Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Theresa Sweaney on January 11, 2013 at 2:57pm

I know, truly... good word.  Now when I observe someone behaving poorly in public (like, especially in traffic situations, ha!), I remind myself, they too could be in a state of grieving.  We just never know what a person is contending with at any moment. 

Tammy Cameron said:

We are forever changed by their departure from this earth. Through the sadness important lessons are learned and for me I have learned to appreciate everything around me and to be more kind to those around us. You never know what the person sitting beside you in a public place has been through. I've also learned to be more kind to myself and love myself like my mother loved me.

Permalink Reply by Tempestt on January 22, 2013 at 10:38am

I'm so sorry for your loss. Losing a loved one is something that we never get over, we just learn to cope with it better. To grieve in a healthy way, there are several things that you can do. I too, have lost many close to me. What I do that helps is Bible reading and deep prayer. God actually advises us to draw close to him. At Psalms 94:19 it says, “When my disquieting thoughts became many inside of me,your own consolations began to fondle my soul.”

Additionally, speaking to a close confidant can help you to express yourselves and vocalize your opinions. At Proverbs 17:17 it says, “A true companion is loving all the time, and is a brother that is born for when there is distress.”

Lastly, God promises at time when we can see our dead loved again. At Acts 24:15 it reads, “and I have hope toward God, which hope these [men] themselves also entertain, that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.” Just think, you can see your grandparents again, hear them retell stories of you as a child, hold them, hear their laughs again. I hope that this message and these scriptures brings you comfort.

With deep sympathies,

Tempestt
Jehovah's Witness

Permalink Reply by Nikki Holmes on January 24, 2013 at 6:56pm

On Wed 19th December 2012 my brother phoned me about 8.30pm. We had recently had a falling out, over the way my brother had treated my dad, but had sorted things out over text so I thought he was calling to say sorry.

Instead he told me my dad was gone. He killed himself at the cemetery where his own dad, the grandfather I never met, was buried.

I love my dad so much. We were very close. He had depression over the years but I honestly never ever thought it would lead to this. Our family had previously been touched by suicide twice, earlier in 2012 my uncle gassed himself and a few years ago my 16 year old cousin hung himself. Dad saw the pain it caused. I honestly never thought it was something I needed to worry about with my dad.

The first couple weeks went so fast. I've always been the strong one in the family, the one who sorts things out, the peace keeper. I organised the funeral and everything else that goes along with it. I stayed with mum until after the funeral until we were able to move her in with me and my family. I'm 26, have a husband, toddler plus my neice and nephew whom we look after for my sister. I hate using the word sister. I despise her, her chidlren have never been a priority in her life, she is selfish, manipulative and nasty. She sunk to incredible new lows in the days before my dad died. I am not alone in feeling it was her words and actions that pushed him to the edge. Sure he had a choice, but the frame of mind he was in was because of her.

I tried sorting out the financial side of things, dad had no will, so its still ongoing but at least its something to do.

I dread the thought of when theres nothing left to sort out. Then its like its all over now and everything just goes back to normal and I'm expected to aswell. I'm back at work, they went light on me for about a week then was plunged straight back in to a high stress project, I can handle it, but at the same time my care factor for work right now is zero. I want to be at home with my son. I never imagined being a working mum, but due to financial needs I went back to work. Now more than ever I feel I need to be at home with him but stuck, we rely on my earnings.

I hate the fact that my dads life is reduced to photos and memories. My memories arent working properly, I'm trying so hard to see him and hear him and its not there. I don't feel him eitehr, I dont feel him around me like some people do when loved ones passed. I want to more than anything but I dont. Instead it feels like he's just missing, missing somewhere and he needs us to find him but we can't.  I want him back so badly, and it feels stupid that I cant have him back, he should just be here. I can't believe he is gone.

 

I dont want everything to go on, I don't want to accept anything, I just want him back.

