hardship

Week 7 – Tips for Communicating and Helping People in Mourning

Tips for Communicating with a Person in Mourning

Be gracious. Do not be surprised if someone deep in mourning gets a little snippy with you, is irritable, is not very talkative, or tends to dominate the conversation. It’s not you, it’s that mourners have a lot got going on. I know many of you reading this are likewise deep in mourning — be gracious with yourself and with your family. I’m sorry if those around you haven’t experienced much grief — it’s incredibly hard to fathom a grieving mind if you haven’t experienced a deep personal loss.
“I’m sorry” may feel like such a weak thing to say, but it encompasses a tremendous amount of emotion and care. The short phrase empathizes with the mourner and often creates an understanding between two hurting people.
Acknowledging the situation is better than avoiding the topic altogether. It may be awkward to speak up, but a simple “I see you,” goes a long way 💙
The less decisions a person in mourning needs to make, the better. Mourning requires an enormous amount of mental energy, and helping make a decision alleviates a bit of mental fatigue. Don’t be surprised if a griever locks up / shuts down if you ask them what you perceive to be a simple question. Nothing is simple in grief. Nothing.
Presence is best 🤍. Be here, share here, create space here.
It’s okay to ask “How are you doing?” It’s a simple phrase that shows you care, but monitor your tone while asking. There’s a significant difference between an excited “how are you!?” and an empathetic, “so, how are you doing?” Odds are, a mourner is not likely to match excited energy.
It’s not okay to ignore the situation. I get it — it’s awkward and you may not know what to say nor how to act, but a simple acknowledgment of “I’m sorry for your loss,” is preferable to pretending to act normal. Talk about the elephant in the room. It’s all that the griever thinks about. Occasions where I feel like I have to act “normal” — where I have to pretend to ignore the grief that’s on my brain 100% of the time — are my least favorite.
It’s okay to ask if a mourner wants to talk about it — if you’re close friends with the mourner, they may crave the kindness of a listening friend. If you are more of a stranger to the bereaved individual, the mourner may be incredibly uncomfortable talking about the situation. No matter the reaction, it’s okay to ask. Better to ask than to ignore the situation.
Letters just might be my favorite form of communication. I’ve received a few letters and even packages from people and they are incredibly thoughtful and sweet. Unlike a text or phone, letters are calming — there is little pressure to respond and they are crafted with care. Sending a mourner a letter is a kind thing to do, and it means more to the griever than you realize. Even if a griever does not reach out after receiving a letter — the griever likely forgot — that letter meant a lot.
Calls are easier to answer than text and/or instant messages, but a mourner might not always want to talk and they will likely forget to call you back. Don’t feel bad if you call multiple times – calling shows that you care. Texts and instant messages are great too! I just tend to only answer about 2-3 messages a day, so it can take a while to get to them.
Keep inviting, even if the mourner keeps turning down invitations. Celebrations are incredibly difficult for a mourner, though we are truly happy for others. Grieving makes one sensitive and easily overstimulated. If a mourner thinks an event will be triggering, he or she is likely not going to attend the occasion. Triggers mean tears or irritability, and a mourner will not want to take attention away from someone else’s event by letting their emotions surface. Mourners want to support their friends, but they have very little capacity to do so.
Understand that it’s really difficult for mourners to leave their home. Seriously, I barely want to leave. My home is such a safe place, anywhere outside home is simply uncomfortable. Leaving home takes a tremendous amount of effort.
Remind the griever how much he or she means to you. Again, someone in mourning simply can’t show up for their friends in the same way they did before. This can make a griever feel incredibly isolated, feel like a bad friend, and anxious about their relationships. Mourners need a lot of reassurance and reminders that they are loved and are not a burden. We are hyper aware of how little we can give in relationships, and that scares us.
Declaring “Your mom is always with you,” is not helpful. Perhaps it will be in the future, but in the first few days it’s more of a reminder of the chasm between my life and my mom’s death. This phrase is Especially painful for a suicide survivor, who are left with an incredibly deep abandonment wound; thus stating she’s with me when it feels like she chose to leave is incredibly painful.

