September 10, 1994
"We find a place for what we lose. Although we know that after such a loss the acute stage of mourning will subside, we also know that we shall remain inconsolable and will never find a substitute. No matter what may fill the gap, even if it be filled completely, it nevertheless remains something else."
Sigmund Freud
This has been a year of loses, my marriage to Maggie, my home and love, Andy and Yoyo, my entire life as I knew it to be. I almost loss my life and now my father is gone. In time I may find someone to love again, to hold and kiss goodnight. I may get another dog or cat and once again have a home. But a father can never be replaced nor the gap filled by someone or something else. The disbelief of my father's death has given way to sadness - a sorrow inflicted by my own sudden fears of mortality. Like the death of Anne and my grandfather, this wound will heal but the scar will never mend. This has been the worst year of my life and there are still three and a half months remaining - who knows what else awaits me, what else can be taken away.
As of today no call or card from Maggie - no words of sympathy. I wonder how does she sleep at night? Can guilt reside in a hollow heart? Does self-righteous pride corrupt the conscience?
The time has come to put my life and affairs in order - to get help and guidance with those things I can't do myself. I need a new lawyer to contact Maggie about the rest of my possessions and to help me file for bankruptcy. I must get to the welfare office in Falmouth and apply for food stamps and find out what other benefits I might be eligible for, like fuel assistance, since I'm going to be spending the winter at the cottage. And I must put more of an effort into therapy and pay greater attention in the aftercare program.
I am re-reading the book, Stronger Than Death by Sue Chance. It's about her son's suicide and her coming to grips with it. She strenuously asserts that suicide is an act of a coward. I have heard others describe suicide that way. When O.J. Simpson was traveling along the California highways in his Ford Bronco with a gun in his hand, many commentators said that if OJ killed himself it was the coward's way out. When he didn't kill himself, other commentators said the reason he didn't kill himself was because he was too much of a coward. Poor OJ, damned if he did, damned if he didn't.
At the Samaritans I have never heard the word coward mentioned. I believe Sue Chance is misguided in her opinion, an opinion erroneously shared by many - that it was made in anger because she was deeply hurt by what her son did. Suicide is a tragic act of dire desperation committed by a person who is temporarily insane - driven mad by a tumultuous mind and a punishing pain that is persistently penetrating and paralyzing in its deadly intensity. People who commit suicide should be mourned not criticized - for they died of sadness.
I struggle everyday to survive. I want to live, to feel alive. Since I have few people to talk to, I spend a lot of time talking to God, in simple conversations and in prayerful reflections> I heard a Trappist monk once say, "Words without thought never reach heaven. Prayers without sincerity never reach God." He then added that through meditative reflection God will often communicate to us through our own thoughts. I am trying to be sincere in my prayers and contemplations - and I await His words.
2:30pm - Sandwich Library - Sandwich, MA
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