suicide survivors

Week 19

I leave old sticky notes from my mother around the house because… what else should I do with them when I find them? I don’t want to throw them away and I don’t want to put them away, either. So they sit out, collecting dust, beguiling to be read, hauntingly there.

In the first few weeks following Mom’s death, so many loving people gave and gave and gave. Aside from meals that nourished my whole family, people gave me face masks, candles, stickers, socks, etc.

Peoples’ hearts can be so beautiful in heartbreak.

At the time, I had so little capacity to process the gifts, so I set them aside as if part of a collection. Now, I can’t even remember who all gave things. Someone gave me a necklace — I don’t remember who now. She gave a card, but it was separated from the necklace. I can’t remember who to say “thank you,” to… but…

Thank you.

Thank you each person who gave food or a card or some piece of comfort. Thank you for reaching out, thank you for reading these, thank you for commenting, thank you for showing up and bearing witness to a pain that seems as unbearable as it is. It’s not easy or comfortable to watch this incomprehensible level of pain. I know many of you who knew and loved my Momma hurt too, and many of you who simply know me hurt for me. Thank you for giving out of your pain and for showing up.

I tried to go through that collection of gifts — those tokens of love and comfort — yesterday, 133 days later, but I still can’t get through it. It’s still too raw, it’s still too fresh of a reminder that my world was ripped apart… that my Mommy is gone. Yet, the things that I got through reminded me of all the love you have given me and all of the love you had for my Momma. It felt raw to touch and see these gifts of love from people I could not even remember. So I will try again another day, and be reminded once more of all this love.

Love is all we have left, and love is both enough and not impossibly enough at all. But love does, as the old saying teaches, “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends,” and what is grief but love that persists?

Week 18

“How much is enough?”

“Just a little more.”

There were so many things we were supposed to do together. There were things I wanted to show her, experiences I wanted to share with her, places I’ve gone since that I wish I could still bring.

And yet, we got to do so much together. We drove across countries and states, we got to live by one another as adults. We shared so much, but it’s all over and that hurts.

I’ll be wanting a little more of her for the rest of my life.

It’s October, which brings torrents of sorrows to my family but also holds birthdays of some of my most beloved people: my Daddy, my niece Klaire, my husband Scott, my Auntie Beth, my sister Carrie… which just makes October an emotionally complex month. Much to celebrate, much to grieve — an unending dichotomy in our lives.

Mom was enrolled in a week-long intensive at Liberty University (my alma mater) taking place this October, and we talked about making it a girls’ trip. I haven’t been back to the university in years and Mom never attended a university in person. We were excited for the potential adventure… We never went on a girls’ trip with just the two of us.

A life cut short is so cruel. I’ve lost a lifetimes of memories that will never be made.

There’s the primary loss of my mother and the secondary loss of all the little things that died with her. Every book on grief will tell you that you will lose friends and people you thought would be in your life forever, but knowing that does not make it any less painful or shocking when it actually happens.

Grief can be incredibly isolating: in one sense, grief is as individual as the relationship, yet grief is public. My friends know, my coworkers know, strangers know. They know and they squirm.

Most close friends don’t know what to say… so they say nothing. Many fear saying something will make it “worse,” (which is nearly impossible)… so they say nothing. Many fear bringing it up will make me upset (don’t worry, grievers are thinking about it 100% of the time)… so they say nothing.

The hard work of grief support lies in entering into that awkward and sacred space and reaching through the silence. So much of grief support is simply companionship, simply bearing witness to a world torn apart. Entering this space requires bravery and delicacy, but it is fairly simple.

A fog follows me everywhere I go. It clouds my mind and wells in my eyes. You may not see it, but this invisible grief shouts in my mind at every moment of wakefulness and regularly infiltrates my dreams.

A little more, a little more.

I’ll want a little more forevermore.

Week 17

I wrote the following on February 26, 2025:








There were storms in her eyes,





Carrying the weight of oceans. 





Slowly it dripped out, puddling into ponds,





Pooling into new seas. 












“I lost him,” she gaped. 





“I lost them, they’re gone.” Words hung in the atmosphere, taunting the waves, but it’s like she wrote them in the sand, and the waves were quick to erase them.










No one heard her. No one saw the words: they vanished from her.










She was silent, and her silence killed them all. 










Once upon a time… she wept. She melted into the sofa and used a fluffed blanket to cover her untidy form.





She was so weak – she fell immensely weak. Her head throbbed, her eyes swam, her legs could hardly hold weight.  If she stood, she knew she’d tumble. Words failed to form in her mouth.  Her tongue was suffocating her.










How did she get here?










From a young age, she knew that life would break her.  She should have been happy, and she was, but she was always waiting for the fallout. 










