traumatic loss

Week 25

May grace find you.

May peace meet you wherever you are, no matter what you’ve done.

May forgiveness absolve you.

May bitterness flee from you.

May friends support you when your feet no longer hold you.

May kindness wrap itself around you.

May goodness follow you.

May hope guide you.

May you heal from suffering others cannot imagine.

May you know earnest people that heal the pieces of you that betrayal broke.

May you thrive after living through what no one should endure.

May you shine truth where lies once prevailed.

May those who scorned you see reality.

May those who betrayed you open their eyes to your suffering.

May those who wronged you know the depths of your hurt.

May those who ruined you know forgiveness.

May compassion win.

May happiness enter your life once more.

May sorrow carry the beautiful pieces of your shattered life.

May heartache find solace in friends worthy of trust.

May you learn to tend to sorrow.

May you grow to carry what cannot be fixed.

May you speak to the language of pain and sorrow.

May you know to honor your frail heart.

May you live through the unspeakable with unquenchable light.

May you remember kindness when your life is cruel.

May you breathe deeply when life takes your breath away.

May you love while your heart breaks.

May you balance complex emotions: sorrow, anger, happiness, bitterness, forgiveness, all as they cycle through.

May you teach the language of sorrow to a world committed to avoiding pain.

May you face tragedy and tend to her reverberations all your days.

May you linger in moments of depth.

May beauty overcome the wasteland.

May compassion overflow the rivers of sorrow.

May loveliness harbor the oceans of pain.

May grace run wild in the landscape of your life.

May you endure what you never should have lived though.

May you endure what will always hurt.

May you endure what defines the character of your life.

May you love,

May you be loved.

Week 24.6

Once upon a time, there lived a relatively happy family. They were a solemn family, where sorrow was ever before their doorstep, but happiness loomed at their threshold as well.

Their smiles were bright and welcoming, their tidings were of joy and compassion. They danced among a community of happy faces, committed to the cause of goodness and grace. Though they lived many states apart, they upheld that solemn unity that family and trauma require.

The mother, yes, she was the shining star. She was the jewel of the community, welcoming the shiny happy people — celebrated for her friendliness and hospitality, honored for her good nature. A shepherd to her community, a shepherd to her family. She boasted of her beloved family — children, the apples of her eyes, and her one beloved, her friend.

But, like all beautiful things, she died.

And what of her community? This shepherd did not pastor alone. No, she had several who could have looked after her flock. Only, they didn’t.

Her family was left to grovel, abandoned by the community that celebrated their wife and mother. Shunned by those whom called her a “co-laborer in Christ” and a friend. Exiled by the very community that spoke of her love and beauty at her funeral. Her family was judged and rejected, abandoned but not forgotten.

They thought of — and prayed for, of course — her family, they said, when five or six months passed and they finally decided to check in.

Five or six months of silence, of gossip, of abandonment from the very place their wife and mother once shined. She was the woman who really “saw” people, and they couldn’t see her survivors.

I’m sick of the veiled statements and the cryptic messages: I’m disappointed and hurt by how much my mother’s pastoral staff didn’t show up for us — after all she gave to them. She gave them her life, and they repaid her by shunning her family after her death.

But, as they read this, they’ll say “See! She’s angry at us,” and not “oh, we’ve hurt her.” It’s always the sufferer who must snuff her feelings, protecting the egos of those who did the hurting. Those who inflicted pain seldom care to take ownership of their wrongs, choosing rather to call the wounded impaired.

I’m sick of the injustice of it all, I’m sick of the gossip. I’m sick of the people who got my mother’s police report, made copies of it, and mailed and/or texted it out to people who had no right to her private information. I’m sickened by the people who continue to share it, choosing not to protect my mother nor my family from harm. I’m sick of being afraid to leave my house and wonder if somebody’s going to ask me about — someone I don’t know, saying things she would never tell them, looking to exploit answers from me. I’m sick of feeling so powerless, so voiceless, against those who have hurt and who keep hurting me and my family.

There were people who blamed my mom for my brother’s death, and those same people blame my family for her death. They were vile to her, sending nasty letters and saying wicked things.

They whisper and they lie, they spread misinformation in hopes of isolating us from our community. And guess what? It worked. Shunned. Isolated. Abandoned. All in the name of Jesus.

Jesus wouldn’t do that.

But don’t worry, they “pray for” us everyday.

Week 22

My mother was like the sun, everyone felt how bright she shine. Her presence instantly lit up the room: she dazzled with light, warmth, and life everywhere she shined. Those closest to her orbited her and grew from her tender care, but they were severely scorched when our bright star transposed into a supernova. Our sun blazed and left us in ashes. What once brought warmth became an epicenter of frigidity. What once held life holds only withering dreams of what could have been. Our universe, once safe and secure, forever centers around a black hole.

* * * *

There are a few places where I feel my mother’s presence, or rather absence, most keenly. Places where memories implanted forever in my scarred mind. The spa by my home is one of these places — somewhere I can remember so well it’s almost as if she’s there. I see her in the lounge chair next to mine… only, I don’t. I see the empty chair, but her memory is so palpable I can vividly imagine her. It’s not just a spa anymore, it’s a sacred space where I once met my Mom, and where I wish so badly she was with me again.

In my mind, I imagine she’s with me. I pretend I see her smiling and welcoming me into the room, inviting me to sit with her. The sofas are so large that we sometimes shared one so we could whisper to each other. So, I imagine she’s here. I look at her empty seat and speak silently to myself “I love you, Mom. I wish you really were here with me.” I think, maybe she is. Who knows? So, I pretend she is. I carry on my empty conversation: “I love you, Mom. That’s all I want you to know.”

It’s a question my therapist often asks — “If your Mom was here, what would you want to say to her?” I cannot utter much get past “I love you, Mommy. I wish you were here.”

But today, I continue my imaginary chat. “We really were best friends. I should have told you that more often.” Maybe I did, I just can’t remember.

And I cry, and I cry, and I cry quietly to myself. Softly in the silent room of the spa, staring at an empty chair where I can’t actually see my mother. I imagine she gets out of her chair to come sit by me, I imagine she holds my hand, and I imagine she pulls me into her arms as I cry. She strokes my hair.

I imagine all of it as if it really happened. I imagine all of it alone. So quiet, so cold, so empty.

I rest my head in the gray lounge chair, as if the chair offers a hug. My imagination fades and only the simple chair remains, reminding me of my loneliness here without her.

And yet, despite the tears and heartache of that still room, it may be my favorite part of the spa because I can see her so well there.

* * * *

My little supernova, so grand, so brilliant.

Your light carries on for a millennia

My universe is so cold without you,

But there’s beauty in the frost, too.

My beautiful supernova,

You’ll always be my black hole,

Forever drawing me to you,

Forever icing me with your absence.

My magnificent supernova

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.