It was beautiful. I biked to therapy that morning. The sky was blue, and my heart was full.
Scott and I went to our neighborhood pool and tried out our great new floaties. I was so happy that day. Six years since Patrick had died, I became deeply grateful for the calm and the peace and the happiness that we regularly enjoyed at that time.
Then, suddenly, all of it was gone.
The worst part is that no thing took her from me. She took herself from me.
* * * *
Getting to today feels like such an enormous accomplishment. We often tell one another, in unfathomable seasons, “I don’t know how you do it,” but the truth is that you just have to. There isn’t another option.
Surviving through the first year, somehow, brings an element of relief. We did it.
I wish we didn’t have to.
It’s tragic.
It’s the type of tragic that takes one’s breath away and brings us to our knees.
It’s pain that cloud’s one’s brain and makes us reconceptualize every element of our lives.
It’s the stress that manifests in every cell of one’s body and brings weakened immune systems.
It’s the irritability, it’s the sensitivity, it’s the shortness of breath, it’s so much.
* * * *
I’m proud of myself and I’m proud of Luke and I’m proud of Sawyer and I’m proud of my Daddy — those who have dared to live.
I’m proud of Karley and of Carrie and of Scott. I’m proud of my mother’s close friends.
We have survived horror, twice.
I am proud of us for facing the horror each day. I’m proud of us for going to work and for making dinner and for traveling and for doing every mundane and stupid and essential task when our hearts feel like they’ve been ripped from our chests and our minds are filled with chaos.
We lost a universe where my Momma lived, and we continue to lose every day.
* * * *
I loved my Mommy.
I still cry out for her in the middle of the night.
I still wake up almost every day at 3 am, sweating and panicked.
I still barely have the energy to get out of bed.
I still ache, always, in every way.
I loved my Mommy, and I always will.
But it doesn’t matter how much I loved my Mommy: I can’t feel her love from the grave she made.
My mom turned fifty one 21 days before she killed herself…. How sick, to murder oneself. Ugh. It’s so… abrasive.
Fifty one — we called it “Fifty Fun.” I coined the term, but Mom thought Scott made it up. Scott & I laughed about that at the time. She just adored Scott; he reminded him a lot of herself, with his optimism and lighthearted demeanor. Now these similarities scare me about Scott sometimes… Isn’t that sad?
“She was supposed to be ‘fifty fun’ not ‘ fifty done,’”I’ve often repeated to myself this year.
Grief rips apart one’s sense of time and space. It’s been almost a year since my mom died, but it feels like it’s been a decade. Others think the year went by fast. It’s seemed like an eternity. Pieces of me feel like I never had a Mom — I feel so far from her, it’s like she was part of someone else’s life. It couldn’t possibly been my life.
The sun and the moon and the tides testify to time’s reality, but it’s simultaneously a construct. A way to measure our days, with seasons to mark the harvests and the plentiful and the droughts.
Time moves quickly when we enjoy our lives, slowly when we’re bored, and halts when we’re suffering.
Suffering refines and illuminates what matters, while healing ensures one concludes with the right perspective.
It seems as though nothing matters when one’s suffering. For example — from my skewed and insecure perspective — nothing I’ve done matters.
It didn’t matter that I loved Patrick.
It didn’t matter that I loved my Momma.
It doesn’t matter that I love my grandparents.
It doesn’t matter that I loved my former pastors.
My kindness and my love, in the end, didn’t matter to any of them. They’re still gone. They’re still dead, in one way or another.
The letters I wrote them didn’t matter. My forgiveness doesn’t matter. My kindness doesn’t matter.
I can do all the “right” things and remain punished by others’ decisions. In a sense, nothing I do matters.
Nothing I did matters.
They chose this, they did this, and nothing I did deserved that.
So… nothing I do matters.
* * * *
And yet… it all matters. Maybe it didn’t matter to them, maybe it did in some ways, but ultimately it didn’t.
Healing reminds me that it all mattered — it all matters.
I’ve experienced how much kindness matters. Again and again and again, people extend kindness and grace and support, and others’ actions matters. If others’ kindness and cruelty matter, mine does too.
Many have said that my words matter. Sometimes it’s difficult to see how one’s actions matter when he or she experiences so much pain because of another’s actions.
Sorrow rips apart time and space, too. How hard it is, then, to see one’s importance and brilliance in a world clouded with such potent pains.
* * * *
She was beautiful, she was real, she was my Momma.