Would she ever be happy?










— — —










I found that while skimming through one of my notebooks yesterday, and it felt like my past-self was writing and prophesying of her future self. The imagery and words produced an eerie sensations as I read them.










I had begun the arduous and laborious work of healing from several past traumas in therapy this spring, and the ruminations of my processing inked the page with my thoughts. How creepy, how sad to read now. 










“I lost them,” but I had only lost Patrick at that point. “Her silence killed them all,” but only he had died at that point. Now, her silence did kill us all. She destroyed that part of our lives — her survivors entered a liminal space that day when our old lives died and when we were forced to rebuild after this nightmare. Each in progress, no one yet complete, but we’ll never be who we were before that terrible day. I don’t think she meant to do that, but her mind got the best of her, and her silence killed is all.










I miss my mom. I am in pain everyday. I am exhausted every day. I am resentful towards my exhaustion and resentful that I have a limited capacity for everything. 










Grief is strikingly exhausting: I’m surprised every week how bone-tired I am by Thursday, but I was reminded by Megan Devine’s book It’s OK That You’re Not OK that this exhaustion is a normal part of grief. 










Again, everyone should read that book because you will grieve and you will support someone grieving. It’s inevitable. 










— — —










May your life, dear reader, be sweeter than nightmares. Yet when you enter that darkness, may you be supported and well loved, and may you have companions in your grief who lessen its suffering and show you endless kindness and compassion. 











							

		
	





				
					



	

	


					

				
									
			

		
		

			

				Week 16
			

		


					

				

Most of our wounds remain safely hidden in our own psyches. Often, we pick and choose whom we share our deepest thoughts and hurts. We choose to share with “safe,” people and find healing in that shared space of community, grace, and love. We choose not to share with people who are “not safe:” people who would misunderstand us, minimize us, or intentionally harm us with this sacred information. In this way, we manage our pain. We protect our hearts. This is safe. 










Privacy is seldom discussed amongst mourning communities, and I suspect scarcely thought of by those who support survivors. 










Police and media and gossip often accompany sudden, unexpected, and catastrophic deaths. At a minimum, police create reports and etch into public record details that feel so intimately private. It’s not often that our most painful experiences are published to the world. 










When this happens, multitudes of “unsafe” people have what feels like limitless access into the pieces of survivors’ hearts that are still bleeding. 










These unsafe people take that information and form conjectures meant to pierce the bleeding hearts of survivors. Or, maybe they’re not meant to… but they do.










People I would not choose to share this information with know the final details of my mother’s life. These facts that feel so close to me, so personal to me, so private to me, so painful to me are in the reckless hands of unsafe people. People who don’t know me well, people who don’t know my family well, and people who attempt to weaponize that information against us.










Pain and rage and mystery tend to create delusional  stories in hurting peoples’ hearts. No one wants to accept this reality, so they make up their own, killing her survivors in the process. 










Stigma. Once more, here it is: I think some people would have rather I died than my mother. I think some people would have rather everyone in my family died rather than my mother. I think some people still want us to die. That’s what their actions communicate, that’s what their rumors point to, and that’s where their conjectures conclude.










And then you don’t know who to trust. Who is safe? If I speak with them, will they use my words against me? Will they use my words to harm me and my family? So then I withdraw because no one feels safe anymore. 










How exhausting. 










I just want to mourn my mom. My mom. 










It’s so messy, all of this surviving suicide. 










They want us dead or perhaps they want us more injured than we already are.  I’m really not sure what they want, but it only creates more suffering.










I don’t want to die. I don’t want my Dad to die. I don’t want my brothers to die. My Mom and my brother are already dead. My mom is dead.










Suicide survivors need your support: we need you to acknowledge and affirm our pain. We need to know you see us in all of our pain. So much of support is simply helping us tend to this pain and to care for ourselves when we feel as though we can barely stand. 










It’s so painful when these private details are published to the world. Anyone can bring it up at any time, no matter how unsafe they may be. But that’s just the reality of loss.










I just want to mourn my mom. 










I miss you, Mom. 











							

		
	





				
					



	

	


					

				
									
			

		
		

			

				Week 15
			

		


					

				

I loved my Mom.










When you lose someone, loss tends to multiply all around you. There’s the one massive loss followed by a series of losses that convolute your grief and make it all so difficult to process. 










There’s the drama, the unexpected twists, and the complications you would not expect. There’s blame, stigma, and criticism waiting to greet you at every turn.










And, oh yeah, there’s the fact that you lost someone. 










The initial months of grief bring triggers you don’t know you have. One day, I’ll get used to them and have a better idea of what will cascade in outbursts of tears or uneasy anxiety, but for now, it could be anything. 










