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





Thursday, May 26, 2011

Family Relationships – Sibling Arguments

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.
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