fear

Day 27

Heart pounding. Body trembling. Eyes crying. Terror, sheer terror, in the middle of the night. Can’t sleep, can’t stop thinking, can’t breathe.

It’s not like this every night, but it was like this last night.

We spent the past six years since my brother’s suicide saying: “Please, no one else do this. We’re going to make it. We can do this”

We said it regularly. We said it on anniversaries and at random. We said it again and again and again.

We didn’t make it. She didn’t make it. She smiled and shook her head affirmatively as she said it, and she didn’t make it.

When someone in one’s family dies by suicide, all family members instantly fear another suicide. It’s horrific. It’s horrifying — it’s so horrifying it will make you cry til you can’t breathe and scream until you can’t speak.

That was our reality, that was what my family lived through. That’s the pain we lived with for years, and the fear we lived with for six years. And then it happened, again.

Again and again and again we pleaded that none of us would do this. We encouraged honesty, we checked in on one another, we regularly had this discussion.

It had been six years. I thought we made it. I thought we were all safe. I thought my mom was safe. She said she was safe.

One third — one third of my family has died by suicide. That’s one out of three so far. Do you know how absolutely horrific that is? No, I get it, you “can’t even imagine that,” and I’m honestly grateful that you can’t. It’s a terrifying reality.

Now here we are again, and I am mortified. One in three… one in three… what does that mean? What does that mean for my nieces and nephews? What does that mean for we survivors?

The horror… the sheer horror.

My mother lived a beautiful life. Though she endured significant trauma, she overcame so much. She was excited about life. She had multitudes of plans and dreams. She loved her life, and she didn’t? How on earth am I supposed to reconcile that?

How horrible. With all the beautiful, wonderful, incredible things Mom had going for her… how horrific that she still desired to die more than to live. How absolutely terrifying that, in that vital moment, she could not see the beauty of life. She could not remember her beautiful plans. She could not feel how wonderful her life was. In that moment, she wanted to die more than she wanted all the amazing things she had to live for. I know she loved so much and she was looking forward to so much. I know that. But for some reason, none of that mattered in that moment.

That is absolutely horrifying, and, now, I can’t trust the rest of my family. I can’t trust the other survivors who say they’re not going to do it, because she said that too, and I believed her.

I believed her. I believed her. I believed her, and she’s gone.

I am in anguish. I believed her.

Day 14

Two weeks.

There’s a weight so heavy on my chest I feel like I can barely breathe. It feels like I am operating at 50% of my normal capacity, if that. It feels so heavy. What does that even mean? Why does it legitimately feel like there is a weight pressed against my lungs, collapsing them? How does that work? How does the body do that?

I thought we had something special, me and my mom. I thought we had a great relationship. Now I feel like I didn’t even know her. Who was this woman I spent so much time with? I thought she liked being with me, I thought she wanted to be in my life, I thought she wanted to be here. But in the end, she wanted to leave me. It wasn’t worth it for her to stay in my life. She didn’t want to see me grow up anymore. I thought we were going to be two old ladies together. I thought she wanted me. I thought she wanted me. Did she think I did not love her? Why weren’t we enough?

I hate my name. I’ve hated it for a long time. My mom gave me this name because she hoped so badly for me… what good did that do for her? It’s so cruel to be named Hope when it feels like so many people in my world are hopeless.

“Hopey, you’re my Hope. You make me believe that everything’s going to be okay and that we’re really going to make it.” That’s what my brother Patrick told me two days before he ended his life. Once he died, I really started to hate my name.

Before that, I was always a pessimist. It felt so ironic to be called “hope” when I so seldom experienced hope myself.

Now this? I hate my name. It feels so cruel tonight.

Why did I start writing these? I keep asking myself that. More precisely, why did I start publishing these? I’ve loved writing for my entire life. I used to write fantastical stories, dreaming worlds late into the night when I was just a young girl. Then in puberty I started writing to cope with my ever-changing world. Now, I almost exclusively write when my emotions cloud my head, spill out of my eyes, and pours from an ink pen onto a blank page.

So, why did I start publishing these?

After Patrick died, I seriously isolated myself. I did not answer my phone for over a month and I had no desire to make contact with the outside world.

