TW: The content of this article may be emotionally challenging for some readers. Topics including death and suicide will be discussed.
It is true. Everything has been figured out. Except how to live.
I’ve written about this—about you—a few times before and with each time, I hope for an easily recognizable flash of clarity. That “aha moment” that will make it all make sense. This moment has never come.
In 2018, I lost someone I love to suicide. From the second my mother told me, a day has not passed where he hasn’t crossed my mind. I remember so vividly refusing to sit with my thoughts about him for too long. I couldn’t understand anything and I had never before experienced grief in such substantial waves.
When speaking about life and death, I don’t think we ever truly discover a satisfactory answer to the meaning of either. It’s difficult because we, as human beings, have this innate desire to find meaning within things, and when it doesn’t exist, we try so hard to create it. This sentiment may not be co-signed by therapists worldwide, but the hard truth is that the universe is completely uninterested in our desire for meanings and explanations. Loss, a lot like gravity, is an underlying truth we just have to accept.
I will say now, more than before, I believe there is no room in this lifetime for judgment when it comes to someone who chooses to take their own life. So often, I hear the word “selfish” used in the same sentence as suicide. We as human beings are also really good at making things that aren’t about us, about us. I think it’s important to remember that your loved one’s life was about so much more than their suicide. However, this is not to take away from the fact that it does inevitably affect us, and more importantly, that it is crucial to take care of ourselves when it does.
In the same ways we try to understand life, we try to understand death. And sometimes, even more complex in nature, death by one’s own hand. I can’t offer reasoning, but I can offer my thoughts. I was once told that when we turn to face grief, we come to find that all it is, is love in a heavy coat.
We’ve all heard it, we all know it, but to understand it means something different, and it’s that this too shall pass. One day, so abruptly, we are ripped into this life, and it can be so painful. Throughout the years following his death, I’ve had to learn—and am still learning— some of the hardest lessons life has ever taught me. The first being that we must accept that some things are simply beyond our control, and with those things, we must learn to move beyond the question of “Why?”. The second being that people are supposed to be burdens. Meaning that human beings depend on and support each other, and it is not an annoyance, it is our purpose. To love, and in return, to be loved. And finally, to understand that when we do heal, it doesn’t always mean we return back to exactly as we were before we broke. Time has a funny way of passing, sort of like a hand waving from a bus we all wish to be on—the destination being all the answers we’ve been so desperately looking for. But I want those of you reading this to understand that it’s okay not to have answers. It’s okay not to understand things. We can’t possibly understand it all, and we aren’t meant to, and it is okay. I promise.
All of that said, most days, I do find myself deep in contemplation about what I would have said to him. I think it would be that in life, things break, and occasionally they are restored. But so often, you discover that no matter what is broken, to compensate for your loss life readjusts itself, sometimes magnificently. I would tell him that there is infinite beauty in the struggle, and that we must find happiness in the midst of futility. I would tell him to be curious in his sorrow and curious in his joy. To be ever seeking and ever feeling. To be in awe of both the beautiful moments life gives us and the difficult ones. To be captivated by grief, and by growth because it is all so gorgeous, so abundant. And to never convince himself that he can’t be somber, can’t be hurt, can’t be elated. I would tell him to feel everything.
I once read, “I hope death is like being carried to your bedroom when you were a child and fell asleep on the couch during a family party. I hope you can hear the laughter from the next room,” and I hope you can hear it.