Last night I shared my experience, and listened to the
experiences of others at the once monthly suicide survivors support group put
on by our local Hospice. I have been to
the group several times before, but have missed meetings lately due to the fact
that I’m too busy living life, which is better than crying.
There were a couple of conversations that stuck to me. Often things will go with me from the meetings,
and I quite often pray over others that I meet there, but rarely do I take anything home that
gets the hamster in my brain running on his wheel. Last night was the exception. I can still
feel him in there, squeaking away on that thing. I
think I need to get it out so the freaking hamster will find something else to
do.
The first conversation was regarding the cause of
suicide. A quick aside: I know that not
all suicides are the same, and that everyone is unique. I also know that it’s hard to hear something
about a loved one that seems less than complimentary to them. However, I have to deal with this my way, and
I will try to be respectful to others dealing with this their way. This is my way.
I started quite the conversation by saying, “Suicide is
caused by mental illness. Everything
else is a contributing factor.” This seemed to help the man I was saying it to,
but two people in the room objected. I’m
glad they did. Not ALL suicides are
caused by mental illness, but I would amend it to say ALMOST ALL suicides are
caused by mental illness. I wish I had
been able to explain but since one of the people who seemed most reluctant to
talk opened up about it, and that was good, I decided to let it go, and let him
talk.
If I had been able to explain, I would have said this: “Self-preservation
is one of the strongest forces in human behavior, and to override that takes
not only a tremendous amount of courage (I may expand on that another time, so
please don’t get hung up on it)but it also requires overriding one’s most basic
self-preservation instincts. To override
that, one has to NOT be in their right mind.
“It brings me comfort to think of it that way. Mental illness isn’t the fault of the person
who is suffering from it. It’s like a
cancer. It makes them ill, and it causes
them to act ill, they want to die. Sometimes
they seem to get better. It goes into
remission. Sometimes, they really are
better. But often, it comes back. Sometimes, it’s terminal. In other words, it really wasn’t their
fault. Really.”
In those harsh, bitter days immediately following Storm’s
suicide, my world was filled with questions.
My questions mostly remain unanswered.
This one I do have an answer for now:
Q: Why?
A: Because he couldn’t help it.
A: Because he couldn’t help it.
In the immortal words of Forest Gump; “That’s all I have to
say about that.”
The other matter was regarding something I didn’t speak on,
but I watched and listened. There was a
mom and her mom there, and they were talking about marking a son’s suicide date
every year. They were talking about the
various different ways they were doing it each year. They seemed so worn
out and tired from it.
I don’t think I’m going to do that. I don’t think I want to.
February 13th is going to suck. Make no mistake. I’m probably going to cry, and I’m probably going
to eat chocolate, and have a movie marathon, and stay in my jammies all day,
use a whole box of tissues. I might even
let the dogs on the couch. That day is
never not going to be what it is.
However, the biggest part of my struggle with all of it has
been fighting through the anger and betrayal to be able to just grieve the man
I knew. Storm was an amazing human
being. He was my southern fried Aussie
redneck. In public, he was who he was at
home. He was loud, rude, obnoxiously
honest, and way too free with his opinion.
He was angry, and bitter, and not afraid to use that energy to control
the environment around him. He could
make himself the center of attention in an instant, and then disappear so
thoroughly in a crowd that even I had to search to find him. He was larger than life, and people were
drawn to him for reasons I am sure I will never understand.
Out of the public eye, he was all of those things, but he
was also Rose’s Storm, my husband. He
loved me in an unreasonable way. It was uncompromising
and unflinching and bared open for the world to see. No one who ever met him didn’t know he was
married to his Rose within 5 minutes of meeting them, because I never left his
mind or his lips. At home he put me
first, always. He tended to me, to use
his words. He asked if I was hungry, did
I need a drink, is something wrong, would you like a hug, Love?
In fact, he spent half of his days some days asking me how to make me
happy. One neighbor said we talked to
each other like we were in a movie because we spent so much time speaking our
love out loud.
That’s the man I want to remember. That’s the what I want to commemorate. Not the last few unfortunate minutes of our
life together, but the other eight years of love and kindness and
friendship. I want to mourn HIM,
celebrate HIM, miss HIM, and his presence and his person, and not focus in on
the last thing he ever did.
Right now, I’m not sure what I will doing February 13th.
It’s a still a ways away, and I have
some living to do before then. I tell
you what I won’t be doing February 13th. I won’t be setting any balloons loose, or releasing
Chinese lanterns, or liberating any butterflies. I don’t judge anyone
who does so. I just don’t think that’s
how I want to cope. I hope I’m doing
something so amazing and so incredible that I don’t even care that it’s
February 13th. I don’t intend to turn it into a personal
holiday.
What I’m going to do is celebrate his life. I’m going to celebrate his birthday, every
year, no matter where I am or what I am doing.
Every year. January 3rd. I’m going to buy a bottle of whiskey, and
every year on his birthday I’m going to drink a shot to him and toast him with
anyone nearby who’s willing to drink with me.
I’m going to try to make it a good day, and try to do things he would
have enjoyed, but mostly, I’m going to think about his life, and not his death.
You see, I would like to believe that the heavy importance
of February 13th will start to fade some day. I don’t want to define the rest of my life by
that day. I never want to forget Storm
Treasure. Hell, like anybody ever could
forget Storm Treasure. :D What I do want
is for it to fade. One year, eventually,
I’d like to totally forget it’s February 13th. I never want to forget January 3rd.
Ultimately, I am most grateful to my father, Yahweh, who
pulls me up each day, and helps me to rejoice that each day is his. He hears this widow’s prayers, and he has put
a light on the path to healing. I am
grateful for the level of healing that I have reached in a very short amount of
time. I am grateful that he forces me to
look at things honestly and never compromise to soften the truth. I am also grateful that he is kind to me, and
sends me comfort and friends and smiles and chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Most importantly, he sends me wisdom, often
from the mouths of others. May we all find shalom.
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