Tips for communicating with Suicide Survivors

If a cause of death is not published immediately, it is likely because it is due to a highly sensitive cause of death, such as suicide; it is rude to ask the family “What happened?” prior to the family’s announcement. Curiosity is natural, but be courteous of the family when a cause of death is not published.
Starting a sentence with “I’m sorry to ask you this,” or “I’m sorry to pry, but…” typically indicates that it is an inappropriate question to ask. Do yourself and the bereaved a favor and do not ask that question.
Do not ask someone how their loved one took their life. This is insensitive and the information rarely helps.
Do not ask if foul play was involved or if it’s possible that it was not a suicide. Suicide is one of the harshest ways someone can die — a survivor of suicide wishes more than anything else that their loved one did not take their life.
Do not ask if their loved one left a note. This is an incredibly sensitive area. Suicide is incredibly confusing and damning, and information regarding a note is incredibly private and sacred. If a loved one did leave a note, it’s not likely that the survivor would want that information published. The absence of a note, likewise, contributes to the confusion of the situation.
Listen. Survivors have a lot to talk about and a lot to process. Create a safe space for the wounded, and be patient. It’s difficult to put deep thoughts and feelings into words. A survivor may want to share details surrounding the suicide, and that should be considered a privilege (not a right). This sacred information should be honored with respect and reverence. Know that what a survivor shares is private: honor a survivor’s trust and do not share the sensitive information entrusted to you.
Saying “It doesn’t matter how they died,” is dismissive. When someone takes their own life, there is no natural cause, no illness, and no accident to blame. Thus, someone bereaved by suicide can only blame the person who committed the act and his/her self. Suicide creates an arduous mental cycle.
Don’t speculate why they did it. I’ve had several people tell me that my mother likely ended her life because of the loss of her son. You’re essentially telling me that my life and the lives of my siblings and father did not matter enough to stick around for… that’s a pretty mean thing to say. Let me make it perfectly clear that you have absolutely no idea why she ended her life, so do not come to a survivor with a list of possible reasons you think their love one did it.

Practical Ways to Help

The Go Fund Me is still active: https://gofund.me/e4fe4ebf this provides freedom for us to be out of work for an extended amount of time. Giving here eliminates the stress that comes from lost wages.

LiveWell Behavior Health, the organization that Mom used to work at and the place many of my family members are currently receiving therapy, created the “Harmony Project” to “carry forward her legacy by fulfilling one of her deepest dreams: helping others find healing and wholeness. The Harmony Project provides scholarships to individuals in our community seeking meaningful mental, emotional, and spiritual support through professional mental health services.” You can read and donate here: https://www.livewellbehavioralhealth.com/center This is such a beautiful way to honor my mom and we couldn’t be more grateful for all that LiveWell has done for our family.
Lawncare: My Dad has a beautiful lawn with gorgeous trees and plants, buuut of course weeds grow incredibly fast here — if you drop by, maybe scan the lawn before coming inside and pick some weeds if you are willing and able to.
Meals: The meal train was incredibly helpful! Please do this for your grieving friends. While a meal train is no longer necessary and we are getting back into “normal routines,” it would be nice every once in a while if someone called and said “I’m bringing dinner Tuesday!” and offers their company. Someone deep in grief may not be ready for company, but a meal is always welcomed. Deep grief makes one feel as if he or she must relearn every simple skill they’ve known for years.
Gift cards: People gave many gift cards and this was and is incredibly helpful. As I mentioned before, making dinner every night can be overwhelming in general… it becomes even more overwhelming when mourning consumes all of one’s energy. Gift cards for coffee or even sweets like Crumbl are super sweet as well. Someone even gave me a massage gift certificate and that was super sweet and helpful too — I can’t tell you how incredibly tense my body is right now. Grief manifests in the body as much as it does the mind.
Any little act of service helps: Small tasks are incredibly helpful — doing a load of laundry, wiping down a counter, windex-ing a mirror, etc. Sometimes it’s hard for me to even remember to put a pair of shoes on. It’s invaluable to notice those little things that may be neglected and to help one another out.

Education/Book Recommendations:

Educating yourself is one of the most helpful things you could do for my family, and ultimately your own. No matter what, everyone eventually dies. Educating yourself now will create a culture of empathy and understanding for my family and, ultimately, will prepare you and your family for when you face unimaginable loss.