She loved me, but that didn’t matter either. It did and it didn’t.
It’s incommunicable how much life grief takes from you.
It’s the life itself.
It’s the relationship.
Then, it’s all relationships.
It’s the griever’s energy.
It’s the griever’s social capacity.
It’s the griever’s concentration.
It’s the griever’s loss of clarity.
It’s the griever’s loss of stability.
It’s the griever’s loss of comfort.
It’s — The list never stops.
Every single survivor is affected holistically, and it’s impossible to communicate. It’s impossible for outsiders to understand, it’s impossible for outsiders to see, and perhaps it’s impossible for outsiders to believe.
It’s impossible for survivors and observers to fathom.
So much life gone with the loss of one individual’s life. It takes everything. She took everything from me.
She took everything from me. There is not a corner of my life unaffected by her decision.
Some people try their hardest to beautifully ease the burden she left, some people intentionally add to that burden.
Nearly a year ago, volunteers from the Women’s Ministry at my mother’s church joined together to create a beautiful atmosphere after her funeral. They provided nourishment and filled a room with flowers, honoring my mother and my family. I often think of the beauty they created, and the tenderness they wanted to continue towards me and my family, with gratitude and kindness. They eased the burden.
Our small group raised a small fortune to help support me and Scott and Sawyer when we were out of work, and they even made a sweet basket for my dad.
Dozens made and brought food to our families. Some sent packages, some gave books, some brought flowers.
Some still do.
There’s so much loss in this life after death, it’s as if the acres of my life have burnt to the ground. The fire of her death consumed everything, and every bit pained me to death, too.
Life on every acre ceased that day, but the ground of my life remained. I lived.
I live, this empty, decimated, desolate life, but life returns after all wildfires. Maybe at first it’s just grass, and then wildflowers, and then one day maybe trees will grow and roots will return to this ground that’s covered in ash.
So much life destroyed with the death of one so beloved.
The worst part about our estrangement from Mom’s church is all the innocent bystanders… walking in and embracing all the wonderful people we used to engage with every Sunday. All the people who loved my mom, all people — especially people that aren’t on the executive staff there, who tried their best to help facilitate healing and not injuring — that we’ve lost access to because of a few people’s poor and cruel decisions. None of this was their fault. None of this was my fault, either. We didn’t ask for this.
There have been an abundant people from Mom’s church, staff members and congregants, who have been amazing and who have done their best in this terrible situation to reach out and extend their love. I’ve gotten messages and letters and all sorts of sweet notes.
I spent the last nine months (about when we found out about the sinister plans) fearing for my life and the lives of my family members because of my grandparents and the church’s leadership. Fearing that anytime I connect with someone from that church — will they tell the executive staff something about my life? Will the staff tell my grandparents? Will someone use this connection to hurt me and my family? Because they want to hurt me and my family.
When safety becomes a major concern it relationships, it’s best to leave those relationships, and that hurts most for the people who didn’t want to hurt us. For the people who didn’t know about any of this, all because of the few people who did know. All because of the few people who did hurt, and they hurt intentionally. Calculatedly. Coldly. Cruelly.
For a long time, I kept the majority and the specifics quiet because I didn’t want things to get worse. I don’t know what these people are capable of, because what they have done astonishes me.
The worst part about all of it is missing so many of you, and missing them too. Because you don’t stop loving people just because they hurt you. I really, really loved these people.
But love protects. It doesn’t intentionally inflict harm.
Love shelters. Love seeks the best of its beloved. Love heals.
Love doesn’t do what they did.
So many relationships were lost because of my grandparents and my aunt. They wanted that, and my Mom’s executive staff [likely unintentionally] partnered with them to accomplish it.
I didn’t stop going to Mom’s church because it was too painful — I felt I had to stop going for the safety of me and my family, and that is horrific and tragic.
* * * *
I miss many of you. I miss your smiles, I miss your hugs, I miss the way you would have brought healing.
I know you miss my Mom, too. I know you miss us. I haven’t forgotten you, and I cherish the ways you long to show up for us.
I’m sorry for the hurt this has caused you, too. I would have liked to mourn with you in tears and in embraces, instead of through messages and comments.
* * * *
My grandparents and aunt attempted to ruin my life and the lives of my family members. They won’t. I’m not hiding anymore, and I’m not continuing to cover up what has been done.
I’m not afraid of them.
I love them, and I do miss my grandparents. I miss having an extended family that I thought loved me, but perhaps they were simply glad to see their genetics reflect back at them in my smiles.
