Difficult Seasons

The third portion of information written by the wife of a man who took his own life one month ago appears below.  These paragraphs give some very practical, positive things we can do to help people who are grieving.  (Here are links to Part 1 and Part 2.)

Give me a hug. I need human touch. Tell me things will be okay someday in the distant future. I need to hear that there is hope. Remind me that God is near. Remind me that God does care about my family and me. I want to believe it.

Write me a letter to share your thoughts/experiences with me. I can read letters again and again until I understand. Don’t be offended if I screen my phone calls. I don’t always feel like talking. If you know I’m having a hard day, show up at my house. Just sit with me. We don’t have to talk. Just sit with me and remind me that you are there for support. Don’t ask me to tell you what I need you to do. Just find something, and do it. Take my children out for the day. Mow my yard. Help me clean out a closet or sort through his things.

Give me a call just to let me know you are still thinking about and praying for our family. Or send me an email. I think and can respond on my own time.

Send a card. At first, there were so many cards. Now, not so many. But…the cards I receive now mean that people still care. People are still praying for our family. I have a difficult time with prayer right now. It’s nice to know someone out there is praying for us.

Feel free to invite me to an activity. I will probably go – and be glad not to have to worry about planning/arranging it. It will allow me to forget for awhile. If I really don’t feel up to it, I’ll tell you.

Just be around. Be around, not to find out information – just to be a friend. If I share something personal, don’t share it with others. Don’t betray my trust or I will never share again.

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Continued tomorrow

The words below come from the wife of a man who took his own life, and who is sharing her thoughts and feelings to help others of us understand what her grief journey is like.  I’m thankful to her for sharing.  I know that many of you join me in praying for God’s blessings in her journey, and for the healing that only He can provide.  (Here’s part 1 if you missed it.)

I feel guilty all the time. I think about what I should have done differently all. the. time. It’s like a movie that plays again and again. I keep trying to re-write the ending. Don’t add to my guilt and ask me why I didn’t (fill in the blank)? I don’t know why I didn’t do things differently. I wish I had done things differently. I wish I had been able to. I wish I could have stopped him. I think about the what ifs all the time. I constantly wish for a do-over. But wishes don’t bring him back. I can’t have a do-over. Don’t add to my guilt please. Hindsight is 20/20.

I know my husband wasn’t perfect. I know you may have heard about some of the things that happened before he died. I am torn. You can tell me how it makes you feel, that’s fine. I’ve felt just as angry, believe me. But, he was a human being, with a life, a soul. I loved him. I plan to emphasize the positive aspects of my husband’s life to my children. It does them no good to hear the negative. They are a part of him too. I don’t want them to think that a part of each one of them is “bad”. So keep the comments about my deceased spouse positive in front of my children. They only have memories now. Let’s make the memories good ones. (Sometimes, I might want to share some of the difficult memories with you privately. Don’t act shocked. Don’t judge me for the things I say or the way I feel.)

I am fearful about the future. Can I do it alone? What if I try and I fall on my face? Who will help me then? My whole future changed in one instant. I mourn the life I once imagined. The advice that I need to “get on with my life” usually comes from people who are still married to their spouse of 30+ years. I resent that advice. Don’t tell me to “move on” or “get over it”. Don’t tell me how I should feel. Tell me that you will be willing to listen to me when things are tough. Make no judgements.

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Continued tomorrow.

Last week, a wife whose husband had taken his own life wrote a comment here, and to insure wider readership, I put it in a post. By private correspondence, she has written about her thoughts and feelings one month after her husband’s death.  She does a wonderful job helping all of us understand her grief.  She has given permission to publish her thoughts in the hope they will benefit others, both those who are going through what she is, as well as those of us who are wanting to minister thoughtfully to those who are in her position.  Because of it’s length, I’ll break it up into several posts this week.

It has been one month now. Most people expect me to be “over” it. I’m not sure that ever really happens, but I’m finding that right now, a month later, I’m just starting to feel that this is real. The hurt is starting to overwhelm me at times. In the first few weeks, I was angry. Angry at my husband, angry at God, angry at myself, angry at the world. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. A month later, I’m just sad… and beginning to want to talk (I think.) and yet…it’s old news. Nobody wants to hear about it now. Nobody wants me to cry now. A month ago, I couldn’t and everyone said I should. Now, people act like I shouldn’t. Everyone has moved on with their lives. My life is stuck right here.

