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





Monday, May 23, 2011

Exhaustion

             
            The year my father died was one big blur for me.  I slept most of the time.  My waking hours were spent fighting against the onslaught of my thoughts.  Luckily, I kept a journal. That action at least gave those thoughts a small release.
            The first month after Daddy’s funeral, if my husband and I went to the grocery store, he kept the list and pushed the buggy because I would stop in the middle of the aisle and would just stare at nothing.  Lost in thought, I was like a walking zombie. 
            Going on long walks—something that usually relaxed me—was out of the question.  Before Daddy’s suicide, I did my best thinking when on a walk; after his death, I was racked by pains of guilt and sadness when I went.  Crying at the thought of my father’s last few days, I would lose my breath and have to sit on the ground.
            I signed up for a yoga class and went only one time.  During the end of the class when we were supposed to surrender to the quiet and let our minds and bodies relax, I was overcome with grief and started crying.
I think when you love someone, and you lose him or her, it rips a hole in your soul.  That was how I felt when I lost my father—as if my soul had cracked wide open. 
Exhaustion was my body telling me I needed rest.  My soul needed as much mending time as my body would have if I had lost an arm or a leg.
Fatigue is the result of a soul’s injury.  Give yourself time to heal.  Take it easy.
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