brokenness

Week 26

It’s been six months since my mom died by suicide. Twenty-six weeks, six months.

* * * *

Six weeks after she died, the police allowed us to collect her belongings. In them, we found a deleted email that she wrote to me and my siblings. Another layer of grief, another thing to process. Some may think it should be comforting for us to know she thought about us before she died, but [to us] our mother thought about us and still chose to leave us. That stings.

We kept the letter to ourselves: it contained highly sensitive and personal information that we didn’t want shared with the world.

* * * *

Four weeks after she died, my mother’s family decided that Mom’s death was my father’s fault. My Daddy… my wonderful, wonderful daddy.

They called our church, telling them that my dad was a wicked man, sharing fraudulent stories, and slandering him. I’m not sure if the church believed them — no one reached out to me or my siblings or my father about it. I hadn’t heard from the executive church staff since a week after the funeral.

* * * *

Six weeks after she died, the police included that private deleted email in their report. I called asking for it to be redacted — it was a message my mother typed for me and my brothers, and even she decided not to send it to us… what right did the world have to the email? — but it couldn’t be redacted. Detectives said it was a clear admission of her guilt: it proved no one else was at fault, no one else was to blame.

Ironically, my mother’s family received this information, made copies of the letter and the report, and sent it out to the masses with notes blaming my father.

When people called us crying, saying they’re not sure why they received such information from Mom’s family and sharing their support for my Daddy, I reached out to those family members via text:

I meant it. This was entirely distressing. Another layer of grief, another hurt. It cut me to the core that they would do something like that, violating my mother’s privacy, violating my privacy, and, above all, doing something so wicked to my Daddy.

They didn’t answer the message. I haven’t heard from them since.

* * * *

Six weeks after that, I got a letter from someone on staff at the church. A kind letter, a letter filled with love, care, and memories of my mother. This was the first legitimate form of communication anyone from my family had received from an executive staff member from the church since a week after the funeral.

* * * *

One week later, we found out Mom’s family sent the police report and letters to the church. They’d been talking with the church all this time, telling staff members that my Dad and my brothers and I blamed the church for Mom’s death. The church, believing my mother’s family, chose to “take a step back” from my family because of narratives my mother’s family shared.

I spent months writing how we shouldn’t blame each other, and yet, ironically, our church thought we blamed them. How sad is that?

That same week, we had the Out of The Darkness Community Walk. Several church members came to honor my mom and my family and show their support, but I was too scared to appreciate their support at that time — it’s terrifying to go into large crowds when hate mail has been sent out about one’s family.

We hadn’t heard from the executive church staff, the people we thought we’d received the most support from… so I assumed they blamed us, I assumed they hated us, too.

* * * *

A week after that, Scott and I met the staff member who wrote that kind letter. We had dinner, we stayed for a couple hours. We cleared some of the air, I think. I think we learned from one another. It was the first time I’d seen them since a week after my Mom died — it was awkward at first, but it was kind and loving. We talked about the chaos, we talked about the fall out, we talked about missing my Mom. We talked about how the church took a step back, we talked about how they thought we blamed them.

I’m still puzzled by that: troubled that they thought we blamed them, but did not seek us out to know if we actually did.

* * * *

Last week, I met with another executive staff member. We, too, enjoyed dinner and talked about the past six months. We talked about the fear people have of reaching out to my family. Some fear the intensity, some fear the heaviness, some fear the awkwardness, some fear bombarding us.

The dinner was peaceful, healing, sweet, honest.

* * * *

Yesterday, my brother Sawyer posted alluding to these details, and, in some ways, he freed us. He freed us to tell the truth of what has happened to us. He posted it in such a tasteful way — not grotesquely, not angrily, not wickedly. He simply told the truth.

Yesterday, Scott and I went back to the church. He had been wanting to go back for a while… I couldn’t bring myself to want to go to a church where most of the executive staff hadn’t reached out to me or my family. In fact, still only those two people on the executive staff have.

It’s painful to feel abandoned by people my Mom gave so much to… her time, her life, her energy. She gave so much to the church she loved, and yes, it feels like they did abandon us.

* * * *

One of the two executive staff members that had reached out to me shared that he or she feared their “presence wouldn’t be enough” for us. The truth is, their presence was all we ever wanted.

