Yes, it’s been tough. Tougher than you imagined, and you are still standing. Good for you. For those moments when your brain starts whirring and going down the rabbit hole, remember to breathe. It helps. And you will feel better.
Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Death is never easy. And the death of a young person is especially heartbreaking and traumatic. There was so much future and so much possibility that is now forever gone. There will be no more birthdays, graduations or wedding days. This young life, full of potential and promise, has ended in the blink of an eye and you are left reeling in shock and confusion. How could this happen? Why did this happen? Why wasn’t my child spared?
The loss of a young person leaves you speechless and shaking with emotion. How is it possible to walk through this miasma of agony and grief? You imagine your young one at the table. You instinctively listen at the door for him to come home or for her to dance into the living room. You crave any and all conversation about your son or daughter, niece or nephew or grandchild. You relish hearing stories and escapades. You smile. You cry. You learn that your young person was loved and cherished by others as well. Memories serve as your very best medicine.
Your mind goes into overdrive accessing every snippet of his or her short life. You want to remember everything in great, sensory-laden, Technicolor detail. You search for the sweet, the silly, the outrageous, and, even, the horrifying. Sometimes, you may judge yourself harshly for your all-too-human responses, reactive outbursts and your real or perceived wrongdoings. Give yourself time and space to acknowledge all of your feelings. Endeavor to be kind and compassionate towards yourself. The reality is that you loved, parented and guided the best way you knew how at that very moment in time.
You want to scream to the world at large. Sleep is often an anathema. Understandably, especially with sudden deaths, your anxiety and the concomitant fear of the future – notably with surviving siblings — ratchets higher. Nothing feels safe. Nothing feels right. And there is the “who-cares-anymore” well of depression. You are in a place you never imagined, much less prepared for: you are in hell.
Dealing with this anguish and sorrow is a rocky, uneven road. Eventually, you manage to put one foot in front of the other, even if you have been robotic and numb. Sometimes that is the only way you have been able to protect yourself from the tidal waves of feelings that turn you upside-down and leave you flattened, gasping for breath.
Life continues, day after day. Your heart is re-arranged by the devastating loss of your child. You are aware that you hold life even more preciously. This young death seems antithetical to the chronology of life. You were never meant to outlive your young one.
The emotional pain is searing and unrelenting. You didn’t know it was possible to hold the weight of this much grief. You never realized that you could love so intensely and grieve so deeply. You feel so very raw and tender. Your heart has exploded.
The grief is unpredictable and crazy-making. It is not a linear process; it is labyrinthine passage — unique and idiosyncratic for each and every one. There is no right or wrong, good or bad or, even, a specific time frame. Grief can be complicated, especially with unexpected deaths. It takes time — as much time as you need — and gentleness to work through the many layers of feelings for you to find a breathable perspective on your devastating reality.
And in the throes of accepting the heart-shattering reality of your loss, you may look for signs or symbols that connect you with your loved one. The dog barking madly in your now-absent son’s room; a big heart drawn on the sidewalk on a special date; a dream where you have a conversation with your child; or a girl, so like yours, who approaches you and hugs you for seemingly no logical reason. It feels as if the universe is offering you comfort and connection. And this may soothe your aching heart.
You want your loss to matter, to mean something. You decide to take action and you put feet on your grief. Perhaps, you create a remembrance to never forget or you bring energy and life to some course of action that honors your loved one. Out of your heartbreak, you look to create alchemy that allows something new, tender and hopeful to grow out this tsunami of grief. This precious loss will not be in vain, not on your watch.
The loss of your young person does not fade away, nor does it diminish over time, but it can be transformative. You carry a wiser, more compassionate heart because you have swum in the murky, heavy waters of grief. You understand more fully that life is dearest and most meaningful when shared with others.
Perhaps, most surprisingly, you discover that the wide-open explosion of your heart created a kind of spontaneous combustion that allows you to hold a still-point of light. You are now able to illuminate the dark for others who have been sucker-punched by grief. And this heart light will hold you steady as you breathe and step forward into a new day, knowing that you carry your young one with you, now and forever more.
This beautiful poem is by the late, great poet, philosopher and holy man, John O’Donohue. His words safely and soulfully wrap the tear-stained in understanding and comfort. In his inimitable way, John blesses those who know all too well the deep well of grief.
For Grief
by John O’Donohue
When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you becomes fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence.
Your heart has grown weary with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.
Flickers of guilt kindle regret
For all that was left unsaid or undone.
There are days when you wake up happy;
Again inside the fullness of life,
Until the moment breaks
And you are thrown back
Onto the black tide of loss.
Days when you have your heart back,
You are able to function well
Until in the middle of work or encounter,
Suddenly with no warning,
You are ambushed by grief.
It becomes hard to trust yourself.
All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until the coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.
Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From the gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.
“The greatest strength is gentleness.”
