I wrote an entry in my journal a few weeks after my brother Jacob died. I still read it occasionally.
I'm amazed at two things when I do:
How well I was able to articulate my feelings during a period of my life that, looking back, I have very little recollection of.
How far I've come since then. It's been ten years.
I need that entry to measure my progress, because honestly, some days, my emotions are so raw that I feel like I'll NEVER heal from his death.
I've learned to accept that we're not meant to heal from the death of a loved one. We're simply meant to adapt.
The human heart is amazing because every time you give a piece of it away, your heart grows larger. But its design is flawed in that, every time you lose a loved one, that missing piece leaves an open, gaping space.
It never closes. And nothing else in the world will ever fill the void left behind.
The death of a loved one is like losing a limb- because that person is part of you.
The limb will never grow back, you simply learn to manage your day-to-day existence without it. And the pain of needing to feel that person near you, the longing for just one more day with them... Never goes away.
Journal Entry dated: Friday, September 23, 2005
It has been almost 8 weeks since Jacob killed himself.
I think the state of shock I still find myself in has protected me from taking in the full extent of devastation - so I don't totally lose my mind.
I awake every morning knowing that something disastrous has happened, but not the full impact.
I try to make sense of this unthinkable tragedy, hoping to feel less alone with my feelings of craziness and disorientation.
I will myself to concentrate, an ability I am sometimes convinced I have lost forever with Jacob's death.
I walk through life, rudderless, not knowing what hit me- like the survivor of a planewreck.
I'm consumed by guilt at times, for having failed to save one of the dearest people in my life.
I'm overwhelmed with shame for being alive and abandoned.
I'm dazed by my helplessness, confused by the anger that laces through my mourning.
I feel myself physically shrinking, disassociating from the world around me.
Then? The reality of Jacob's death jolts me back - and the stream of emotions begin all over again.
Jacob's actions were a terrifying window into his desperate state of mind.
I've become an outsider, looking in that window- not understanding what I am seeing at times.
I am exhausted from replaying the details of his last days and final minutes over and over in my mind.
I have spent hours obsessively searching for overlooked clues that might explain his reasons for ending his life.
I am plagued by questions that only he can answer.
I feel increasingly isolated from my friends and family. They have no idea what I am going through, all their well-intentioned advice and words of comfort seeming ignorant at best and tinged with cruelty at worst.
Suicide is different from other deaths. We who are left behind cannot direct our anger at the unfairness of a deadly disease or a random accident or a murderous stranger.
Instead, we grieve for the very person who has taken our loved one's life - THAT is the cruelty of suicide.
Before we can even begin to accept our loss, we must deal with the reasons for it.
The gradual recognition that we might never know what happened or why.
I have overwhelming feelings of intentional rejection and deliberate abandonment.
Guilt and blame offer me a context for my mourning, connecting me to the experience of death by including me in the process.
Jacob did not ask for my permission or my blessing. In order to forgive - not only him, but also myself - I have to accept that it was Jacob's own choice to kill himself.
All I can do is disagree with his decision.
I want to grieve my brother's absence, not analyze his reasons for dying.
I want to celebrate his kindness and friendship throughout our 41 years as siblings, not rage at him for abandoning me in the prime of our lives.
But, my world has exploded and I will never be the same.
I will adapt, eventually learn to navigate on ground that I no longer trust to be steady.
I will have to accept that my questions will not be answered in this lifetime.
I will try not to torture myself for having failed to predict the coming catastrophe and preventing Jacob from taking his life.
I will have to forgive both of us for what has taken place- to accept his death and commemorate his life. So that his decision to die ceases to eclipse the very fact that he is no longer alive.
My family and I are the ones who have to face straightening up the mess and making sense of the insanity.
We cry, we laugh, we hang on to each other for dear life.
I pray that we will survive.