We saw both those staff members yesterday, and I was deeply happy to see them. We smiled and we hugged and we shared how much we love each other. I love them — I love them so much. I saw another sweet friend, someone who reaches out almost on a weekly basis. They saw us and immediately came to give the warmest hug, just the hug I needed. I love them so much, too.

Presence brings healing. Togetherness brings healing. Conversations bring healing. Compassion brings healing. Eye contact brings healing. Seeing each other brings healing. Love, love brings so much healing.

I love you, Mom.

I love you, Daddy. I’m so sorry for the hurt and the injustices that have happened to you over the past six months. I’m so sorry you lost your best friend in the worst way. I’m so sorry you lost everything. You’re my hero.

I love you, Brothers. I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through these new hurts week after week. I’m so sorry we don’t have a mom.

I love you, Church staff. You’re not perfect and I don’t expect you to be, but I did expect you to be here and you weren’t. I’m sorry you lost my mom, too. I know you loved her.

I love you, Mom’s family. I hope you experience healing.

* * * *

I’m not sure what the next six weeks will look like, but I hope they’re filled with less drama than the past six months.

I hope they’re filled with healing and with renewed community. I hope relationships mend and forgiveness and trust and love grows. I hope that new life comes and new joy buds amongst the thorns of this life.

I know that I will experience a lot of pain during the next few months and years as I continue to process these numerous hurts. I know it won’t be okay, and that’s okay.

May love heal us as we pursue healing and peace 💙

Week 23

Complex creatures, terribly complex creatures… Humans are terribly complex creatures. Complex, perhaps, to our own detriment, and yet perhaps complex to our own salvation, too.

We can smile while we cry, our eyes can dazzle while they feel dead inside. We can hide our true emotions phenomenally, and we can feel multitudes of emotions simultaneously. Sometimes we aren’t hiding — we simply feel two things at once: happy, sad, scared, excited, depressed, grateful, grieving.

Grateful. Grieving.

Thanksgiving.

Ah, Thanksgiving can feel antagonistic to mourners. We don’t need to be reminded of all we have to be of grateful for. We know… we simply hurt, more.

Gratefulness doesn’t erase pain, thankfulness doesn’t even ease pain. It can offer a different perspective while we suffer, but it can’t fix it.

Some things will never be fixed. Some things will always be broken. Some things will always produce pain.

Yes, I am grateful that my family gathered once more for Thanksgiving, but I’m not grateful for the absence I will forever feel during every holiday, every family gathering… everyday.

Terribly complex creatures. We smile with our eyes, we remember terrible things in our minds. We press on, we press on, we press on. We feel both, we feel nothing.

With our complexity we hide from one another. With our complexity we hide from ourselves. How terrifying detrimental this complexity may become.

Week 13

I’m a little “late” to my write this post because I have been so enormously frustrated and exhausted.

Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.

John 8:7

Within the past month, there have been some who surmise that they have discovered the answer for “why” my mother ended her life, and with that “answer,” they cast stones at my family.

Lovely.

In the name of love for my Mother, they seek to harm those she loved most.

Those who believe they discovered the answer claim that they saw the signs, and, to that, I ask, “why did you not share them?” If you think you found the root cause, if you think you saw it while she still lived, why were you silent?

Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.

There is no room in this sacred space of mourning and bereavement for blame, self-righteousness, shame, and condemnation. It is shame that kills us most. Do not speak of things you do not know or understand. Do not assume to know the mind of the departed. Do not impart discord, hatred, and cruelty on her survivors.

Victims and perpetrators, that’s what everyone is in the wake of a suicide, including the one who physically died. Those left behind simply become more dead than alive, people walking without their hearts. Sullen, sunken, and tired eyes barely greeting those around them.

There is much we do not know, and there is much we do know. Do not be foolish enough to think that you have it figured out, and do not be cruel enough to speak abhorrent conjectures into existence.

This is the mess that fuels the stigma suicide survivors live through. This is the loss that begets loss, the suffering that begets suffering.

Yes, it’s harsh. Yes, it’s cruel. And yes, unfortunately, it’s the reality.