* * * *
I’m not bitter. I am sorrowful. I am disappointed. I am perplexed.
I work on forgiving them everyday, like my brother Sawyer wrote, “radical forgiveness.”
Forgiveness always comes with a cost: it surrenders justice and vengeance in pursuit of mercy. It says “I’m okay with letting this go,” while deeply hurting. It’s wrestling with injustice, while watching the offender carry on as if all is well. It’s the mental weight of knowing that an offense will never be made right, accepting that, and choosing to live a full life inspire of it.
I forgive my grandparents, aunt, and church leadership, but I will not entrust my heart and my life to them. She loved them and spent her life protecting their flaws and serving them.* I won’t make that same mistake.
*Note: I do not blame my grandparents, aunt, or her church’s leadership for my mother’s suicide. If you are being abused and mistreated, seek help. The crisis like is 988.
Also, it’s really not necessary or helpful to call the church enraged about anything I have posted. They’ll reach out to me to complain that I wrote anything and that you reached out to them. Just forgive them with me. They didn’t know what to do, they weren’t prepared for any of this.
To the church leadership — Sorry if you get a bunch of calls or some reaction out of all of this. Not my intention. But, this really happened. I’m not going to pretend it didn’t to protect your egos.
There’s an ache in my chest that reminds me you’re gone.
It sits with me all through the day and greets me at dawn.
Birthdays pose a conundrum when people die. How strange and liminal they feel… there’s naught to celebrate, but it was once such an important day.
Many adults hate their birthdays — I’ve always resented that — because our society tantalizes the fear of aging, as if growing old is not something miraculous. As if living a full life is not something to celebrate, as if gray hair and wrinkles aren’t something beautiful that we earn as we triumph through this tumultuous life.
I often tell people that birthdays — just like weddings — aren’t really about the individual. They are, and they’re not. They’re really a chance for others to celebrate one’s life: other people love your birthday, other people love celebrating you, because they love you. It’s a chance for others to gather around you and demonstrate their love.
Once they die, however, birthdays become solemn days. What is there to celebrate, if not the one to celebrate?
My mom sometimes made a cake on Patrick’s birthday, and that felt odd, but what else is one to do?
Last spring, she was with her parents’ in an allegedly great trip. But oh, we can’t contact them because they decided to try to sue us. So loving of them, right? how nice for your grandparents and aunt to try to sue you after your mom dies.
Her church threw her a cute Hawaiian-themed party at work, but not once did her pastor reach out to us after she died. And it’s not safe to contact them, either, because they’ve been in constant communication with my grandparents… who tried [are trying??] to sue us. The two executives who did reach out to us? Ah yes, had dinner with one and never heard from them again. Had dinner with another, and that individual told me that they needed to read my blogs before I post them because they don’t like the phone calls they get when I do mention something about them. I laughed. Oh, and apparently they didn’t appreciate the guest speakers at my Mom’s funeral. We chose the wrong people, I guess, just a couple days after my Mom died.
No mom, no grandparents, no church. Oh, how different this year looks from last.
Like I wrote a few weeks back, if they can treat me this poorly, what did they do to her?
Happy Birthday, Mom. Thanks for all this. I am sorry for whatever they did to you, because what they’ve done to us is horrific, and I’m sick of keeping their secrets. Lies and secrets kill people.
There are some types of sorrow that busyness passivates, while types of pain that cause tears to trickle regardless of how many tasks engage one’s mind.
For the most part, I can function relatively normally. Sure, my mind may be cloudy most of the time, but the average bystander seldom notices the storm in my mind.
In fact, somehow, I still have a reputation for being “happy” at work. No matter what I share, no matter what I do, somehow this cult of positivity shapes me into what it wants to see. Others want me to be happy, so they say that I am.
In some ways they are correct maybe — I still find happiness in many things — but I’ve never considered myself a very happy person.
Melancholy — that’s the word I’ve resonated most with for my whole life. If you know me well, or if you listen to my words and read my writings, you know this to be true. I’m comfortable in the sadness. It’s a part of me, it’s a part of me that has loved more deeply than most can fathom.
I used to think my melancholy demeanor was bad. My mother certainly thought it was. She used to pray that I wouldn’t be so melancholy. She rejected that piece of me, so I tried my best to hide it from her for years.
As I enter into conversation after conversation, it’s dawned on me how much insight melancholy provides. It’s become a favorite part of myself — a piece of myself I can finally freely accept.
