain that moment.  I gave up the particular worry over where he was buried.  The rest of the day felt light and easy.  It was probably the first light and easy day I’d had since I had found my father’s body.  Later in the evening, I wished he had of explained what in the hell he was thinking.
            Who’s to say what’s real?  It’s faith that gives a miracle its nourishment. 

Family Relationships – Sibling Arguments

26 Thursday May 2011

Posted by in conflicts, family, grief, siblings, suicide

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Mom called us her little hummingbird warriors.  When I was five-years-old, I wanted my older sister to read to me, but she wanted to watch TV.  I got mad and cracked her over the nose with the book spine.  She retaliated and slapped me.  We sat there in front of the TV with tears running down our faces, whimpering, and patting each other’s leg in comfort.  For nearly forty years, we had resolved our thorny problems with arguments.
            After Daddy’s suicide my sister called and wanted to talk out her feelings.  She wanted me to listen—that’s all.  Each time I tried to share something of my feelings, she cut me off.  I got angry and told her “if you want to talk, the street should run both ways.”  She got quiet and said in a hurt voice, “I think so, too,” and hung up. 
Our grief triggered each other’s despair, ruthlessly.  One weekend my sister spent the night with Mom; my husband and I went down there, too, just for a day visit.  I took some tools for Mom out to the garage—where I had found Daddy’s body only a few months before.  My breath caught while I was out there, but I shoved down my pain.  Maybe my sister had listened to too much of Mom’s talk about Daddy before I got there, or maybe she had spent too much time looking at the walls.  Everywhere in Mom’s house were painful reminders of Daddy—pictures, tools, memories.  Her broken heart, I’m sure, ached.  Seeing the pain on each other’s face, we misjudged it, thinking the other was angry.  Anger and grief looked a lot alike in my family.
So we did what came natural.  We argued—loud, outside in front of the neighbors, in front of God.  Even when we tried to make up, we just got into another argument.  My chest heaved; her face flamed. Our pinpricked eyes gouged at each other.  I’m not sure how we restrained ourselves from hitting.  Strip away our adult veneer, and there we were again—Mom’s two little hummingbird warriors.
Twenty-four hours later, we apologized and meant it.  We grew up. 
Family members can and do trigger the grief process.  Expect conflicts; it’s natural.  Grief is a process for the whole family.

Explaining his death

25 Wednesday May 2011

Posted by in Daddy, explaining his death, fear, suicide

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            I had a catch-up conversation with a childhood friend I hadn’t talked with in years.  We’d lost touch for too long, so the topics covered a lot of ground, divorces, remarriages, children, grandchildren, and even new careers.  The topic changed to how our parents were doing, and I asked plenty of questions to keep her talking.  I didn’t want to say anything about my father.  I hated saying the way Daddy died.  How do you explain? His death carried an undreamt shame.  Years had passed, and I still had trouble. 
I felt double-minded.  She spoke unguarded and defenseless about her life.  One side of me wanted to open up to her, to be vulnerable and share.  The other side wanted to keep my grief a secret and press it tightly against my heart.  It was hard to even listen through my loud and harassing thoughts.
            To leave out such a significant detail of my life in this conversation felt a betrayal to my own person. This woman was a part of my life—a part of my good memories.  Daddy was a part of those memories with her.  I stammered my way through the words and felt the whole time I should have kept them to myself.  She hesitated, listened, gave her sympathy, and asked if his health had been bad.  I said yes, changed the subject, and asked more comfortable questions.
            Keeping my father’s suicide a secret is as monstrous as finding his body.  It walls me off and isolates me.  It’s a part of this hell, at least, that I have some control over and can change.

Spirituality—Strength

24 Tuesday May 2011

Posted by in choice, depression, evil, fear, suicide

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            Almost immediately after my father’s death, I had suicidal thoughts of my own.  These thoughts seemed so alien; I didn’t believe they came from me—as if the same dark force that had killed my father now stalked me.
The demon whispered killing directions into my ear.  It stayed at me—bullying me into a whimpering mass night after lonely night when my husband worked night shift.  In isolated moments of the day, it seized me.  I shuddered when I picked up a kitchen knife.  “This sharp edge will easily slice your skin”, it whispered.  I gritted my teeth and finished putting away the silverware.  “Just take out the gun and look at it,” it begged.  I asked my husband to take the gun out of the house.                    
Finding Daddy’s body had dislodged my thinking.   Evil became tangible to me.  The demon was too real to think otherwise.  I had never been as frightened as I was then.  Daddy’s suicide had terrified me.  What I didn’t realize was how a serious depression can manifest itself.  I felt that I needed help to fight an evil spirit.  What I needed was help to find my way out of the hole I’d fallen into.
            After my father’s death, I asked a priest for more information about evil.  I wanted that knowledge to fight my sinister enemy.  “Take your eyes off of it,” she said, “focus on the good in your life.”  Each week I met with her and discussed bible stories.  They nurtured my battered spirit.  The talk, just as fortifying as the stories, helped me see the good in my life.  My thoughts about evil stepped back and became less commanding. What I consciously (or unconsciously) chose to center my attention had a powerful effect on my mental health.
   Search out something that will feed your soul with strength and light.  Listen to good music, walk in the woods, or discuss a good story.  Talk to someone who listens. Don’t look evil directly in the eye; there’s a black hole behind it.

