The silence of a falling star
Lights up the purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
I'm so lonesome I could cry
Today is a cold wet day. I got caught in the living room this morning when my '40's station was playing Hank Williams singing "I'm so lonesome I could cry". That's when my mood changed; it was just that quick. My husband was cooking happily in the kitchen and I didn't want him to know I was going to crash so I have come upstairs and started to put the two freshly painted bedrooms back in order. One room is the room Michael had when he moved in with us a few months before he died and it's piled full of books and pictures. Moving things around I again found the copy I have of the very end of my son's letter of goodbye to his daughter. It is signed I will love you always and forever, Love Daddy and then the date he wrote the letter. Today what I noticed in this was the "I will"....the addition of those two words hit home. It means that from that day until the end of time my granddaughter will know that her Daddy loves her. She will never ever have to wonder "if" Daddy loved or loves her.
But then I started to imagine what Michael was thinking as he wrote that letter to his daughter and trying to imagine myself writing a letter to my children to say goodbye. How terribly sad and frightening that must have been. I don't believe many of us want to die. Michael didn't want to die. I know that because he told me. He was afraid of dying and he didn't want to leave the child he loved more than his own life. But he couldn't get past his depression and that terrible illness took away his capability to cope with living.
So, I've come back to my sad place this afternoon and I'm allowing myself to grieve for my lost child.
I've said this before but I want to say again that the grief of losing someone to suicide is different to other grief. All grief is terrible, but as suicide survivors we carry extra baggage. Please don't think I'm saying our grief is worse than other's grief because we can never know another person's grief. What I am saying is that only suicide survivor's can understand suicide survivor's grief. For me one of the hardest parts is knowing what my son went through the last year of his life. Those memories don't go. It's like a slideshow that plays over and over. The pictures aren't always the same but they are always accurate. I have a collection of sad and frightening slideshows stored in my memory and very little control over when the "start button" is going to be clicked. What I need, what we all need I think, is an emotional seat-belt, something that will help us feel safe and keep us safe when the path we're travelling gets rough.
Today there were three clicks, Hank Williams song, seeing my son's handwriting, and reading those two little extra words "I will" always....
I'm sitting on my bed with my laptop and when I raise my head just a little I can see Michael smiling down at me from his picture on the armoire. As I look at him and rememer that look on his face it gets a little harder to breathe and I can feel my heart beat. Dear God, I miss my son. Please take care of him for me and tell him that I will love him always and forever.
Did you ever see a robin weep
When leaves begin to fall
That means he's lost the will to live
I'm so lonesome I could cry
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