* * * * *

For those seeking to help and ease the suffering, the best thing you could do for your friends in mourning is simply to show up and listen with empathy and understanding. Advice doesn’t help. Platitudes don’t help. Conjecture doesn’t help. Empathy and compassion help.

Calm kindness helps. Showing up helps, checking in helps.

Reader, may your lives never experience this horror [again], and may love and compassion greet you. may kindness and humility envelop you. May reconciliation find you. May peace carry your broken heart.

Week 11

I began writing these posts to bring awareness to grief, loss, and surviving suicide.

I lost my brother to suicide when I was 21: back then, very few people in my life had experienced any type of familial loss. I lost my mother to suicide when I was 27, and, still, few people in my life have experienced familial loss.

A majority of people my age haven’t experienced loss, and a majority of people who have experienced loss have not experienced suicide.

Most people reading these posts know me and my family, and have thus now been affected by suicide.

These posts are meant to bring awareness and to highlight a community of mourners. I try to write about my individual experience with grief and it seems that many have found solace and community from these words.

A few weeks ago, I wrote how many have experienced me at my worst while I have experienced them at their best — their tenderest, their most thoughtful, their most considerate, their most generous. It has been beautiful to see people show up for me and my family.

I would be remiss not to mention how this brings out the worst in us, too. Unexpected loss makes people quick to anger or irritability as the brain tries to process a world that no longer makes sense.

Suicide loss forces people to try to find meaning behind a senseless and terrible loss, and this can turn people against one another in the vilest ways. Endless questions of Why did she end her life? exhaust survivors’ minds and, too quickly, the community that should rally to support one another the most instead turns on each other.

In trying to find meaning, survivors can all too easily blame one another — It must have been her job stress. It must have been the church. It must have been her family. It must have been her parents’. It must have been her kids. It must have been her spouse. It must have been her sibling. It must have been her friends. It must have been myself. You should have seen the signs. I should have seen the signs.

Do you see how damning those statements are?

Damning.

Those statements destroy, and, yet, those who should support one another the most can viscously accuse one another with similar statements.

People think it. Some people say it. All survivors feel it.

The truth is that all of this is horrific. The truth is that no one on the planet wanted this. The truth is that any of us would have done anything to prevent this outcome. And yet, people still whisper accusations about survivors and can scream them at her closest friends and family members.

Nobody wanted this. Nobody caused this. Don’t blame her community. Don’t blame her friends. Don’t blame her family. Don’t blame yourself.

Don’t add more hurt to the most painful situation imaginable.

Week 10

This has been one of the hardest weeks to get out of bed. Perhaps it’s a mix of jet lag, allergies, and grief. Perhaps it’s simply reality sinking in deeper and deeper as the days pass away, each new day taking me farther away from my mother.

I woke up at 3 am other day with the slightest fever and spent the next few hours weeping and feeling the weight of this catastrophic loss. I want my Mommy, I yelped again and again and again. She always made sure to stop by if I was sick, even if it was just for a quick hug or to play with my hair, but mainly just to make sure I was okay. She’d bring medicine, ginger ale or Gatorade, maybe some soup, and all the compassion in the world.

But no more Momma.

I’ve gotten out of bed every day since she passed. I’ve brushed my hair and my teeth each morning and each night without fail. Last week, I finally started putting some jewelry on… it’s funny the little things you do or don’t do in deep grief… but this week I have not wanted to get out of bed at all.

Several grief books discuss the experience of derealization and depersonalization — the out-of-body feeling where one can’t ground himself/herself to the present moment. The sense that the griever is observing oneself from outside his/her body, feeling robotic or numb. I find this occurring most often in large groups and, hence, I am a bit uncomfortable and almost alarmed amidst them. These group activities become a source of anxiety and tension, where I end up spending an inordinate amount of energy on pretending to be normal or pretending to have fun.

The good thing about pretending, though, is that it can often result in positive experiences, but at the cost of an exponential amount of energy.

I think I am pretty spent from the few social activities I have mustered the courage to participate in. I’m not quite sure how one finds balance in this. Maybe I need to plan more one-on-one activities with patient listeners, eager to indulge me with their empathy and kindness. Buuut scheduling that is exhausting, too.

Thus, in the end, everything is simply hard. So excruciatingly difficult and sad and painful.

