“Suicide sucks.”
This is what I told my friends when I showed up to be with them upon the suicide of their son.
I felt like I had just tossed out a couple words when I had few to share, but my friend — the dad — said the two words were just what he needed to hear (I had lost a sister to suicide, so I knew firsthand).
Unfortunately, I have said those words to another dad recently upon the death of his son.
What is it that makes suicide a more-difficult type of loss to grieve? In a word, suicide is devastating. It is so sad that a loved one would choose to kill himself or herself. It is so hard to imagine that a loved one was in so much pain, enough to make him or her opt for suicide. It is so brutal to have a dear one ripped away and be suddenly gone, leaving you to go on in the world without that person. It is so crushing to realize how your loved one died, alone and violently or publicly and shamefully.
All of this is added on top of the usual grief of loss, plus there is guilt that you did or did not do the right things or say the right things to your loved one. Is it your fault? Could you have helped? As you deal with all this, you will also have to deal with people saying the dumbest things.
What helps when you have lost someone to suicide?
Everybody is different, but here are a few things that might help:
- Realize that it was probably not something that someone did or did not do that motivated your loved one to kill himself or herself; it was the pain he or she was in.
- Be gentle to, and take extra good care of, yourself; grieving a loved one lost to suicide is one of the biggest challenges people face in life.
- Tell yourself that what you can do to honor your loved one is to live fully and in the best way you can going forward.
- Devote yourself to a creative effort to memorialize your loved one.
- Support organizations that help others who are in pain and might be at risk for suicide in memory of your loved one.
- Get some counseling or go to a support group for people who are “survivors of suicide.”
Meadowlark Press has published a small, encouraging book for people to use when they are grieving: Walking Through the Valley: Grieving Well One Step at a Time by C.S. Boddie. It’s a friend that comes alongside wherever people are in the grieving process and helps them use walking as a took for grieving, even going with them on daily walks. The twenty-one-day devotional has words and images to comfort and inspire, plus recommendations for resources. The small book is available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.