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





Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Helplessness

            My husband had rotator-cuff surgery on an outpatient basis.  On the second day that he was home, he lost consciousness when I took off the surgical bandage.  Not armed with enough medical knowledge, I felt scared for him and didn’t know what to do.  My hands shook as I frantically held him upright in the chair and called out his name.  Later, after my husband had regained consciousness, we laughed.  He fainted because the bandage came off with most of his chest hairs. 
Nonetheless, that inadequate feeling I had with my husband that day reminded me of how I felt when I found my father.  I felt helpless, afraid, and called out his name.  After my husband’s bandages were changed, I lost myself in a ton of housework.
Even before I saw my father’s body, I knew something wasn’t right.  His garage was strangely quiet.  The old, manual garage-door was lowered too much; the dog tied-up outside the door looked too sad.  I had a dozen questions running inside my head.  Where was he—on a walk?  Why hadn’t he taken his dog?  As if reacting to a premonition, my heart pounded when I pulled up the door.  My hands shook and time seemed to stop.  When I stepped inside, I called out, “Daddy.”  That one word echoed off the walls of my mind since he died. 
My mother and sister said I took control that day, arranged things.  It was my way of fighting off what happened to me in that garage.  I came up against the core of what was horribly uncontrollable; my mind disassociated from reality.  Later, I went on auto-pilot and made a to-do list.  Organizing, making calls, watching after my mother as if she were my only concern—all that was an effort to stop feeling helpless.  I actually felt heartless because I couldn’t feel anything, but I wasn’t.  I was just in shock.  I was a vulnerable adult-child hiding behind tasks and to-do lists.
          Sometimes just listening to my own breath brings me to the realization that many things are uncontrollable.  I do not have to be afraid of everything that I can’t control.  If I hold my breath, mostly I will just pass out and breathe again.
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