Permalink Reply by Katherine on January 26, 2013 at 7:54am

Dear Nikki Holmes,

Words cannot explain how sorry I am for your loss. I can't imagine losing anyone to suicide. I know it's especially hard because you didn't know what caused him to do this. My deepest condolences are with your family at this time.

Death isn't normal for any of us to face. But it is comforting to know that God created us with the purpose to live forever, and he will still fulfill his purpose in the future. John 5:28,29 says "Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out."

God's promise is found for us at Revelation 21:4,5 "And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes,and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away. And the One seated on the throne said: 'Look! I am making all things new.' Also, he says: 'Write, because these words are faithful and true.'"

Nikki, you can see your father again. Our loving Creator, Jehovah God, has made a way that we can all see our loved ones again. I just recently lost my brother in a car accident in September. He was only 20. So although I don't know what it feels like to lose a parent, I know the confused emotions that are felt when a loved one is lost. I can send you the brochure "When Someone You Love Dies" because this has really helped me in my time of grief, and i know it'll help you. I feel for you, and if there is anything you want to know or have questions on, please feel free to email me at krobles1127@gmail.com

I really hope I helped somewhat.

Sincerely,

Katherine

Permalink Reply by Nikki Holmes on January 27, 2013 at 4:06am

Thankyou Katherine.

Permalink Reply by LA-Greg on February 14, 2013 at 1:20am

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Permalink Reply by LA-Greg on February 14, 2013 at 2:00am

I lost my oldest brother, Mike, to suicide last September. He was a successful doctor who was well respected and who had many friends. But he suffered for many years with terrible anxiety and, I think, depression, too. And I think he had a bad problem isolating himself in his pain and not really opening up to the friends he did have, or his brothers. He was very analytical and refused to see his pain as anything but physiological...as if he had some heart defect, not a psychological problem that needed continued therapy. In his journals he had written how his friends and family became his enemies because we 'forced' him to not give up (he's attempted suicide twice before).

That part was especially hard for me to bear, as I, too, have suffered with anxiety & depression (and earlier in my life suicidality). I believe it rather runs in my family due to a very repressive, and in many ways oppressive, upbringing. But that fact is rather ignored/denied in my family by my remainign family. The only other member who accepted it and also had worked hard in therapy himself was my father...whom we also lost 6 months before my brother (to a sudden heartattack as he went in the hospital for a fairly simple procedure).

When my dad died, part of me died, and it was a struggle all the way just to allow myself to cry and hurt all over from a family of fairly emotionally detached brothers. But I did. And I was extra worried about my brother Mike after our dad died. He hid his pain for the most part, but, not unlike me, I knew our dad was like a lifeline to him, helping him in all his emotional difficulty after his first 2 suicide attempts. (My dad had also been a therapist and was quite wise about these things.) I also feared Mike would be feeling terrible guilt at my dad's death, too.

So, it was in a sad way not a surprise when he suddenly began isolating himself, not answering emails or phone calls and we discovered one day, despite having friends in the city he lived in check on him, that he finally did it. But, of course, it was horrifically shocking and heart-crushing to hear.

Since then, I have suffered basically alone. Though my mother shares some of her grief she is very old and I feel I must be supportive for her. And my remaining 2 brothers are no source of support at all. Neither of them cried at either funeral, and the oldest, most emotionally detached of them even made it clear how he thought Mike and our dad were basically 'f'-n idiots' for believing in the validity of psychology & psychotherapy. His 'proof' is the suicide (a lot of circular reasoning and self-serving egos in my family).

That feels like all I'm left with--2 brothers who look at tears as weakness--and who bury all theirs and as a consequence often act rudely and insensitively toward those who dare show or express their hurt. So I feel alone when it comes to my family. A friend or two I have can be supportive, but none of them have experienced this...so they don't quite get it...why it goes on so long, why I get so empty and 'out of it' sometimes, months later.

