After losing a loved one to suicide, we are left living in an unfamiliar place. We have changed, and the world around us has changed. In an attempt to gain some sense of normalcy, we search for answers. Not only answers related to the death of our loved one, but answers on when the pain will end. 
We desperately look for a “how to” book on grief. While there are a number of books to support the grief journey, there isn’t one that provide you with an outline on how to grieve. Why? Because, nobody’s grief journey looks the same. Nobody’s relationship with their loved one was the same. A mother and father grieve the loss of their child differently. Two siblings grieve the loss of their parent or sibling differently. A wife grieves the loss of her husband differently than her children. Uncontrollable tears can be a sign of pain, or a sign of healing. The lack of tears doesn’t mean that the pain doesn’t exist. The point being, we all grieve differently. We all work through our pain differently. Be gentle on yourself. Acknowledge that grief comes in different forms. Most importantly, know that grief has no rules.
Oct 5th was the worst day of my life, that’s the day I found out my dad’s life was over. Like a lot of the best “great fathers” among us, he worked hard ever SINGLE day of his life in my grandparents newspaper & printing business. Being the eldest son of 5 children, he was promised to inherit the business once they retired if he stayed & worked the business instead of going to college & so he did. After many many years his body began to feel all those long days & he was consumed by back pain with many ruptured discs along with hip replacements….After several surgeries throughout the early 90s he was then sent to pain mgmt & end up being prescribed methadone for pain. The drugs took hold of him as well as his digestive system making his existing pain that much worse. I took him to ever doc on the east coast from Jacksonville fl to the Mayo Clinic to Charlotte NC & ever specialists along the way for help. I thought I was being good daughter to him ….taking him to every appt, going back to my home town 3 to 4 times a month to get him grocies, prescriptions etc. whatever he needed I took care of. Then Sept 29 came & I didn’t know that this was gonna be my last visit & conversation with my dad, where I came to town & did his shopping for him, visited for an an hour where we got in a father/daughter fight then left to return back to Charleston. A week later the devastating flood of SC happened & I started calling him daily to see if he was ok bc of flooding of rivers in that town but i thought he wasn’t answering my calls bc he was still mad at me. That Monday the 5th he still wasn’t picking up so I called my gma to go by his home & check on him for me & she did….but what she found was him dead with the gun till in his hand. YEP, my dad shot him self & the note he left states that the pain was too great but that he woulfd hold off as long as he can, for him children.
Needless to say I have been on a rollercoaster of emotions ever since that day…wondering what I could’ve & should’ve done to still have my dad here. He was my dad but also my best friend who I feel I failed as his daughter to not help more fiercely else he would still be here with me…he never failed me but I failed him…and I am forever changed by this failure.😢
Please don’t feel you failed him. You couldn’t possibly know what he was going to do.