Thinking about pain as an ally seems almost impossible after a loss by suicide. Pain is one of the things you most fear; it is something you don’t embrace, or welcome with open arms. Yet, pain can be your best teacher. In the aftermath of my own father’s suicide I remember thinking and feeling that life as I knew it had changed. For quite sometime I fought this notion, and hated that my life had changed without me wanting it to. My heart was not open; in fact, it was completely shut off from the world. What I learned in time, is that the pain was not only there to remind me of the love I had for my father, but there to help me weed out my own garden. To clean out what didn’t feel right. To look at the direction I was going, and decide if it was the right path for me. I looked at the friends I had and quickly found who was nothing more than a surface level friend. I learned to manage my expectations. Expectations I had for myself, for the people in my life, and for life in general. My pain taught me how to love deeper, and to focus my time and energy on the people who truly mattered. My pain helped me find my purpose in life. A purpose I never knew I had until I lost my father to suicide. Life to me is an ongoing search; but we have to be open to it. I began to heal when I opened myself up to life again. Was it easy? No. But, it was necessary. My life isn’t perfect, nor will it ever be. However, it is less cluttered with people and things that simply do not matter. Pain isn’t the best feeling, but it can be our ally if we allow it to be.
