Grieving a suicide

[deer of the dawn]

I was surprised not to find any threads on this, although my search skills have fallen short in the past. (EDIT: changed the name of the thread since this seems to be the direction of the convo.)

I shared in one or two other places that my brother in law took his life one month ago. Grief is a strange thing. Yesterday was the worst. I was back in Nigeria, back at work, and for most of the day I didn't want to live on this planet anymore. My co-workers gather for prayer every Wednesday and i truly believe their prayers helped.

I also bought a book called "Aftershock" which has already proven really helpful. It encourages writing and journaling. Today's writing turned into a poem. I have a password-protected journal on my laptop, so I can say whatever crosses my mind and feel safe.

I have lost people before, but the close ones were expected. They were ill, or elderly. Ronnie's suicide blindsided everyone. Reading the book, I am relieved to know that the rollercoaster ebb and flow of feeling is very typical after losing someone to suicide.

Denial is the first stage of grieving. The power of it is astounding. It literally took me a month to get to where I could feel how this really is one of the worst things to ever happen to us as a family. Even after being in my brother in law's house, after helping go through his clothes and his computer to delete personal files and accounts, and driving the car with which he ended his life. It wasn't until I got back to "normal" that it was real.

I'm just saying what's on my mind and anyone who has something to share, feel free. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Wherever you are moving or stuck along the scale, just say what's on your mind.

[lorin]

grief comes in waves, in between the anger and guilt, and for me.......relief. I keep thinking of when I was a kid and in the ocean. And you saw the wave coming, growing bigger and bigger as it got closer. Then you had to make a decision, ride the oncoming wave, let it crash into you or go under and through the center of it, getting tumbled around.

Either way, you hopefully get through it and there is brief calm before the next wave.

[Avatar]

In the last few years, my mother, a close uncle and my father all died pretty unexpectedly. The events and circumstances are probably all chronicled in the "how you do feel" thread(s), but suffice it to say that I may have a less common approach/reaction to grief than many.

First, I think that when a person is dead they are beyond all care and suffering. Whatever happened, no more can happen to them.

As a result, (and this is a personal feeling, I truly mean no disparagement of anybody else's grief), I think that the majority of grief is selfish. It is the impact of that loss on our own lives that I suspect we tend to mourn most of all.

Second, everybody dies. It's inescapable. Every person ever to walk the earth has lived, loved, known people, done things, and died. The overwhelmingly vast majority are forgotten within a few generations at most. Some rare few are given posterity, the majority of which will dwindle over time anyway. We are transient and ephemeral. To rail against this is a waste of energy.

Against even the ages of the earth, let alone those of the universe, our lives are an eye-blink. What we may have done if ours is a little shorter than average may be regretted by those left behind, but we will (can) care nothing for it once we are gone.

For me, this has always been the best measure of a life lived:

SUCCESS

To laugh often and much
to win the respect of intelligent people
and affection of children; to earn the
appreciation of honest critics and
endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty, to find the best
in others; to leave the world a bit
better, whether by a healthy child
a garden patch or redeemed
social condition; to know even
one life has breathed easier because
you have lived. This is to have
succeeded.

Donne got one thing right...Death is nothing special. Not because faith overcomes it, but because it happens to every living thing. Only our imaginations made it possible for us to imbue it with its mythos, and that sprang from the fear of it that our imaginations also made possible.

It's sad when somebody close to us dies. I still miss my mom all the time. But she's got no more problems. Only I do. And life goes on until it doesn't.

--A

[Holsety]

As a result, (and this is a personal feeling, I truly mean no disparagement of anybody else's grief), I think that the majority of grief is selfish. It is the impact of that loss on our own lives that I suspect we tend to mourn most of all.

It's sad when somebody close to us dies. I still miss my mom all the time. But she's got no more problems. Only I do. And life goes on until it doesn't.