Sometimes I look around and realize that the sun is still shining, people are still enjoying their normal everyday lives, and I am surprised that the world still turns and functions as usual. Some days I want the whole world just to stop, so I can catch up (or at least catch my breath). Sometimes I just want the whole world to feel as sad as I do, or at least validate the sadness I feel.

Speaking about breathing…I have to remind myself to breathe sometimes. It’s as if I must will myself to inhale and exhale. A heaviness settles in my chest and simply breathing takes extra effort. It’s also difficult to speak at times. The words are in my head but refuse to exit my mouth.

People told me to call if I needed something or needed to talk. It won’t happen. I will never call you. If you call me though, I will feel that you are interested and concerned. Ask me questions. I will answer the best I can. I might even share my struggles. But don’t feel offended if I don’t. I don’t always know how I am feeling. It changes from day to day, hour to hour, situation to situation. I have to feel that you really want to know before I will share my thoughts with you. If I sense you really don’t have the time, (when you continually glance at your watch), I know you feel obligated to ask me how things are going but you’d really rather not ask.

…Continued tomorrow

Quoted below is a recent comment on a post I wrote on suicide.  I think it gives us real insight into what it’s like to be left behind to pick up the pieces.

My husband made the same decision a few weeks ago. One of the hardest moments of my life was telling our children. How do you explain to children that their dad killed himself and make it okay? I did my best, but…we still hurt.

I understand that he wanted to be rid of his pain. The problem with pain is that it never really ends – it only transfers. Now I feel as though I’m trying to hold back a wall of pain, trying to keep the pain from seeping down through the generations. It’s impossible. I have one child who is terrified that I will disappear also. Will they ever recover? Will I?

I’ve felt desperate to make sense of this. I’ve searched and searched everywhere for a note, checked phone records, examined receipts, reviewed all of the clues I missed, felt guilty for not being able to stop him, hated him for the things he did, loved him for the person he could have been, been angry with God, been angry with myself, begged and pleaded for one more day, wished our last words could have been different, felt that the thing I want the most is just beyond my reach, felt betrayed, felt forgotten, felt his hatred, imagined again and again his last few hours/moments/seconds and felt his pain. And yet it changes nothing.

I get tired of being strong. I don’t want to care, or think, or feel. I don’t want to deal with the rude comments and the people who avoid us in the grocery store as if suicide might be “catching”. I don’t want to hear the false rumors about what “really” happened that night. I don’t want one more teacher to ask my children to tell the class about their family or to write about their summer vacation. I want the time/space/permission to fall apart and let someone else pick up the pieces. But I can’t. I don’t have that choice. I have to be here, taking care of things – telling my children that everything will be okay and one day we will hurt less. And I try to convince them that the things I say are true. I try to convince myself.

I have been numb and in a state of shock ever since receiving an ominous email last Thursday from our senior minister.  It gave the elders of our church a heads up about the death of one of our well-known, well-loved charter members.

Word of the death spread quickly, both through formal and informal means.  Soon I began seeing statements of grief on Facebook, friends openly shocked and hurting.

You see, our friend was young (49), active, deeply involved in church ministry and community efforts, always smiling, obviously in love with her husband and daughters, and always doing things for others.  She had spent a week this summer cooking at a youth camp, had helped with VBS, and had started Facebooking.

The idea that she was no longer alive was frankly unbelievable.  As word spread, with the family’s permission, that she had taken her own life, that unbelief was taken to still another level.  My mind, like the minds of my church friends, was filled with questions, filled with what-ifs, filled with not understanding.  While I didn’t know her as well as many others did, she certainly would rank among the least likely people in the whole world who might take their own life.

In my life, I’ve known four people who took their own lives.  Each has been a shock, very unexpected.  I’ve learned that we won’t get answers to our questions.  But that doesn’t make struggling with the questions end.

Sometimes we get some clues though.  It was revealed today that she had valiantly battled severe bouts of depression during her life.  Depression had been a factor in the life of another of the people I knew who took their own life, and for another, it was discovered post-mortem that he had a previously unknown brain tumor.  These clues help us understand a little of what may have contributed to their decisions.  But they don’t make the questions go away.

Something our senior minister said at today’s funeral service has helped me though.  ”The person who made this decision last Wednesday was not the person we all knew and loved.”  He also spoke about extending the grace of forgiveness to her for the loss and pain we are all feeling.

So tonight I’m sad for the family and her many friends.  I’m perplexed by the complexity of our bodies that can allow changes that take us completely out of character and have us make tragic decisions.  I’m resigned to not understanding, to not being capable of understanding.  And I’m thankful for the grace of God, given freely to us, which makes it easy for us to extend grace to others.