I am here because I think it might mean something deeper supportive words coming from others who know the special kind of misery one descends into (if they care and don't bury their feelings) after experiencing a family member
take their own life. It's hard enough to lose my dad so suddenly. To lose my brother, like this, and to then see the sort of heartless or detached behavior of my other brothers makes me feel my family is disintegrating before my eyes...when I need them the most.

Anyway, more later, but I wanted to say I'm instantly touched deeply by every story I've read hear so far...as if what everyone has experienced with suicide makes us a sort of family in a very real heartfelt way simply because of having experienced it and being alive and able to feel deeply.

For all the people who share about their terrible suffering, try to remember we feel that because we're alive and able to love.

G

Permalink Reply by Theresa Sweaney on February 14, 2013 at 4:22pm

Hi Greg.  I'm glad you found this site, and a place to have a voice and be heard and understood, because we do understand the unique pain of losing a loved one to suicide, and you're right, we have a special rapport with others who really get it, what it feels like.  You will find strength and loving support here.  Your family members are dealing with the loss in the best ways they know how to.. using their own familiar coping mechanisms, however maladaptive those strategies may be for long-term healing and recovery.  You are on the right track, endeavoring not to block or hide or bury the pain.  I encourage you to keep on letting it flow through you.  It's been almost two years since my son Charles died, and though I have turned a major corner and generally have my equilibrium back (two steps forward, one step back)--actually, several distinct turning points over the last two years--I still think of him daily, at times many times daily, with there being all kinds of triggers, I often weep still, though much less often than the first 1-1/2 years, and the tears are not as bitter anymore.  So I offer that definition of my current status as encouragement that it will not always hurt as bad as it does presently, if you are allowing yourself to feel and move through the pain.  There are other strategies and supports that may also help with working through your grief, and I would be glad to share with you what has worked for me if you ever feel that you could benefit from having more supports in the grieving process.  Despite what anyone thinks, at five months since your brother's death, your loss is still very fresh.  Just like your family members have the right to grieve in their own ways, so also do you.  You must have loved him very much, so be gentle and good to yourself by giving yourself a lot of latitude and permission to grieve to the fullest extent necessary for you to recovery from such an excruciating loss.  Set boundaries and limit the amount of time that you are around others who for whatever reason (family conditioning, personal coping mechanisms, lack of insight, other) are not able to support your way of processing your grief.  You will be the better for it, the way you've chosen to face and embrace and process through it.  Take good care.

Permalink Reply by LA-Greg on February 15, 2013 at 3:28am

Thank you, Theresa. Just to have someone who knows this pain write to me from a place of openness about it and understanding brought up tears...both like permission to grieve and a closeness with a stranger simply because the same kind of horror struck you...and you're not running from it.

Thank you for not running from the sorrow and misery of it and pressing on and sharing that with me. I've been needing it. It feels like a bottomless pit of needing just that (esp. since getting so much NOT that over the past months).

I'm also sorry to hear about your loss. At least I can honestly say I get it. I truly do empathize. Hang in there. I hope I, too, round a corner in the not too distant future where the pain doesn't feel so bitter & raw and it doesn't incapacitate me so much in other areas of my life.

But I hang on to some shred of hope...even in the hopeless feelings. I sense, even during them, that maybe the hopelessness is JUST RIGHT NOW...not forever. And after a bout of misery I am rewarded with a few hours, or a few moments, of relief, like life flowing back into the cadaver I was.

Thank you again for the support, and of course I'd like to hear more if you want to share.

Greg

Permalink Reply by Theresa Sweaney on February 15, 2013 at 5:01pm

Hi Greg, I'm glad some of what I shared helped you in some way.  I'm heading out to work so this will be brief, but I will write more next week when I return.  I think I'll switch over to your page now to continue this message there....

Greg Malon said:

Thank you, Theresa. Just to have someone who knows this pain write to me from a place of openness about it and understanding brought up tears...both like permission to grieve and a closeness with a stranger simply because the same kind of horror struck you...and you're not running from it.