Surviving Suicide Loss by Rita A Schulte, LPC, is a book my family has asked many of our close friends to read. While there are differences between the author’s situation and my family’s, it will provide a glimpse into the depth of our struggle. It discusses the mental load that suicide survivors wrestle through, and provides insight into mental illness. Stigma is an enormous hinderance to both those who complete suicide and those left behind. Amazon link: https://a.co/d/8dmsDun
It’s OK That You’re Not OK by Megan Devine is an excellent book that discusses the cultural dismissal of grief and loss. We live in a culture that has left behind the art of lamentation and grief, leaving mourners with even more confusion to their natural response to tragedy. Amazon link: https://a.co/d/bHe9yHY

Thank You

Ultimately, I want to thank you for the tremendous support you have shown me and my family.

Grief makes one’s soul raw and incredibly sensitive to both pain and compassion. Thank you for your care and love for me and my family.

If any of these tips help and if you read any of the books, please let me know! I’d love to know your thoughts.

Week 5

One sentence has flurried in my mind since I read it Wednesday:

Perhaps I did not deserve their deaths, but I did not deserve their presence in my life either.
Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised.

It stings. I don’t like it. But, but, but. But perhaps it’s true.

From my point of view — a 27 year old woman, a sister and a daughter survivor of suicide who has always love my family deeply — it’s incredibly tempting to submit to cynicism. Thoughts like Nothing I did mattered flutter through my brain. It didn’t matter if I was the best daughter or the best sister in the work, they still left. The sad part about that thought is that it’s entirely true.

I’m sure many are thinking similar thoughts… if I’d only… if I was a better _______ … I wish I would have… the list goes on.

Suicide tends to reverberate guilt throughout its affected community. The truth is, you could be the best mother/father, husband/wife, brother/sister, son/daughter, or the best friend and this nightmare could be your reality, too. Chances are, if you’re reading this, you are and you were — you were a good _____. In fact, you were probably great. Odds are, you loved my Mom well and you laughed together often. And yet…

The thought Did any of it matter? haunts me once more.

I loved my Mom… did that matter? I was a good daughter… did that matter? We loved my mom. My entire family loved my Mom deeply. Her community locally and globally loved her deeply.

Oh, this shattering outcome makes it too easy to believe that none of it mattered.

“Why don’t I get to have a Mom? I loved my Momma,” I sob endlessly to Scott (thanks, honey).

Then I despair that it feels like none of it mattered. That’s an incredibly easy lie to believe until someone knocks on my door to bring us dinner. Until we check the mail and have letters and packages from friends we haven’t connected with in years. Until we read the text messages. Until we feel the warmth from your embrace. Until we hear the care in your voices.

It did matter. It does matter. All of it mattered. Your kindness matters, your help matters, your love matters. It’s easy for me to believe that nothing I do matters, until I receive boundless kindness from those around me and I experience comfort and healing from each little act of kindness and care. That matters to me, and it reminds me that what I do does matter, and that what you do matters, too.

Day 29

Mourners temporarily lose the ability to reflect on the past and dream of the future. In his book A Grace Disguised, Jerry Sittser describes the sacred “eternal presence” of those who experience catastrophic loss: reflecting the past becomes painful for the grieved because of the multitudes of memories with their loved one, and, simultaneously thoughts of the future create pain because of the absence of their loved one.

In this prison of the present, grievers become sacredly aware of the ordinary and mundane. It provides a chance to slow down, evaluate priorities, and reconsider one’s life with the most basic wants and desires at the forefront of one’s mind.

Oftentimes, this accompanies a strong desire to be close to one’s remaining surviving family. This catastrophic grief provides the opportunity to shelter together and requires the bereaved to relearn how to exist with an “amputated self,” as Sittser describes. The “amputated self” describes the loss of identity that a mourner suffers — it’s questions about one’s identity like Who am I without my Mom?

Catastrophic loss quiets the background noise of one’s life. It destroys, entirely, the life we once knew and the life we once hoped for. In the initial months and years of catastrophic loss, it can feel impossible to believe that a good life is possible when the one who made life so good is no longer with us because we lose the ability to dream of a good life.

