For The Heart Cries

  "I am in mourning for my life."  Anton Chekhov I mourn. Suicide has been part of my life since I was eleven years old. I have lost the two people I have loved the most in my life to suicide. I have lost childhood friends, classmates and neighbors. Suicide is a dark shadow from which I cannot escape - it may not always be visible but it is always there. As time passes. as I grow older, I have this fear - what I am most afraid of: that sometime in the future, I will wake up one morning and start a slow silent stroll towards suicide - or maybe I have been on that journey since I was eleven and don't even know it - as I am in mourning for my life. Contact: fortheheartcries@gmail.com  

  The storm! The storm usually begins with feelings of sadness, a lack of interest, being withdrawn, a sense of loneliness. In time these feelings deepen into depression and despair - overwhelming and painful mental anguish engulfed in helplessness and hopelessness. Thoughts of suicide - and as the storm rages, intensifies, suicide becomes the solution.  Family and friends are worried by the unusual and uncharacteristic behavior - what to do? But once suicide is decided, plans made, a day decided - peacefulness prevails, the storm passes, all is calm - a sense of normalcy returns, family and friends are relieved and relaxed. But it is at this time that family and friends should be more attentive, most vigilant - for it is in this calmness that death often arrives. Contact: fortheheartcries.blogspot.com

  "When you grieve, tears and guilt are mixed together."  Art Buchwald The loss of a loved one to suicide is so dreadfully devastating and so suddenly shocking, that you feel as though you are suffocating - for you are so overwhelmed with grief, so overcome with guilt. In your sorrowful suffering you become torn, at times trapped, between grief and guilt. Grief is agonizingly painful, physically and emotionally - you are worn out, exhausted, yet the grief endures - so endless that no amount of tears can wash it away. Guilt tortures and torments you, creates an anguish of mental havoc you jus can't seem to control - as you think of all the things you could have done to have prevented your loved one's suicide. But what you know now, you didn't know then. Guilt is a false accusation, blaming yourself for something you had no control over. Grief and guilt: nothing is more painful than grief. nothing is more torturous than guilt. Pray God that what overwhelms you today...

  Christmas is love. But if you have lost a loved one to suicide, this can be a season of silent sadness, of profound feelings of loneliness and loss. You may feel alone and abandoned, but your family and friends love you and they want to embrace and comfort you with their love. So, open your heart to their love - for it may be the light that helps guide out of the darkness. And where there is love, there is hope. May this love and hope be the blessings you need most of all on Christmas Day. Contact: fortheheartcries@gmail.com

In March 2000 I wrote an Op-Ed, Let's Stop The Suicide Epidemic.  In March 2018 I wrote an Op-Ed, A Silent Epidemic Of Death By Sadness. A few months ago I wrote another Op-Ed, Suicide: The Savage God. What's changed over these past 22 years? Suicides have increased from 31,000 a year to 48,000 a year - that's the silent secret and sadness of suicide, so many deaths and you have hardly heard a word. Contact: fortheheartcries@gmail.com  

  "I'll see you in my dreams, we'll meet and live and love again..."  Bruce Springsteen In my dreams I see my grandfather, George. We are at Fenway Park, a Red Sox game on a bright blue Saturday afternoon. Just another one of our glory days together. In my book of dreams, I am walking with my girlfriend, Anne. As the sun was setting on a Saturday evening, we stop and kiss, soft kisses beneath Spanish moss. As the sun was rising on Sunday morning, our eyes smile as we softly kiss good morning. My grandfather and Anne both died by suicide. When you have lost a loved one to suicide, your memories of the past become your present dreams. The magical moments of a Christmas morning, a birthday filled with pleasant surprises, first day of school, graduations and wedding days -the day you were caught in the rain, the weekend trapped in a blizzard. Remembering a walk along the beach and writing "I Love You" in the sand, holding hands as the plane lands in a distant ci...

  When suicide shockingly and suddenly enters your life with the loss of a loved one, your mind becomes trapped in a mournful moment in time - a moment of manic misery. You are overwhelmed with sadness and sorrow, with disbelief and dread. You cry tears that never dry. You have trouble focusing, thinking clearly and have sleepless nights - because you are lost in the thoughts of that moment in time. You try to purge your mind of that heartbreaking moment but you are never successful. You are wounded and scarred, doing your best to cope with the grief, loss and anger within you. You try to live with what has happened, to return to a sense of normalcy - but your mind keeps taking you back to the one you love and miss. And even without realizing it, you can dwell on that moment for hours, even days. You struggle with how people go on with their lives so easily, as you are entangled in a past moment that is forever in the present,  for that is where you live, that is where your th...