I’m still getting out of bed, I’m still brushing my hair and my teeth each morning and each evening, but this week it’s seemed to require so much more from me than past weeks.

Friends have done their best to help ease the suffering and mental load, showing up with kindness by bringing me soup, dropping in just to give me a hug, and so much more, and I’m so grateful for that. More grateful than I can probably communicate, but…

It’s a living nightmare, and that’s the reality of living with pain that cannot be fixed. Time and new memories will heal, but not today, not this week, not anytime soon.

Week 6

I know pain, I know it well. I am friends with sorrow and companions with anguish. I’ve made a home with sleepless nights and solitary mornings. My eyes sore and strained, my lungs feel heavy and weak.

I have known sorrow for years, it has always been with me. It resonates throughout my mind, into my chest, and it overflows from my eyes.

I was just getting used to happiness. Laughter and joy, for what felt like the first time, finally took residence in my soul. I was healing, I wasn’t afraid of the worst case scenario anymore. I felt freedom and the good gifts I had, I felt plenty in my abundance, I felt safe with my family.

We were building a home here, we were building a life here. Our days were filled with sunshine and laughter. My only concern was what joyous outing we would participate in over the upcoming weekend.

I thought we were in this together.

I thought we loved this life, and maybe we did. I thought we were all healing and moving forward after catastrophe. But while I flourished, part of her soul was dying.

She couldn’t tell me, she couldn’t tell anyone. That will never make sense to me. That will always haunt me. That will always terrify me.

Some days it feels impossible to truly smile. How many days did she feel like that, too?

Every day of this nightmare, it’s like I discover something new. Something new about my Mom, something new about my reality. I’m forced to process a complexing piece of information day after day, thought after thought, moment after moment. It’s exhausting. It’s haunting.

Maybe ghost stories were never really about apparitions but about the horrors left behind by the deceased. The painful thoughts they force you to think, the painful loss you have to shoulder. The painful dreams that wake one up in the middle of the night. I feel haunted by my mother and haunted by her actions.

I can’t feel a mother’s love from the grave. Not like this. Not when she leaves me with all this. All I feel is the pain and abandonment from being left behind.

The saddest part is that she never would have wanted that, but she doesn’t get to influence or comfort me anymore.

Day 21

Grief spotlights time’s relativity. It’s been three weeks since…

It feels like three years, or sometimes three days. The days are all different but the heartache remains the same. Feelings. They’re just that — feelings. They’re aren’t good feelings, and there aren’t bad feelings. They are just feelings, each one with important messages and memories.

Sadness, I think, we feel most acutely. We feel grief, sadness, and trauma with all of the senses: it leaks from our eyes, it steals our taste, it stuffs our smell, it quickens our heartbeats, it deafens our ears. It makes us painfully aware of our thoughts and processes and it highlights both past memories and future dreams. We’re somehow the most vivid versions of ourselves in deep suffering, because it fractures our capacity to be anything else.

We’re raw, exposed, and in need of help, love, and compassion. We need all these while happy, but we feel the need for them most in sorrow. Our walls crumble in hardship because our defenses are broken — we no longer have the energy to organize thoughts and feelings and responses in a tidy manner.

Perhaps we are most ourselves when we allow sorrow to guide us. When we do, we are sensitive both to the more painful emotions but likewise sensitive to gratitude and awe. In the years to come, I will remember this deep and sacred pain, but I will remember your kindness too. I will remember the friends and family who joined me in my grief, who sat with me while I mumbled, who kept checking in, who brought me food, who gave generously without expectation. I will remember all the good as much as I remember the horror, because, at this time, I am most sensitive and most receptive to it all.

That is the beauty of sorrow and heartbreak. That is the beauty of love. This heightened sensitivity opens the core of who we are and allows others to love the deepest part of ourselves.

Day 19

Today was hard.

I’m not really sure what to type today, but I set out to write and publish 30 days of thoughts to give people a glimpse into the world of a survivor.

“Suicide,” “murder,” “survivor” — these are all words I never thought would be so incredibly personal and defining in my life. I remember the first time I really learned in-depth about suicide the was in an eighth or ninth grade English class, studying Thirteen Reasons Why. I didn’t care much for the book then… I detest it even more now. I had no idea, back then, that suicide would claim as least a third of my family.