Thank you for not running from the sorrow and misery of it and pressing on and sharing that with me. I've been needing it. It feels like a bottomless pit of needing just that (esp. since getting so much NOT that over the past months).

I'm also sorry to hear about your loss. At least I can honestly say I get it. I truly do empathize. Hang in there. I hope I, too, round a corner in the not too distant future where the pain doesn't feel so bitter & raw and it doesn't incapacitate me so much in other areas of my life.

But I hang on to some shred of hope...even in the hopeless feelings. I sense, even during them, that maybe the hopelessness is JUST RIGHT NOW...not forever. And after a bout of misery I am rewarded with a few hours, or a few moments, of relief, like life flowing back into the cadaver I was.

Thank you again for the support, and of course I'd like to hear more if you want to share.

Greg

Permalink Reply by Katherine on February 17, 2013 at 7:46am

Theresa and Greg,

First off let me say that I'm deeply sorry for your losses. Death is not something we were created to face or get used to. I recently lost my brother in September in a car accident and he was only 20 so I completely understand the guilt and grief that you are experiencing.

Something that really helped me is o remember not to blame yourselves for what happened. It's normal to want to take the blame nod feel guilty when things happen to our loved ones, but we don't have to. This site is so helpful in talking about our feelings because its important to talk it out and release your feelings. Proverbs 17:17 says "A true companion is loving all the time, and is a brother that is born for when there is distress."

Even if talking about it seems out of character for you, writing it own is also helpful. And do not be afraid to cry.

Ecclesiastes 9:11 tells us that "time and unforeseen occurrence befall us all." So remember not to blame yourselves for what happened, no matter how hard it is.

I really hope I helped. If there's any other concerns or questions you have, I'll be more than happy to answer them.

Permalink Reply by Recca Milton on February 28, 2013 at 11:55am

Dear NIKKI,

I am so sorry to hear about your dad. While I don't know the feeling of losing a dear loved one in the same manner, I do know the feeling of losing someone to an unexpected death, as a close cousin of mine was brutally murdered.

In spite of the manner in which we lose a loved one, it is hard to wrap our mind around a loss. It's unnatural. We were created to love and live forever. That's why we grieve and it's such a process.

Regarding your memories of your dad, they will come back. In fact, during an early stage of the grieving process, it is common to experience memory loss. But at an unexpected moment, you will do, see, smell or hear something that will automatically trigger a memory for you. For me it was a photo of a plate of seafood in a magazine. Yes - you read it right - a picture of seafood. Crazy, huh?!? I'll explain...

A few weeks after my cousin's death, I was looking through a magazine and saw a picture of a plate of seafood and immediately started to cry. That photo trigger a childhood memory of when my cousin first learned about my seafood allergy during a summer vacation at our grandmother's when I was 7 or 8. At some point he was told that he couldn't come around me with his plate of fish because my eyes would swell up. His 4 or 5 year old mind understood that to mean that my SEEING fish would make my eyes swell. Unbeknownst to me, he wanted to see this "phenomenon." So he searched ALL of the magazines around our grandmother's house for a picture of fish. When he found one, he sneakily showed me the picture. Then he said, "look at me." Then he ran away. This happened 4 or 5 times before I eventually asked what he was doing. When he told me what and why, I busted up laughing. Then I explained that it would NEVER happen from looking at a picture, and we both busted up laughing.

When he died, my mind was so overwhelmed by the circumstances surrounding his death - especially the why's, the "if only's," and the effect of it on everyone - that I couldn't think about anything else in relation to him. I'd forgotten about that summer. But seeing that picture weeks later triggered that memory. The first time I remembered it was very sad for me, as all I kept thinking was he and I would not be able to laugh about it, or anything else, again. Having gone through the various stages of the grieving process, when I see a picture now, I still have that thought of loss, but now I dwell more on the memory and it effects me as it did before his death - I enjoy a good laugh!

That will happen for you too, Nikki. When it does, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it, and am more than happy to keep in touch with you...

-Recca

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