One Woman’s Perspective
The blog below contains words about suicide, although not graphic some may find it activating. please move past the following if there is any doubt.
An out of order life
No parent should bury a child, that’s not the natural order of life. All loss is tragic. Loss of a child is traumatic. Loss of a child by suicide is unfathomable. I can only speak for myself, my situation, this is after all only one woman’s perspective. Before my son, Josh took his life, I didn’t know anyone who had died by suicide. At the time, I knew someone who knew someone but I didn’t know anyone firsthand.
Grief
Grief is a disorder that expresses itself differently for everyone. You just don’t know how you’re going to react until you’re in it. Imagine, I had never been to a shiva before, suddenly I’m at my son’s. Someone left out a book on the customs of mourners and I thought, I’ll never finish this in time, what do I do? In the end what does it really matter? Did I not mourn properly? Was it not enough? All I remember is how surreal everything felt. It wasn’t happening to me, I must be watching someone else’s worst day. I felt like I was on a conveyer belt. I was just pulled from one place to another. At the cemetery I was first in line, there were rows and rows of chairs. I walked to the first row and walked down to the end but I left one chair. There must be somebody who will need this chair, I can’t take up the whole row! Well there was no one else, the row was mine. Front row seats at an event I didn’t need a ticket for. No one asked me if I wanted to be there. Where was my say? When could I chime in? As my grief progressed I was reminded of the musical “Stop the World, I want to get off” by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. But the world had the audacity to keep on going. It would take a while to appreciate the concept of the continuum of life. The cycle goes on, as it should because there is so much left and life is a gift. A gift you can’t return but one that has an expiration date on it, unbeknownst to anyone.
The aftermath is chaos. Everyone handles it differently. Some throw themselves into work. Some dive deeply into their grief and the living take second fiddle. I would say I did the latter. Not having a career to consume myself with, all I saw was my loss.
Mourning
The shiva was as maddening as it was necessary. It became one of those things that no one can tell you how much it helps, you need to find it out for yourself. Spending 7 days isolated from the world yet your door is open to whomever comes at whatever time. There was a couple who came to console us. They too had lost a child to suicide. It was too soon. No one could reach me and I had no desire to learn from someone I had just met. Suicide was unknown to me. At the time I didn’t want to hear their story. At the time I thought, erroneously, they must have missed something. My child does not fit the same story. It’s something they did not, my child is different. Only now do I realize that suicide can strike anyone. No-one is immune from it. There is not one reason but an accumulation. Some get distracted with the final event that drove the person to the final act but there is usually something that preceded it.
Welcome advice
There are many suggestions of what to say and what not to say. The best piece of advice was given from someone who offered it unknowingly, unexpectedly. During the shiva, I just wanted it all to stop. I didn’t want to receive consolation anymore. I didn’t want to answer “What happened?” anymore. The amount of people that came made my stomach turn, where were they before? I blamed them like I’m sure others blamed me. But we are not to blame. Josh made the decision. Not everyone agrees that death by suicide is based on a decision. Can you hold a mentally impaired person responsible for their actions? But Josh was not mentally impaired. He made a decision, a wrong one, a fatal one but it was he alone who made it. At the shiva in my escape from those who came, out of obligation or curiosity I made my way to the salon. In the salon was a visitor. To be polite I started a conversation and what he told me led me toward what I would do next, my journey. He started by saying his brother took his life…selfishly I did not ask him about him, I did not offer my apologies or condolences, all I could manage to say was “ how’s your mom?” “What did you mom do to aid in her grief?”. He told me that she joined a group. She meets with others who are in various stages of grief. Well that’s all I needed to hear so that’s what I did.