Childlike Confusion

21 Saturday May 2011

Posted by in boundaries, childish, comfort, grief, helplessness, suicide

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Daddy’s death changed me.  The instant helplessness on the day of his suicide catapulted me into an earlier mind-set.  I was like a child who had not yet learned a language, full of needs and fighting to find the words.  For a long time my world was nothing but childish confusion.
            Child-like needs filled me in numerous ways.  Keeping in constant touch with my mother was one of them.  One day at work when I couldn’t get her on the phone, I had a panic attack.  I started crying and couldn’t stop. “My mind’s running away with me,” I breathlessly told my boss.  No other explanation fell from my lips.  All I could see was her lying helpless or dead in her house. She was actually at the grocery store.
            Another childish defense was that I looked to the supernatural to justify harsh realities.  I believed a demon possessed my parents’ house.  Daddy had become obsessed over their septic tank not working.  It was the last thing I heard him talk about.  I felt an evil spirit had taken up residence there—in that dirty tank.  Surely a demon was what killed him.  At that time there was no other way for me to confront the evil of depression and suicide. 
Visiting my mother afterwards was horrifying.  “I hate this,” I’d cry to my husband.  He always went with me that first year, or else I wouldn’t go.  I couldn’t name what “this” was, but my husband didn’t ask.  Probably nothing I said that first year made much sense to him.
But last night a screech owl flew close to my bedroom window.  Its sound, screeched-out like an ancient prayer, gently awoke the adult in me.  Wrapping my arms around my chest, I came to understand.  Not only did I sorrow over the loss of my father, my very own child-like emotions needed comfort. I curled into a fetus position in the bed and hummed myself to sleep.
Grief is confusion of the heart.  Try to understand and comfort your child-like nature.

Before He Died

20 Friday May 2011

Posted by in boundaries, comfort, grief, guilt, suicide

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            My father wasn’t himself.  At times he seemed resentful, and I reacted defensively.  Other times, his gentleness touched my heart so much; it made me ache.  I’ve never been able to describe him easily, but there toward the last, his actions confused me. 
The Christmas before his death in April, he looked sad, withdrawn—almost vacant.  Sitting next to him near the Christmas tree, I tried to get him to laugh.  About all that I got was a pinched-smile. 
Mom took ill a month before he killed himself.  Stubbornly, she refused to go to the doctor.  His face crumpled, and in a croaking voice, he asked me what to do.  The tears scared me.  He was the one that I’d always looked to for confidence. 
Three weeks before he died, he asked, “We’re not as close as we used to be, are we?”  His question ignited a great anger in me.  Sometimes I felt I had given him my whole life—wasn’t that enough?  I didn’t say anything—not one word.   I’ve wished for that moment back so many times.
His actions and my reactions haunted me.  The week after his funeral, I tried to occupy myself with a lot of busy work.   While cleaning the inside of my car, my mind was suddenly flooded with a year’s worth of back memories.  I collapsed in the back seat crying, “I’m so sorry, Daddy.  I didn’t know.  I just didn’t know.”
Guilt sat on my shoulder like a feral cat licking blood off its paws.  I carried it with me everywhere.  Its wild, unsatisfied hunger for self-blame nearly sucked the life out of me.

Chasm

20 Friday May 2011

Posted by in boundaries, comfort, Daddy, grief, guilt, suicide

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            I found some un-mailed letters that I wrote to Daddy.  Written long before his death, they said all the things that I wanted to say in person: his emotional distance hurt me; he was too remote; I worked too hard for our relationship; he didn’t work hard enough; I wasn’t sure he cared for me, and I needed him.  It was there, written but not sent.  They were the practice letters.
            I managed to mail one letter.  Around my forty-first birthday and just before my second marriage, I told Daddy some of how I felt.  But the words weren’t the right ones, still.  They hurt him.  One day on his front porch, in front of Mom, he told me that the two of us would be ok with each other if I would never write him another letter like that again.  His voice was lower and scratchier than usual.  I swallowed hard, and stared the old oak tree.  I remembered it as a seedling.  I remembered, too, as a little girl desperate for his attention, that I ran bird-flight circles around Daddy while he staked it down. 
“Okay,” I promised, “no more letters.”  Afterwards he talked more, and hugged me tighter when I came to visit, and looked at me with different eyes.  My heart ached when I was around him.  I was still that needy kid.
            When he died, I felt I had failed him.  Yes, I knew he was the parent.  Yes, I knew what I had wanted from him wasn’t asking too much.  But how had he felt about me when I was a child?  Maybe I meant more than he could say.  Maybe, like me, he couldn’t find the right words.  Who knows the inner struggles of another if the words are not spoken out loud?
            Revealing yourself to another is a risk.  Setting boundaries, or asking for more communication are not bad things. They’re healthy and loving actions. Through the guilt-haze after a loved one’s suicide most everything feels wrong.  That doesn’t make it so.