I still remember gazing out of our front room window for at least a week after his death, waiting for his truck to pull up like it did for so many years before. He would drive up, wait for the song he was listening to on the radio, his rock and roll station that he loved so much, to finish, he would then slowly get out after a long day at work, grab his belongings and head for our front door. I remember seeing him do this so many times before and when it no longer happened, I was shocked. I kept telling myself, “he isn't coming home again.”
But it never seemed to register because every day at that same time, I would again gaze out of that window waiting for him to drive up. My first step in this grief period was to OWN IT, to no longer deny what had taken place. That was a hard step, but a necessary one. Denial only prolongs the grief from coming out and that my friend, is dangerous.
Step Three: Grieve But Allow That Anger
Grief is such a relative term. For some it means to cry your eyes out for a few days, then slowly come out of that and turn to just being “sad” for some time. My grief was different. After I had to sit down and have that discussion with my children, although I was so very sad, I was angry at the same time. How could he have done this to our family? Couldn't he have taken that extra 5 seconds to have thought how this was going to affect us? Didn't he know this was going to devastate us all?
I was so angry at him for being so selfish and yes, suicide is a selfish thing to do to the people that you love and that love you right back. I was angry for weeks and even though I continued to enlighten my children about the love their father had for them and that this thing, this suicide had absolutely NOTHING to do with them and how their father felt about them, I continued to fight this anger that was building up inside of me.
I learned after a year or so that I needed to feel that anger. For anger does a couple things for you, it shows you that life isn't always fair, which is a good lesson for all of us to learn but it also allows you to really concentrate on moving on at some point. I don't know how it got me to the point of begin ready to move on after a couple of years, but it did. Another thing the anger did for me was it made me really have to rely on what depression can do to a person who can appear to be fairly normal. I finally realized that it probably wasn't “him” that pulled that trigger; it was that person he became when he fell into that deep depression.
I so wanted to “fix” him and to make him "whole" again, but you know, I couldn't and I had to learn this through all of that anger. He wasn't “doing” this to hurt me or to hurt our children. He simply felt so hopeless and so terribly sad that he felt he had no other option. That is a sad conclusion but one I have come to hold dearly. It wasn't “me” it wasn't “us”, it was his depression. I became a much stronger person, mother and human being the day I finally realized this.
Step Four: Know Who Your True Friends Are Because You Will Need Them
In the beginning it is a shock to everyone, family and friends alike. The friends that you consider your closest will probably be there to help you to arrange the funeral/memorial service. The will offer to take the kids so that you can get things done that need to be done. They will bring over food and lots of it. At the funeral, they will be your constant shadows, there at every turn, making sure you're okay and that there isn't something you need them to do. At least this is how I found it to be, but the strange thing is that for all of the time they are sharing with you, there really isn't any talk of what is really happening.
You see, you have to understand that for most people; suicide is such a taboo subject when it's actually happened. Now anyone can and will comment on suicide if it's simply a conversation discussing it but when it DOES happen, it's a different story altogether. It is such a hard thing to approach, what is the right thing to say? Is, “I am so sorry appropriate”? When a person dies a natural death or dies in a car accident there are the appropriate comments, “he had such a good life” or “he was such a good guy” or even, “well at least he's not suffering any longer and is in a good place now”. But with suicide, none of those things really apply, No, he didn't have a good life, if he did it wouldn't have ended like it did. Depending on what you believe and we won't get into this subject as it is a tricky one, but a lot of people think that after one commits suicide they are just beginning the suffering, so what does one say to that?
