One Side of Suicide explores life, death, love, and the challenges human beings are faced with during loss and grief. My husband staged his own death, but not his alone. The family he left behind lost a loving, passionate, talented person and still whispers his name at night. It is my sincere hope that you will find comfort in my story.
I began journaling six months after my husband's death. It was during my second semester at the university. Our first assignment in English class spread across the entire semester... complete a journal entry each day. The writings latched on to my emotions and pulled them out into plain view. My pen scrawled from page to page. It never stopped to question the content of its flow. Curled up in our La-Z-Boy, I dug up the roots of my pain. I raked over my heritage and discovered I had created myself to be a sufferer, a controller. I believed that it was my duty to suffer for Nick's father, brothers, and children as if they couldn't do it for themselves. I wanted to control life... and death. Maybe if I controlled others, no one else would feel bad enough to die. Mid-semester, my English professor offered her condolences along with an apology. She apologized for the coffee stains she left on my memoirs and thanked me for saving her from late night television. I continued to journal my anger, hatred, forgiveness and hope long after Writing Composition 101.
Our children hold individual memories of their father's suicide. My goal is to relate to you from my personal experience. However, I will share some experiences from my children's perspective. Sadly, it took several years for me to realize the mountains of hurt hidden deep within the fountain of youth. I will never know the extent of my children's grief. I had my father forty-four years.
The spiritual message in One Side of Suicide is to have faith in a Higher Power, Love, Intuition, Spirit, Truth, Nature. It is a non-denominational spirituality that is always open and ready to serve. Our spiritual essence requires a deep trust in the order of nature. Balance. The physical part of us requires that we nourish ourselves with healthy foods and beverages, have enough rest and exercise to keep ourselves limber and mobile. Our minds require information before decisions can be made. Logic, at times, pulled me away from guilt and out of the past more directly than prayer and push-ups.
It is up to us to search for sources to achieve peace of mind. We are more than our minds, more than our bodies, and more than our spirits. It is my goal to honor the mystery of life within and around everyone more reverently than ever before. Nick's short time on earth will live on because the legend of love is eternal. The same is true for your loved one. Let us move forward to realize our potential to thrive. We can use the freedom of choice that Nature so freely gave us to design our self-care plan. Dr. Jampolsky offers us the challenge and invitation to imagine waking up and feeling perfectly happy, peaceful, and loving in his book, Love Is Letting Go of Fear. He states that all of this is possible when our forgiveness is complete.
Healing is possible for all who are ready and willing to let go of judgment and love themselves through their anger, fear, and pain. The grieving process has no exact timetable, but it does have a mix of the following unique stages: (1) shock, (2) denial and isolation, (3) relief, (4) depression, (5) guilt, (6) anger, (7) bargaining, (8) forgiveness, and (9) acceptance, and hope. Survivors of suicide add an extra load of guilt to the grieving process, guilt that is periodically dumped and continuously sprinkled throughout the entire process. Acceptance comes in waves and washes away the final sands of guilt.
This book follows a bereavement-based format. The first stage, shock, literally catches a person off guard and places him or her into a state of wide-eyed denial or shut-eyed numbness. The reality is just too horrifying at that point to believe or deal with.
The second stage, denial allows the mind and body to isolate and wait for subtle signs of life and readiness. The mind begins to question. What happened? Why? We poke around our loved one's favorite spots and come back empty handed, alone.
