Suicide is an odd beast. And losing someone to suicide leaves you with the strangest form of grief. There is so much that the public doesn't understand. They don't know how to approach you: They don't know what to say. And to make matters worse, those left behind don't know what to say either: Do you bring it up? Blurt it out? Tell everyone - or no one?
Perhaps it is this general lack of conversation about suicide, that leaves so many of us with no idea how to grieve. In fact, grief is often the last emotion experienced after losing someone you love to suicide.
When my father first died, I was angry. My rage (outrage perhaps), was palpable. I have long understood that depression is a disease, and I was not totally surprised by his choice. But he took my mother with him... I often tell people that I lost both my parents to suicide: My father to the act, and my mother to its consequences.
We also lost our "family" home. Though my mother refused to move, my sister, my nephews and my sons, never set foot in the house again. My daughter cried her way through her long anticipated med school graduation, an event my father had promised to attend. Trust me, there was a lot to be angry about.
Yet when my anger finally began to subside, shock and disbelief took its place. Occasionally denial danced around, particularly when talking with acquaintances or nosy neighbors. After about 5 years, understanding and forgiveness arrived. But none of that has anything to do with grief. In fact, I don't think I've even begun to grieve.
Driving from NH to VA, I was listening to a wonderful book on Audibles: Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt. The story involves an elderly woman who'd lost her only child in a strange accident / possible suicide over 30 years ago. Near the end of the book (11 hours into the story), she is finally able to grieve. At first this concept seemed odd ...the idea of carrying unexpressed grief for 30 years, how does a person do that? And yet, here I am at 6 years, 2 months, (and counting).
There's not a day that goes by that I don't miss my dad. But so much of my energy has been focused on understanding him - his suffering, his disease, his actions. I've focused on what he taught me - the reams of misinformation he preached and presented through the clouded gray lens of depression. I was taught that the world is an unsafe place, for example, but now realize his greatest fear was lurking deep inside himself. Layers and layers of falsehoods.... layers and layers of anger, understanding and forgiveness.
Over the last 6 years and 2 months, I've tried to question everything. I've tired to live differently, to not repeat his mistakes and most of all: To not share his muddle mindset (now firmly embedded in me), with the next generation.
Yet as I climb the walls in another house (my 7th!) and find myself searching online once again for a camper van (my 6th!) I'm slowly coming to realized, that I haven't even begun to deal with the vast emptiness his death has left inside me.
And ... well.. that sucks.
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