So much feels stolen when someone dies. Suddenly Mom dies and my whole relationship with her is available to the watching world. People are drawn to chaos and redemption: some turn away because it’s too painful to watch, while others lean in and hope to see a brighter day. 










Today, I remember our smiles. I remember my Mom’s beautiful enthusiasm and I remember us rejoicing together, enjoying one another’s companionship. I remember her warmth and endless laughter, I remember her closeness, and I miss her. 











							

		
	





				
					



	

	


					

				
									
			

		
		

			

				Week 14
			

		


					

				

Sorrow upon sorrow. 










“Painful” is the word I most often use to describe this liminal and tormenting reality, but it’s not just emotionally painful. 










We are whole beings: sorrow and stress affect our entire bodies as much as they affect our minds. 










I started to experience heart complicated about a year and half before Patrick died. These moments manifested as a chest pain, a resting heart rate of around 145 bpm, and a persistent murmur. They grew worse after my friend Walter died, and worse after Patrick died.










My parents finally convinced me to go to the doctor a year after Patrick died, when my chest pain and exhaustive heart rate seemed more of a regularity than an exception. Doctor after doctor and test after test finally lead to an ultrasound of my heart that revealed that my heart aged far quicker than the rest of me. The stenosis resembled someone in their 50s or 60s, not that of a 22 year old. They gave me a beta blocker and told me I’d likely need a pacemaker by the time I turn 35.










I began EMDR, a form of intensive trauma therapy (10/10 recommend), a few months after the diagnosis. To my surprise, I hardly needed my medicine anymore. I restabilized and seldom needed the beta blocker to calm my overreacting heart. Every few years, my cardiologist will continuously monitor my heart for a couple weeks to check in and I received fairly positive results from my last exam in 2023. Healing my mind healed my body, but not entirely.










Since my Mom took her life, I’ve had 56 episodes. These days, sometimes even the beta blocker seems to have little power against the arrhythmia. I wonder what an ultrasound would reveal now. I wonder if the timeline for my inevitable pacemaker draws nearer and nearer.










I’m so tired. Everyday feels like a fight. A new drama, a new hurt, a new layer. 










Grief haunts the mind and lives in the body, terrorizing its hosts with one complication after another. 










And then you add the drama, all the extra losses, all the disappointments that coalesce to prohibit the griever from feeling alive. 










I feel like a ghost, living among ghosts haunting me from their violent deaths. I feel like a ghost, haunting my friends who are vibrant with life while I am trapped by these deaths. I feel like a ghost, left behind in this unforgiving world. 











							

		
	





				
					



	

	


					

				
									
			

		
		

			

				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 12
			

		


					

				

Happy Suicide Prevention Awareness Month 🩵💜










I write, with a pit in my stomach, dryness in my mouth, and fear behind my eyes. 










For years, I’ve dreaded this month. It’s a month where I felt so invisible and so abundantly reminded of my own pain. No one really cares about awareness months, except the people whose lives they reflect. For suicide survivors, it’s a tiny little broken community, screaming out in the darkness. It’s not like heritage months or LGBTQ+ months or even cancer months, which all seem to have so much support. 










Of course, I have been well aware of Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, but it felt as if no one else really was. September meant annual Suicide Prevention trainings at work, where I’d cry to myself at my computer-based trainings, or fight not to weep during the in-person HR trainings where no one else was affected… except me. 










Quite honestly, Suicide Prevention Awareness Month feels like a giant shame-fest for survivors. “These are the signs,” the trainings warn. Only, the thing is, we can see all of the signs, take all the right actions, and people can still end their lives. 










So I sat isolated in trainings, and reflected on all the help we did get my brother Patrick. All the signs we did see. All that we did do. 










I reflect on my last conversation with Patrick, when he told me “Hopey, you’re my hope. You make me believe that we’ll really beat this.” 










This is the first year that it seems other people are aware of Suicide Awareness Prevention Month: it fills my Facebook and Instagram content with posts of warning signs, of fundraisers, of hope, and of so much sadness. It’s strange, and it still feels so icky.










For my Mom, there weren’t signs. It’s a terrifying reminder that, if someone really wants to die, he or she will ensure that we can’t stop them. 










Where is the hope in that?










I’m not sure. I’m not so sure there is any hope to prevent suicide. For now, you can hope for me, and maybe I’ll find hope again someday. 










What I do know is that this world was a much brighter place with her in it, and the world is a much brighter place with you in it, too.










Check out this link if you are interested in supporting Brevard County’s American Foundation of Suicide Prevention (AFSP) Walk. 











							

		
	





				
					



	

	


					

				
									
			

		
		

			

				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.