Dear Reader,

After my father’s suicide, I searched for books to help me through my grief process, but there weren’t many available, especially not one page meditations. The nature of recovery from a loved one’s suicide, for me, was silent. The people that knew about my loss did not know how to console, and I rarely spoke about my father’s suicide. I was afraid of what others may think of my father or me. Unearned shame kept me quiet. I needed words and feelings from someone who had walked down the same path. I did not need graphic descriptions of a person’s suicide. I couldn’t deal with words that brought home the horrible scene of finding my father. But still, I needed to know that the churning feelings inside me were normal. With the thought that possibly another person could relate to my feelings, writing them has been a catharsis.

For me writing has always been a release. There was an old game I used to play as a child called pick-up-sticks. The object was to remove one stick at a time without moving the others. That’s what writing these meditations has been like for me; I picked up one thread of a thought at a time to look at and express. Singling out just one thought and developing it into concise words was difficult and frustrating. Yet, it left me with a clear heart and the ability to get on with my life. Writing these one-page thoughts were both my own cathartic attempt to make some sense of what happened to me after my father’s death, and my attempt to help others cope with their sorrow.

Writing was just one tool in my efforts to heal from the grief of losing my father. Professional direction from a psychologist helped me to understand, also, that once I was able to see my father as no longer in pain then I could begin my own healing. Joining a support group gave me confidence to stop isolating and helped me to talk about my father’s suicide.

Efforts at good writing ask the writer to always speak their truth. It was the truth that I adhered to in these reflections. I did not whitewash the pain. If you have lost someone to suicide, I hope my truth will not cut sharply into your agony. And painful though they are, I believe these reflections have a healing grace. I hope that you will find something in them that will help.

Sincerely,

Karen Phillips





Friday, June 17, 2011

Family Reactions

            The weekend between my father’s death and his funeral, my mother’s house was filled with people.  Extended family, friends, neighbors, they all came.  I appreciated most of the support, except from one aunt.  She, like me, was filled with the need to take care of my mother.  It became a sick competition between us.  I resented her help.  I felt she should back off.  Uneasy, she talked too much.
Everything she said came out wrong or inconsiderate.  She bragged on how nice my husband was and how she wished we had children—knowing I couldn’t get pregnant.  She realized her insensitivity and apologized.  Conversationally, she said someone she was close to suffered from depression and thought he might kill himself, too.  Her comments seemed casual to me.  I couldn’t process the things she said.  In my mind, it had only been a few hours since I had just found Daddy’s body.  
At first, I felt hammered by her words and listened in shocked silence.  Then my anger spewed forth.  It didn’t come out so much in my words as how I said them.  I bore down on her—leveling my eyes upon her like an aggressive dog on the verge of attack.  She went flying out of the room, crying.
            Even though we were in a reactive state of mind, the resentment stayed with me for a long time.  Slowly, I realized I had been using her as a safety valve for my anger—anger that Daddy had been so selfish, that he had left his body for me to find, that I sat there feeling so powerless.  She was a safe target, a scapegoat; I knew she loved me.  Later, I apologized. She said there was nothing to apologize for.  She was right.  We were all so full of grief. 
Grieving people say and do stupid things.  Grieving people react just as stupidly.  We hurt each other.  Be thankful.  Understanding or not, we become great teachers in the lessons of forgiveness. 
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