It’s the 29th day without my Mom. That thought sickens me. It’s an excruciating reality, and I still don’t want to believe it. I’m so sad that tomorrow is truly an entire month without her. I cannot describe how dreadful that feels. I just miss my Momma. I wish this wasn’t real.

Day 28

I have a lot of unread messages and a lot of comments I haven’t responded to, but I see them. I like to save them for nights and when I can’t sleep.

I am grateful for your overwhelming support, for the food, the gift cards, the cards, the encouraging messages, the comments, the phone calls. Thank you.

It’s hard to fathom we’re all here. It’s hard to accept. I wish so badly it wasn’t real — we all do. I am so sorry, I am so sorry for our loss. I am sorry you’re hurting so much, too.

My Mom had a beautiful and vast influence. She touched the hearts of many, and now the many mourn. I am sorry we’re all working through the weight of this quizzical grief.

I’m so sorry for my mom. I am so sad for her. I am endlessly sad for her. This is not what she would have wanted.

I am so haunted by answerless questions, and I know we all are. After Patrick died, one of my professors said “Knowing ‘why’ rarely helps,” and I have wholly believed that for years. Knowing why would never be enough — we would all think “we could have worked this out.”

I loved my Mom so much. I know we all did. I know that, in her right mind, she knew that too. I am devastated that she did not leave earth feeling that love. Maybe, maybe in her last few moments she did. Maybe she felt it all as she drew her last breath. Maybe she did, I hope she did.

When Patrick died, I had this vision of him entering heaven with tears pouring from his eyes while he said “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” and Jesus held him and said “It’s over, it’s over. You’re home now.”

I haven’t gotten a vision like that with my mom. Truthfully, I haven’t been able to picture her much at all… I think it is too painful for my mind to recollect at this point.

I am so sad her mind lied so cruelly, and I will forever be sad of that.

I wish so bad I could hold her hand one more time and remind her how much we love her. I wish so desperately she wasn’t gone. I would have loved more than anything to bear our burdens together. I know we all would.

I know this life will be good without my Mom, and I know too well how God brings grace and beauty from horror. But I hate that I have to say goodbye, and I hate that it will be good without my Mom. It reminds me so much of Tolkien’s famous words:

Frodo: I can’t do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness, and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it’ll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why.
Two Towers

I love you, Mommy. I’ll always love you.

Day 26

Losing a parent feels like losing one’s foundation.

Losing a parent to suicide feels like finding out one’s entire life was a lie.

Distraught – that has been the word most on my mind today.

Suicide makes one relive and rethink every interaction with the lost loved one, and, today, it’s made me angry. I’m angry my Mom is gone. I’m envious of everyone who gets to have a mom. I see a mother loving her young children, and I think of my mother and how much I know she loved me and our family. But I see a mom with her young children and can’t help but think how could you [Mom] do this to me?

How could she be so hopeless? She truly had so many things she loved, looked forward to, and enjoyed about life. She never uttered a word about hopelessness, but it was there. Maybe it was always there.

Maybe every day for the past 51 years was a blessing, maybe every day was one more day than she thought possible. Who knows? We’ll never know, so it almost doesn’t even matter.

I am distraught. I am distraught that my mother had these thoughts. I am distraught that she couldn’t think of all the beautiful things she had to live for in her last day on earth. I’m distraught because, as hopeless as she clearly was, she did have so much that she loved and so much that she did look forward to.

I am distraught because I am angry with my mother for choosing this. I am angry at God for allowing it — which is likely bad theology, honestly. God gave man the power to choose, and my mother chose poorly on that day. I am distraught because I have to have all of these thoughts and think through all of these things. I am distraught because every day feels like I’m learning something tragic I didn’t know — as if my life hadn’t had enough tragedy in it already.

Thanks, Mom.

I am distraught because I loved my mom. I loved her so much, and any of us would have done anything for her. I am distraught because she hurt immeasurably bad and there is nothing I can ever do about that, ever. I am distraught because I will carry this cross with me for the rest of my life.

I am distraught because I know that God is good, and that God will bring good and beautiful things into my life — things I will never get to share with my mother, whom I loved so much.

I am distraught because I have to watch my Dad and brothers not have a wife and a mother. I am distraught because I have to watch my husband and my in-laws not have their mother in law. I am distraught because I have to watch her friends not have their friend. My beautiful Momma.