I think the concept of melancholy scares people. Our society is so afraid of pain, but it’s this pain-avoidance that results in horrific atrocities. People fear their sorrow, so turn it into anger instead. Unchecked anger produces strife, dissonance, and murderous behavior. Avoided sorrow creates depression, mental illness, and unavoidable pain.
We’re all a little sad. We’re all a little melancholy. Denying that reality creates a disillusionment with our souls, and all disillusionments must break. Sometimes we break our own delusions, sometimes they break us instead.
Oh, the misguided things we do in the name of love.
Oh, the wicked things we do in the name of love.
* * * *
Welcome to death week, my friends.
May contains too many Death Holidays to list, too many pain points to discuss. I draw small blue hearts in my calendar on each Death Holiday/anniversary/marker to delineate the importance of the day: five blue hearts for May.
One of my siblings has a birthday this month — a glimmer of hope amidst a month marked with endings. It will be his first birthday without his Momma though, and that will be difficult. I marked my birthday with a blue heart this past year. Because, like I inscribed last week, every milestone regardless of how happy is shaded by what isn’t. It’s as if every moment is captured in a black-and-white photograph: you can see the smiles, you can see the joy, but the dissonance chills the ambiance.
* * * *
This week I’ve been struck by the cruelty of imperfect love.
Some say people die by suicide in an attempt to unburden their loved ones, others say anger drives people to violence, and many say shame or depression or overwhelm or a mirad of other things… all things we can’t validate because the only people who know are dead.
Rita Schulte pens it well in her book Surviving Suicide Loss, educating “Suicide doesn’t end the pain. It only lays it on the broken shoulders of survivors.” So, we survivors carry it and oftentimes feel more dead than alive. We feel hallow rather than of substance, opaque rather than solid.
People who knew my mom feel a special connection to us because we were a part of her, even if they did not know us well before she ended her life.
Some people honor that connection with kindness, empathy, and love. These are a balm to our shattered heart and aid in our healing.
Others treat us with contempt and cruelty — I’m not writing about people who couldn’t show up [that is okay], I’m writing about the people and organization who intentionally inflicted wounds. It happens to all suicide survivors in some form. Books tell us to expect it.
But one thought haunts me in the wake of their cruelty…
If you could be so cruel to me and my family, what did you do to my mother?
I miss when life was effortlessly happy. I miss when it was easy to go out with my husband and simply enjoy the moment or the meal or the adventure.
Now, memories and grief cloud every moment. Dinners are particularly difficult and I’m not exactly sure why, but I suspect it has something to do with the thousands of dinners I enjoyed with my family. There used to be six of us: four rowdy kids and a Mom and Dad. It was fast — with three growing boys, especially, dinner seemed to go so quick. I love having dinner with my sweet husband, but it’s a stark contrast to what was once was my home.
We go to places we used to take my parents, and I can’t help but think of the smiles and laughter the four of us once shared. Many were places Scott and I first discovered together, then brought my parents to escapade with us.
Presence, they say, is the key to happiness. I wholly believe that — romanticizing the past and dreaming of the future tends to destroy any chance at present happiness, but there is also a time to grieve.
Grief is a whole body experience — its brain damage, as its simplest explanation, and it affects everything. The more traumatic the death and the closer connection, the more damage is inflicted.
Brain damage takes time: slow, lethargic, low-stimulus, and quiet to heal. In our western world, grievers are not often privileged to this… we have to go to work, we have to keep up with responsibilities, we have to continue with normal living. For the majority of our days, we have to pretend it’s okay. And to an extent, it is okay. To an extent, it is happy. Because, once again, it’s a both-and.
It’s a dichotomy of emotions.
But I miss when it was just one — just happiness, just tiredness, just excitement. I miss that simplicity.
I miss just celebrating and really celebrating, not thinking of those who can’t celebrate with me.
Even at our wedding, I remember crying with my Mom about how Patrick couldn’t be there. We didn’t have to say it aloud — one look and it was easy to tell we were both heartbroken about it.
And then she left me, too.
That fact will be painful everyday and even more poignant at every milestone for the rest of my life. And that just sucks.
* * * *
So we celebrate, and I cry. I try not to… not to suppress the grief, but to experience the today.
I don’t want to be happy and sad [simultaneously], I just want to be happy, but I don’t think that can ever happen again.
