Offering hope, comfort and support for survivors of suicide loss.
This week we welcome guest blogger, Deborah Greene, who lost her father to suicide on April 20th, 2015. She offers her reflection on the last conversation she had with her father prior to his death. We thank Deborah for a sharing a piece of her grief journey with us.
In one of the last conversations that I had with my father, I recounted an episode of severe depression that he’d experienced when I was a child. He had left his job after ...
Last month I wrote a post on secondary loss, and how we can cope with the additional loss we face in the aftermath of a suicide. One of the tips I had, was managing our expectations for the relationships we have with others. While I have witnessed and been told stories about people turning their backs on the people who need them most, I have also witnessed people doing extraordinary things. We tend to put a great deal of pressure on the people ...
This quote perfectly describes the grief journey. It demonstrates an continued journey, that doesn't have an end. Our grief journey is ongoing; we will not stop loving or missing the person we lost. While we will get to a point where we are able to integrate this loss into our lives, we will still have days filled with sadness. We often associate these days as a step back in our journey. They aren't a step back. They are reminders of the ...
Through my own grief journey I have come to find that regret lives in the past, hope lives in the future. I think this was a notion that I believed even before losing my dad to suicide. However, I think in the aftermath of a loss by suicide, we almost have to go back before we can move forward.
I believe that we can find answers when we go back. They might not be THE answer, but they are answers that help us make sense of something that ...
Finding closure after suicide seems impossible. We don't have time to say goodbye. We don't have time to process that this individual will not be a part of our future. In an instant their life has ended, and their physical presence has been taken away from us. Their pain ended, and ours begins. There is simply no way to prepare for the pain that follows a suicide. While my dad was ready to leave this world, I was not ready to let him go. I ...