It’s so dark, so horrific. I observe that most shy away from the topic. Families have been shamed, judgement often cast at survivors. Survivors — what a heavy title. Institutions often choose not to address it corporately. I assume so few understand the depth of the concept, and people often flounder when they are unfamiliar with something so dark, so scary, and so sensitive.

The band Twenty One Pilots engages in the conversation. Their song “Neon Gravestones,” discusses how culture has glorified suicide, stating it’s “further engraving an earlier grave is an optional way.” Contrasting the idealized perspective, the band ends the song with the following lyrics:

Find your grandparents or someone of age
Pay some respects for the path that they paved
To life they were dedicated
Now, that should be celebrated!

The beginning of the song highlights a dangerous mindset:

“Keep your wits about you while you got ’em
‘Cause your wits are first to go while you’re problem-solving”

This is a dark post, but I do want to bring awareness to this epidemic.

For those who are struggling, ending your life does not solve the problem. Your pain and your hurt are real. It may feel absolutely impossible, but you can heal. Your life can be redeemed. This pain, it will be redeemed.

This is not the end of our story.

Day 17

How exhausting. How sad.

I pretended to have a “day off” today. I didn’t answer messages, I didn’t accomplish any grief-related tasking, and I pretended to have a normal day off.

Dad and I went to the grocery store, I made toast and salad when I got home, I cleaned out the fridge, I did the dishes, I took a bath, I enjoyed the solitude. I enjoyed the silence.

Scott got home from work today and I met him at the door, like I always do when he comes home, and then it hit me. Calm tears warmed my eyes. My Mom always made such a big deal when my Dad came home from work. Mom and four of us kids would giddily line up at the door and we would scream “Daddy!” as he entered.

She always celebrated shrilly when Dad came home, and Dad did the same for her. They always did that — one would get home and the other would come to the door with so much joy and excitement.

I hate that my Dad won’t get that anymore. I hate that my Mom won’t be there to greet me excitedly when I go to their house. My family loved so deeply.

This entire situation is so difficult to comprehend, so terrible to realize, and so overwhelming to endure.

But we endure. Always, always enduring. Some moments it feels less like enduring and more like living, but those moments are scarce these days.

Day 16

Silence. Quiet. Peaceful, terrible.

Tomorrow will be the first day without any guests. All have gone home, and my father, my brother, and I will experience our first bouts of alone time. It’s necessary, it’s healing, and it will likely be painful.

Torrents of grief, sacred and terrible, assuage we mourners. I’ve loved and appreciated the depth and beauty of sadness, but I still hate enduring it at this level of intensity. Sorrow opens one’s eyes to a new world and demands a new perspective from the sufferer. This new perspective can make one bitter or it can make him or her more compassionate, but it either way the perspective shift prompts a response.

Grief is traumatic. It assaults the mind and the nervous system. It manifests itself in sadness and anxiety. It steals sleep from some and it keeps others in bed for days. It produces shaky hands and sore eyes. It creates fear and mistrust. It eliminates filters and threatens boundaries that otherwise would protect its victims.

We aren’t strong, we mourners, we are incredibly weak. We are at our most vulnerable and most sensitive. We are raw. We hurt, often more than we ever deemed imaginable or bearable. Yet, we bear it.

Some watch mourners with awe and amazement — unsure how we could function. Some are offended if a mourner is snappy or not as “bubbly” as normal. Some prefer to look away, noting how painful it is to even think about what a mourner endures.

Grief manifests differently in every individual because of the uniqueness of every single relationship; while that makes each person’s experience vastly personal, a wondrous communal aspect exists when we mourn the same individual.

It’s private, and it’s not. It’s personal, and it’s shared.

Mourning callously brings out both the best and the worst in people, because we join together in our grief but can quickly isolate from offenses and hurts. We are vulnerable, we are tired, and we are boundlessly sad.

When we love each other and show up for one another and extend continuous grace — that is when we mourn well.

We mourn because we lost someone so incredibly precious, and we cannot stop loving them. Love transcends time, space, and even death. Love well.

Above all, love each other deeply for love covers a multitude of sins

I Peter 4:8