I wrote this about a year and a half ago, I think....
My mother had just told me about my cousin, who had killed himself a few days before , and as I tried to stay outside the emotions it brought up inside of me, I did the one thing that helped me to process my feelings most...
I wrote.
It is a strange place to be, trying to figure out how you feel, exactly, about someone you only spoke to once or twice, in the past two decades, but had seen so many summers, growing up, as a child....
We weren't very close, even back then, but he was family, and a part of my childhood. We laughed, fought and picked wild grapes in the woods near my house, together. I wanted so much to find words of comfort for his mom and brothers and sisters, after I'd heard. My work schedule kept me from attending the funeral and I couldn't find anything to say or write, that didn't seem stiff or cliché. I felt useless and impotent, in my silence...
In retrospect, I think that is how everyone feels in situations like this, but sadly, I think that is also exactly what separates people, in their grief...
Not wanting to say the wrong thing, at a time when there is no right thing to say...
I didn't want to publish this then, because I didn't want it to seem like I was making that tragedy about me. My history is scattered with friends, acquaintances and loved ones who chose this exact same road. I careened on it myself, more often than I ever let people guess, and understand more than I would like, these decisions made...
So I wrote this.
Everybody has their own personal hot-button issue, I guess.
I think this one is mine....
Generally, I shoot for " philosophical"...
But I guess today is not going to go that way. A post was building these last few days, words adding and subtracting themselves in a strange and subtle dance. Concept was fairly solid with a few light emotional sentiments gently tossed in. Most was written already, inside my brain...
And as almost always, life stepped in and pushed aside every single idea that seemed remotely relevant to what I originanaly wanted to say...
This evening I find myself sitting in a well used recliner, starting and erasing every single thing that manages to get typed, escaping the keyboard. Emotions are bouncing between heart and soul, giving no crededence to the authority governing them by my philosophical mind... I have no way to start the paragraphs that need to be written; no acceptable Segway into the statements that seem much too raw to stand by themselves...
I hate suicide.
It doesn't matter why I'm writing this today. There are reasons and emotions behind this, but none that really need explaining... Let's just say that every time that I read or hear or see anything that relates to this, my heart aches...
My heart breaks...
The strange thing about suicide is that it is never "distant". The person who commits it may not have been personaly close, but this rug we are all weaved in together intertwines entire families, entire communities...
I doubt any of us really know how wide of a net we cast in this life, how many people we affect directly and to a much larger degree, indirectly.
That is such a huge part of these tragedies. No one ever really knows their real worth and importance; no actuall concept of the emptiness and loss they inevitably leave behind...
So today I am praying for families. I am praying for all the Moms and dads and brothers and sisters left behind. I want to tell them, the specific them and communal them, the thousands of people decimated every day by this disease that it will be all right...
If not all right, at least eventually bearable...
I hope all those who have ever made this choice have found peace in their escape from the pain and isolation felt. What I hope most, is that somewhere before the time they got lost, before the depth overtook them, they had accepted Jesus as their Savior...
That when they then trudge over that final hill, The Father, like the one of the prodigal son , sees them...
I hope He then rushes with arms open, conveying an unmistakeable love so intently, that they will finally understand that it was always present...
I intimately understand those who walked this path to its bitter end. I had trudged it long ago, a lifetime ago, it seems. I paved part of it... So I understand the feeling of being caught in a trap you cannot yourself, spring...inescapeable and hopeless...
I do not know why God slipped that tiny bit of hope into my soul, at that precise moment needed, when I walked that long, dark road ; and I am continually haunted by the fact that i have no idea why he did not slip it into those countless other people who chose differently...
And that is part of what breaks my heart..
The guilt and the grace...
and not knowing why...
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