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If This Helps...

By Ginny Sparrow

I was often told, after the suicide of my mother, that there is a gift in every tragedy. A silver lining. Such b.s. to most of us.

Fifteen long years later, I do have to admit I have found gifts. Gifts of courage, of strength, of sense of humor about things simply out of my control. Here are a few things that I know I handle completely differently than “before”:

1. When I hear of a tragedy, a death, a diagnosis, I have no fear about picking up the phone, sending a card or grief book. Where I used to fool myself into believing the bereaved “needed space,” I now know even in their self-imposed hermitude, they need to know people are with them. A simple card, email, or phone message is a lot more than most know how to do.

2. When I have a medical “scare,” or loss of my own, my mind’s grief muscle memory goes straight through Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s stages at warp speed. I know I’ll get through it. Of course, I don’t skip stages and I am not automatically “through” it, but there always is that end-of-the tunnel light keeping me plodding along. That light was impossible to see during the first year after my mother’s death. Now I know it’s there, like a beacon. I can find it.

3. I take life’s setbacks in stride. My poor mother didn’t have the strength to get through one more rough patch and ended her life. I know I don’t have that option because now that I know first-hand what it does to those left behind, I could never do it myself. I know that no matter how sad and rough the times might be, there always is hope. I healed from my own mother’s suicide–I can get through most anything!

4. I treat people better. I can’t say I never make an inappropriate comment towards a bad driver (just ask my daughter), but boy, do I feel differently now. When someone spaces out at a stop light, rather than honking my horn, I imagine that person might have had a horrible day. Perhaps he even lost someone today and is traveling in a fog. Goodness knows, I drove like a moron for several months after my horrible day.

5. I don’t take things personally. Iris Bolton (famed author and my support group leader–lucky me!) tried to teach me that for years, but I really didn’t get it. Now, I finally do. When someone hurts me, it often does say more about them than it does me. If only my mother could have had thicker skin. But because of her, I now do. Hey, a gift.

So, yes, I am strong like a bull, my skin like rubber, what you throw at me bounces off me back onto you. I can’t say it still isn’t hard. I can’t say it still doesn’t suck. But it’s not the predominant thought in my mind when I think of my mother. Instead, the thought that comes to mind is me at age four. The family dog has had a litter of puppies, and my mother and I are playing with them literally for hours. Cereal for dinner that night; we had more important things to rejoice! Life, youth, playfulness, worry-free afternoons. THAT helps.

Reprinted with permission from the author from bereavedbysuicide.com