When Reason & Logic are Twisted

I had a little bit of a crying jag earlier this week; it had been an incredibly long day at work (13 hours, to be exact), and I was trying to relax by watching CMT (Country Music Television) which was just playing music videos. One came on about servicemen in the military who had been injured in combat. One had lost his leg below the knee, and one had been blinded. Yet in the face of adversity, they figured out how to make it through and thrive again in life.

I burst into tears. How can they find the strength to live and my brother couldn't?

I have to catch myself at this point. I struggle every day to understand what my brother must have felt like, what could have made the world look so black to him. Ironically, it probably was a twisted version of reason and logic that played into my brother's suicide. For someone in the depths of depression, death seems the most logical choice.

I just wish for once he wouldn't have been so logical.

And Life Goes On

Tomorrow will be the seven month anniversary of my brother's suicide.

If there is one thing I have learned since then, it's that however much I miss him, even if I wallow in sadness forever, life just has to go on.

I got engaged just before the new year. It was a wonderful, exciting, happy end to a pretty shitty year. My engagement to a wonderful man has brought back some happiness into our lives, a feeling I thought we'd never find again. It's a different kind of happiness, tinged with the knowledge that my brother won't be at my wedding, but it's still happiness.

A few days after he proposed, AK asked me if I was sad that I couldn't tell my brother about our engagement. I told him the truth--I'm not. I'm sad he won't be at my wedding, my first child's birth, and every other happy event to come. But I'm not sad I can't tell him about my engagement. Because he knows. And life has to go on without him.

Why Rain Makes Me Sad(der)

It poured today.

I've never liked rain. The clouds, the gray dreariness...I miss the sun on days like today.

But rain now holds an even more profound sadness for me. Around this time last year, my brother came to visit me. We had a whole day of monument touring planned, but it was raining so hard neither of us really wanted to go out. Instead, we spent the day on the couch, watching some old favorite movies and laughing at ourselves.

I thought about him a lot today. How he won't ever again grace my couch on a rainy day. How his memory is inexorably tied to the rain, which I imagine (even in the face of global warming) will continue to show its face from now until eternity. What a legacy death leaves behind.

A Glimmer of Understanding

A friend reached out after reading my post where I asked how my brother could not see all those around him who would have done anything to help him. I struggle with that a lot--not being able to step into his shoes to know what he must have been going through. Reading her illustration of the experience of depression, I think I can grasp just a glimmer of understanding. Thank you for sharing this with me.

I’m on a sailboat, all alone, in the middle of the ocean. And I don’t know how to sail. I drift.

Sometimes the seas are calm, and I go about my days doing the things I need to. I might even see another sailboat nearby, and if the person on that boat sails over to me, I don’t have to be alone. (Remember, I don’t know how to sail, so I can’t sail to the other person’s boat.)

Sometimes when the seas are calm, I even think that I can sail. It doesn’t end well.

And when the seas are rough, it takes all I have not to fall overboard, not to be completely debilitated by seasickness. It would take an expert sailor to reach me. And it wouldn’t matter. The seas would still be rough.

Sometimes, it would be easier to drown.

Justifiable Suicide?

I read an article in the NYTimes about suicide and suicide attempts by women in Afghanistan. By fire.

Cooking oil and matches are readily available. Girls are all but sold to much older husbands who rape them, beat them, and shame them. Their families--if they are still allowed to see them--can offer no protection. These women and girls have nowhere to turn. So they choose suicide by fire.

One woman's husband taunted her that she did not have the strength to burn herself. Unfortunately, she did.

I don't know that suicide is ever justifiable or warranted, but I think I can understand, maybe a little, what would make one of these woman choose such an escape.

What depth of pain must my brother have been in? He had a family that loved him, friends who cared about him, and so many people who would have moved heaven and earth to help him. How could he have seen suicide as the only way out?

Walking in My Brother's Honor

This past Saturday, AK and I participated in the Out of the Darkness Community Walk to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. We joined about 400 others who were walking in memory of a loved one lost to suicide. With the support of so many friends, AK and I hit our fundraising goal of $2,500--in less than 2 weeks.

The walk wasn't as monumental as I thought it might be. I spent a good portion of the time being angry and upset that I was even participating in the walk, and that so many people have been affected by suicide. They gave out colored necklaces--honor beads--to symbolize the loved one lost to suicide. Orange for siblings, gold for parents, white for children, red for spouses, purple for friends. It was heartbreaking to see so many people wearing multiple beads.

They had run out of purple beads before we even got there.

Someone Who Can Relate

Although my friends and community have been incredibly supportive, pretty much nobody really knows what I'm going through. Don't get me wrong, I never want anyone to be in a place to understand, but at the same time, it's hard that people can't say more than "Wow, I'm so sorry, I have no idea what you are going through."

I started going to a suicide support group. I don't think I knew how much I needed to talk to someone who could say "Wow, I've been there, I'm so sorry."

My first group, I met a woman who was attending her last. She lost a son to suicide 3 years ago. As she left, she offered some words of wisdom: One day--maybe near, maybe far from now--we'll learn to be happy again. It won't be the same happy as it was before, but it will return. And although the pain never fully goes away, life can be sweet again.

I hope to be her one day.