This is my outlook as well. I do sometimes feel extremely sad for someone when they're in the process of dying, especially if it is drawn out and painful (which is not that uncommon). But once someone passes, I stop worrying about them so much. I'd say I even feel relief for them. If I was religious and believed in hell, maybe it'd be different (then again, maybe I'm too optimistic, but I don't think anyone I knew personally who passed away would end up in hell).

It's not common for me to grieve when someone close to me passes. During a funeral, my most common emotion is to feel guilty that I'm not sad. But a little further along in time, at punctuated intervals, I'll remember something nice about them and feel sad that I can't speak with them again. I do think it'll be very different for me when my parents pass, or if my brother passes away before I do (I guess that that "if" applies to my parents as well).

[Fist and Faith]

I'm sorry for your loss, deer.

The real tragedy in cases like this is that someone was living with such emotional pain that he had to end his life to end the pain. The quality of life was so horrible that it could not be allowed to continue. That's something to grieve over. It's so unfortunate when we don't know that this is the case until it's too late. How can we keep our eyes out for something like this? Some are open about it, but others hide it very well.

[deer of the dawn]

Thanks Fisty and everyone. I could say "AMEN" to everything everyone's said here. Regardless of one's perspective on what happens after death, That person's deal is done. Grief is for the loss of relationship and the things we counted on.

I have often told others, especially children, that the person who died wouldn't want us to stop living in order to mourn them. They would much rather we remember the good things about them, and make the best of the life we have before it's over.

grief comes in waves, in between the anger and guilt, and for me.......relief. I keep thinking of when I was a kid and in the ocean. And you saw the wave coming, growing bigger and bigger as it got closer. Then you had to make a decision, ride the oncoming wave, let it crash into you or go under and through the center of it, getting tumbled around.

Either way, you hopefully get through it and there is brief calm before the next wave.

I love the description, lorin.

[SoulBiter]

2 years ago this month one of my best friends took his own life. We emailed back and forth that morning about some mundane work issues (we both worked at the same place). He worked an early shift and by the time I got to work that morning, he had walked out, got in his car, went down to the lake where we always went fishing. He got someone on the phone and told them where he was and to call 911 and then he hung up. He was dead a few minutes later.

I really struggled with that because he never told me he was struggling in that manner. We had been friends for more than a decade, he was the Best Man at my wedding. But some where along the way, he decided he couldn't make it anymore. I would have liked to think I could have talked him out of it. I think had he reconsidered, he and I might be laughing about him being all messed up in the head 2 years ago.

But life goes on. We deal with the grief and soon we have the good memories to sustain us. I find now that I can think of him and laugh instead of cry, at all the good times we had, all the things we shared. That trip down to Orlando in his Cobra at 100+ mph cause we said we could make a 5hr 30 min trip in 4 hours. Going to EQ-fest (when Everquest was a big thing). Being up at 3AM slaying dragons online in EQ, being up that late on a full wipe and a corpse recovery in the 'planes' and laughing on the phone with each other about how big the wipe was. Later doing quests in WoW. Fishing on the weekends, I taught him how to bass fish. Watching each others kids grow up. I was able to forgive him for not being strong enough, and move on. I hope he found the peace he was looking for.

I still grieve for the loss of his friendship, but its not a biting pain any longer.

[Avatar]

Great post SB.

--A

[deer of the dawn]

Sorry for your loss, SB. I suspect we all wish we had known and had a chance to try to stop the person. If I have learned one thing it is that people need to know how valuable they are, and I need to let them know, somehow, that the world will not be better off without them.

[peter]

Can I just come back on the 'grief is inherently selfish' thing; I agree with this but add that it is right that is so. It is the measure of the value that we placed in those whom we have lost that we feel the 'hole' their absence leaves in our own lives so keenly, and thus is this 'selfishness' entierly proper. The grief in this case must be for the most terrible pain suffered that would drive an individual to such a final and irreversible statement on where life has taken them.

[Avatar]

Well said Peter, and a valuable caveat.

--A