Iroquois Proverb
In today’s world, gentleness is not seen as a virtue, much less a strength. I agree with the Iroquois; gentleness is an exquisite strength. It calls us to be present, mindful and caring, the complete opposite of the hot reactor.
Gentleness is a loving gift we give to one another when we really listen and hear and allow. Gentleness speaks of attention and awareness. Gentleness is a requisite in grief. Gentleness opens the door to grief in whatever manner and form it presents itself. Gentleness sets the tone and creates the environment, be it physical or emotional, for acceptance of whatever the grief-stricken needs at that moment in time.
I think it takes practice, patience and kindness to be gentle. We have to s-l-o-w down and not run roughshod over the person before us. And it is ever so important to be gentle with ourselves as well — to tone down the woulda/coulda/shoulda’s, to stop berating ourselves for the what ifs, and to cease taking ourselves apart, bit by bit.
With gentleness, we sit next door to compassion and we can begin to heal.
And so it is.
It is a huge danger to pretend that awful things do not happen. But you need enough hope to keep going. I am trying to make hope. Flowers grow out of darkness. Corita Kent
On this Mother’s Day weekend, a time that might be unusually tender and tough, most likely you will hold your heart a bit more carefully, its weight heavy with memories and possibilities.
Blessings on all of you who have negotiated the tricky shoals of deep grief and heart-shattering loss. And blessings to all those Sweet Ones on the Other Side. Perhaps, it is their light that helps the flowers grow?
If I had to tell someone who is a survivor of a loved one who committed suicide, one piece of advice I would say is experience the wound; experience the shock, the trauma, and let it wash over you knowing it won’t destroy you, and trust that in time, like all wounds, you heal, and feel peace that your loved one is no longer suffering.
These and other sage words of wisdom, advice and counsel are included in Making Peace with Suicide: A Book of Hope, Understanding and Comfort.
Grief is a personal experience. Nod politely to those who give you deadlines and concrete conclusions. There is no one way to grieve. There is no time limit. It takes as long as it takes. Grief is a kind of love and a way to remember. Grief can be a master teacher and a doorway to transformation. Grief fine-tunes life and can shift your perspective. And grief, by sheer experience, will reassemble your heart.
Grief is also complicated, multi-nuanced and can be crazy-making. And like Pandora’s box, grief triggers memories of other losses. Memories that are held in the cells of your body.
Go gently. Allow the memories to wash over you, not knock you down. Allow your heart to rest. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to your lost loved one. It’s a courageous and arduous path of working your way through the rocky terrain of emotional upheaval. Grace, grit and determination are required as you make peace with what was. Ultimately, it is a process of fierce love and compassionate acceptance.
Frequently, suicides are sudden deaths. And sudden death hits like an enormous, out-of-the-blue thunderclap to the heart. Your world stops. This can’t be true.
And, then, your brain frantically engages. One minute the person is here; the next minute that familiar presence is gone. Like a flame extinguished, you are plunged into a darkness that is incomprehensible. You become wild-eyed with questions and uncertainties.
You try to make sense of it all; you retrace your steps. You race back in time to the very last connection you shared. You think of the “Goodnight, Honey” or the “Don’t stay out too late” to a family member or the “Have a good weekend” to the co-worker on his way out the door. The everyday words, the daily connections, seem so trivial and unimportant given the enormity of the loss, but they matter. They are the connective tissue of life.
Your mind, like a search engine run amok, comes up with all the related memories and associations. You remember the shared laugh over a quick cup of coffee. You think of the sharp words about keeping the curfew or who is going to pick up the quart of milk or why didn’t this-or-that get done.
You remember yesterday, your last week, last year, the day they were born, the day you got married, the day they walked into your class, your job, your life. Whenever and whatever those points of intersection, the moments of laughter and love, the hard times, the good times, the better times, the hang-out times, you want to remember it all — in vivid, painstaking detail.
Images and words jump to the fore. Your knees buckle at the image of reading him a bedtime story or brushing her hair. Bath time, bedtime, play time, work time, lunchtime, sleep time, making love time, finishing the project time; it all spreads before you—a diagram of your life with that person.
You find yourself choked up; words, memories, and feelings are caught in your throat and chest. It is difficult to take a deep breath. Everything feels so fragile and precious now. It is hard to navigate these uncharted waters; you lurch from side to side, feeling broken into a million little pieces. You have been shattered.
Sudden death leaves a trail of collateral damage. There is shock, complicated grief and, frequently, trauma. It takes time to accept the reality into your psyche. It takes courage to deal with the aftermath of sorting through a suicidal death. There is a deluge of every possible feeling.
Go gently. Go patiently. It takes clock time and it also takes as-much-as-you-need “heart time” for you to grieve and pick up all the shards of your shattered heart.
May you find peace. And may your newly pieced-together heart be awash in love and compassion for our very humanness.