+ This may triggering for people who have lost their spouse / partner *
And so Spring begins, creeping in with the rising sun. Our days stretch longer, our nights illuminate later, our souls dance to new rhythms.
Spring has been so unkind to me… it ushers in many death dates: my friend, my brother, Mother’s Day, mom’s birthday, mom’s death day. Last year there were only three significant dates — I say only, as if three dates isn’t a lot already — May 4, the day I lost a friend. May 5, the last time I saw and heard from my brother. May 7, the day police discovered his body.
I call it “Death Week,” that first embittered week of May. I call them “Death Holidays” now… I can’t quite think of a better term.
* * * *
In 2022, Scott and I chose to get married in the early Spring. We wanted to bring something happy into our Spring. Despite everything, Spring remains one of my favorite seasons: it’s the season the world comes back to life. But for us, it’s a season of so much death.
April 22nd marks our three year wedding anniversary, yet these three years have felt like a decade in some ways.
Despite our best efforts, our one wedding date only glimmers compared to the black holes of our five death dates. It feels like such a speck of light this year amidst a galaxy of darkness.
Years ago, perhaps even more than a decade ago, I remember sitting with my friend Gabi and discussing how it’s important to choose someone with whom to suffer well.
Suffering brought Scott and I together, but we didn’t really find each other [romantically] until years later. We began dating in a beautiful season of bliss with neither one of us actively enduring tragedy. We both had grown, and we often talked about how nice it was to get to know each other when life wasn’t falling apart.
I wish I would have enjoyed our engagement more. Truthfully, I didn’t want a wedding and the planning stressed me out. Scott was figuring out a way to move to Florida and we were trying to buy a house together, too… it was a lot.
In hindsight, I wish I would have simply enjoyed planning things with my Mom.
But we just don’t get time back, do we? *sigh*
* * * *
Scott and I have been through so much together, and lately I’ve been grateful that I did choose someone to suffer well with, because we’ve suffered more than we could have imagined.
For years, I did not want to get married. I was afraid of how allowing someone into my life and into my safe space would disrupt my peace and ultimately harm me. I was happy being single… it was safe and calm. I could not imagine someone actually helping me navigate pain.
I idealized my parents’ marriage, and in many ways I still do. I didn’t think it was possible to find a love like theirs. They adored one another, they loved to be together, they helped each other, and they put their relationship first… until one day, she didn’t.
To have two family members’ lives so abruptly destroyed severs attachment beyond communicability.
Initially, I feared that Scott and I would fall apart. To lose my Mom, to lose my parents’ relationship shakes everything.
But we haven’t fallen apart, we’re learning to face death and suicide again. We’ve learned to suffer well, if anyone really can suffer well.
* * * *
Our anniversary is a blessing, and in some ways feels like a miracle. It’s a date of happiness amidst dates of death and sorrow. It’s a date of love still living, of life still blooming, of grace still emanating.
Ultimately, I am hyper aware that we won’t be in this together forever. I hope and pray we live natural lives and die natural deaths, supporting one another til one of us does die. That would be ideal.
Nonetheless, I’m grateful for the todays. I’m grateful for our life together, our home together, our rhythms together. I’m grateful for our love, our peace, and our laughter. I’m grateful for our quiet moments, I’m grateful for our adventures. I’m grateful that we have each other at the end of each day, and I’m grateful for how much we enjoy one another’s company.
I’m sorry our first few years of marriage carry so much heartache. I’m grateful for the comfort we have in each other. I’m grateful for the peace and calm that Scott has protected in our lives. I’m grateful that we suffer together, supporting one another. I am grateful for every today that we get.
I hope our years won’t always be this painful. Thank you, Scott, for bringing comfort and kindness to my life each day. I love you 🩵
It’s been 295 days since my mother ended her life. I don’t exactly remember when I stopped counting the days, but I believe it was around day 100.
I remember those first few months, thinking I’d never sleep again. Vivid nightmares, fitful evenings, restless days. I think back to that time period as the “zombie days.” These 295 days have felt like a decade and likewise feel like a liminal gap — as if none of this is real.
I sleep now, most nights. At least once a week I’ll wake in the middle of the night and will be unable to coax myself back into sleep. Nightmares subsided for the most part, too.
But if I’m honest, every moment is just as miserable. And it’s not… and it is. The breadth of experience is so uncannily vast that one can feel happy, miserable, stricken, and calm simultaneously.
It’s exhausting. It’s tragic. It’s heavy. It’s not all miserable… but, also, it is all miserable.