In our American culture, grief is so private. Suicide is beyond taboo, and people in mourning may be given three days of bereavement leave. Three days… how pathetic. Our culture almost treats grief like something to be ashamed of or to be quickly gotten over. Because of this, death and grief are seldom discussed and very few — especially at my ripe old age of 27 — people have much of a framework/understanding of mourning and grief.

Grief shouldn’t isolate. It should be something that pulls us all together, something that makes us stop and hold one another closer, something that prompts us to change our lives for the better.

As my friend Olivia Chancellor always says “Alone is a lie.” Maybe if I share my thoughts, others will have the courage to share theirs too. Thoughts can be scary and painful and feel so isolating, but alone is a lie. “Everything that is exposed by the light becomes visible–and everything that is illuminated becomes light,” Ephesians 5:13. It’s only when we share our darkest thoughts that we are truly able to heal from them.

I want to live. I want to have a life full of beauty and joy and pain and wonder. I want to experience it all. I want to be fully present. I want to experience life to the full in every possible way, no matter how it hurts.

I don’t want to move on from this. I will be carrying this for the rest of my life, and I want to grow and learn to carry this with grace and love and even hope. I want to live, and I want to live well.

Day 13

I screamed a lot in my car today. Just… screamed. “Mom!! Why did you do this?” Through sobs, “Mom, please come back, please come back!”… “Mom!!” I cried out in anguish.

But it’s useless, she’s gone.

My mind really does not want to believe it. I meet her in dreams, only to wake and feel her light snuffed out of the world. She was sitting on our living room couch in last night’s dream, and I was asking her why she wouldn’t join us at the table. I don’t remember what she answered, I just remember telling her that it did not make sense and that she should join the rest of us at the table because we love her and want to be with her.

Denial’s amazing protectiveness still shields me, for the most part, but everything feels so heavy. I feel the horror and the sadness deeply about once a day: I’ll cry, I’ll protest. I really wish this was not a part of my life. I wish this was not the end of hers. I wish it so badly that denial and numbness creep back in and calmness returns.

I feel like an outside observer to my own feelings and my own thought process. I feel them, objectively define them, and then move on.

Each day, the sadness grows and strengthens. I feel the denial slowly slipping away, and I fear when my mind allows me to fully grasp the situation. How much is this really going to hurt when my mind finally lets me feel it? It already hurts so much, but the pain will become vivid soon, and it will never, ever end.

I have so much life left to live. It feels like my life has only begun, and I will feel this sorrow for all of my days.

I’m not angry with God, though I would like to be. Anger is such an easy emotion to experience — anger is easy to fuel and easy to calm — it’s not as ambiguous as sorrow. It feels like it would be easy to be angry at God, but my every need has been met. People have been so generous and caring and kind — I can’t be angry when I perceive such marvels from God amidst all this pain.

I am confused: I will never understand why God allowed this nor why God did not intervene, but perhaps God had intervened several times. I will never know how many times my mother was close ending her life but chose not to because someone intervened. I just wish she would have told us, as I am sure we all do.

She had so many people who loved her deeply, and she could have reached out to any of us. That is a collective hurt those closest to her bear and must work through for the rest of our lives, and many of us have so much life yet to be lived.

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

Presence is best 🤍. Be here, share here, create space here.

Love each other well.

We used to love sharing a Chili’s molten lava cake

I Run

away, away, away

I run.

far from you,

it’s far from fun.

I run for fear,

into the dark.

The distance growing us

further apart.

I push & then pull,

So afraid to draw close:

What if you see me

at my lowest of lows?

So I run, so afraid

of what I have done.

How can you love

What I have become?

Yet there’s mercy

in Your eyes

And a tenderness

to your touch.

You declare over us,

“What I have done is enough“

You gave Your Son,

despite our being rough.

“It is finished,” You cried

as you freed each one.

Without question or prompting,

yes, you gave us Your Son.

How could we understand

the price that You paid?
It is You, O God,

Who gives & takes away.

In my vileness,

You come & say:

“My grace has won.

Your sin has been undone.“

away, away, away

I run,

Far from the hurt

that has been done.

Declaring Your love with every step,

Redemption takes shape

as I ponder where to run next.

I long for Away,

I long to run–

into Your arms

and straight to the Son