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 3, 2011

Jealousy

            I was stingy for his love after he died; he was, after all, my father.   But memories of his attention seemed always to be for someone else.
Reacting with sibling competition, I envied that Daddy had once apologized to my older sister.  When she was a child, he had mistreated her.  I guessed the reason was because she had taken all of Mom’s attention.  But I had been his little buddy.  Perhaps he felt there was no reason to apologize for his behavior toward me.  After his death, the thought of his need for my sister’s forgiveness angered me as if lightening had struck white heat through my heart.
Jealousy of Daddy’s love for Mom overpowered me, too.  I felt he loved Mom as if she were the only person in his world.  “Don’t you think your moma has such a good way about her?” he would ask me, grinning, always telling me how pretty she was.  I remembered the times he held my hands out to the light, turning them this way and that, and then with a smile declaring them “just like your moma’s.”
Even the affection he felt toward his dog tore at me.  The sound of Dad’s gentle talk to that dog echoed in my ears after his death.  Every day for years, he had taken it for a walk in the woods on the hunt. “We scout ‘em squirrels out together,” he bragged.  On my visits home, those squirrel hunts were his funny stories.
My family relationships suffered from the resentment that wiggled in and out of me like worms.  But, it seemed that as grief ever-so-slowly abated, my feelings evolved into something more respectful.  I became grateful that Daddy had given my sister a chance to forgive him.   I became thankful that his life was filled with a love that many never find.  And I was glad that he taught me how to be an honest and forthright individual.  That was his attention to me; he was, after all, my father.
Grief turns on the basic emotions like switching on all the lights in the house.  Jealousy is one.  Listen to it.  It is saying you have every right to hurt.  Talk to someone who can help you find a healthy release.
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