I am distraught because she did this. I am distraught because, in her mind, she had to do this. I am distraught that people’s minds can do that to them.

I am distraught that little things in my house get messy — my bathtub needs cleaned, my library has books and pens that I don’t know what to do with because I’m still using them and still reading them.

I am proud. I am proud that I am brushing my hair every day. I am proud that I am getting up every day. I am proud that I am leaving the house every day. I am proud that Dad and I are going on bike rides every day. I am proud that I am eating every day. I am proud that I am showering [almost] every day — sometimes I don’t remember if I have or haven’t showered, but I know I’m brushing my hair and teeth each day. I am proud that I am exercising every day. I am proud that I am going to therapy. I am proud that I am doing the bare minimum to at least be physically okay. I am proud that I started reading my Bible each day. I am proud that I am letting people help and support me. I am proud of a lot, and I am thankful for a lot.

Parents really are foundational. I feel like a house whose foundation has cracked in half. Restore me, Lord, for I my foundation crumbled.

I have enough without my mom. My life is still good without my mom, but, God, I wish I had my mom to share my life with.

Day 23

Adrenalin has faded. Shock and denial slowly sift away, and reality rises like the sun in my tired mind. Tears fall more readily, memories pour out more steadily, and I remain dazed.

Grief shrouds everything, creating fog in every way. I don’t realize how dense the brain fog is until I attempt to have a conversation — it’s like I can barely remember to finish a sentence.

Any chores accomplished are simply done by an automatic response from years of habit. If I take a sweater off or a pair of sunglasses, I place them down and I will completely forget about them, leaving tattered articles throughout the house.

We were quite social today, which is both nice and weird. It’s like re-acclimating into society: it reminds me of being at a restaurant in a foreign country where I don’t know the language or the customs. We’re all still eating, which is pretty universal, but everything else feels so different.

I’m so tired. So, so, tired.

Everything is sad — it’s the opposite of rose-colored glasses. It’s like seeing everything in deep shades of blue and gray, muting colors from the world.

Day 18

One day, I will run out of pictures of me and Mom. That thought haunts me every time I write one of these posts.

I feel bad for the kids who will grow up with ChatGBT, for they may never know the therapeutic art of writing.

“From the fruit of a person’s mouth his stomach is satisfied; he is filled with the product of his lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. ”‭‭
Proverbs‬ ‭18‬:‭20‬-‭21‬, CSB

I’ve thought a lot about words recently: which words lead to life and which lead to death. Words are incredibly powerful. With a mere sentence, one can build up and encourage or one can destroy hope.

One of the first few phrases I uttered after I found out about my Mom’s death was “I can’t do this. I can’t lose my Mom. Scott, I can’t lose my Mom. I can’t lose my Momma. Not my Momma,” I voiced in horror as the concept became a reality.

I’ve thought about that a lot: “I can’t do this,” but the truth is, I can. I don’t want to and I wish more than anything in the world that it wasn’t true, but I can do it. Then, I thought about how the phrases “I can’t do this” and “I can’t handle this,” are statements that lead to death. They’re dangerous – voicing and thinking them concedes defeat before endurance begins.

Thus, I am working to eliminate them from my vocabulary. I can handle this, I can do this, and you can, too.

Life and death are in the tongue, but the tongue only voices what the mind first conceptualized. We must retrain our minds to prepare for the trials we endure.

You and I — we can do this. We are going to make it. We can do this together, we must do this together. Isolation, avoidance, and silence destroy us. Together, we can share our burdens, we can support one another, and we can learn to love and to grow amidst what feels like a nightmare.

I wish my Momma would have chosen together. I wish she would have shared. If she were in her right mind, I believe she would have. We honor her when we share our burdens — it’s what she wanted for and from all of us.

She didn’t want this, not really. She spent the last few years of her life dedicated to preventing this type of reality. That was real. Her passion was real. Her detest for this type of pain was real, but, on that abhorrent day, she believed she couldn’t handle it, and she made that decision alone.

You can handle it. I can handle it. We can handle it together 💙. In her right mind, that is what she would have wanted.

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

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.

Exposed