THE SINISTER SHADOW OF SUICIDE



The sinister shadow of suicide has been part of my life since I was 11 years old. It may not always be visible but it is always there, tagging along behind me. I have lost loved ones to suicide, childhood friends in their 20's and I survived a serious suicide attempt for which there is no medical reason why I am alive.

On a Thursday morning, I told my grandfather I would see him after school. He said, I'll see you later. I never saw him again. The last night my college girlfriend and I spent together, we finalized plans to take a summer school class on Yeats' poetry at the University of North Carolina. She whispered, Tom, I love you. The next day she killed herself.

I took their deaths as personal affronts and it took me a long time to answer this question: Why did they do this to me? And the answer is, they didn't. A suicidal mind is a closed self-centered mind that is overwhelmed by the demons of depression and despair - that create an inner suffering that is unbearable. Thus they are completely unaware of the consequences of how death will affect loved ones, family and friends - and the pain and suffering they once endured are now sad and sorrowful burdens on those that loved them.

Suicide is death by sadness. Suicide tears people apart and leaves wounds that never heal, breaks hearts that never mend and fills the mind with questions that are never answered - an endless search for why?

In life, you never know what might happen in a day. You wake up early on a sunny morning. you have plans, things to do, positive expectations on how the day will unfold. You don't anticipate a suicide. Suicide is sudden and unexpected, like a lightning bolt across a bright blue sky - it comes out of nowhere. Suicide stuns and shocks you, a loved one lost, questions scream within you - how, when, where, why? Answers given but not heard, disbelief rages in your mind as you are overwhelmed by darkness and grief. 

A date on the calendar is now forever draped in black. Suicide ends a life in death and as it does, it steals life from the living. I am you. We are each other. And love lies bleeding in our hearts.

And the sinister shadow of suicide keeps following along behind us.

Contact: fortheheartcries@gmail.com


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