Suicide. I've known 3 young boys that have taken this step in the past year.
Words are meaningless, and being a person who rely's on words to express my thoughts, I didn't have many. Not when it happened, not after it happened, and certainly not during the telling of it.
I went to a viewing today, and as I sat with the mother of this young boy who died, I thought, "grief" what is it. What does it mean? I drew a blank. Like the look in his mother's eye's as she went through the motions of tending to her family. Minus one. His father, greeting people, and repeating the same thing, over and over. Thank you for coming, please light a candle, I'm sorry if I'm being rude, I need to greet people.
I heard his wife say, you be you, and I'll be me. But who are they now? After this young boy had blessed their lives with his grace and love. Daniel was 15. He loved music, and animals. He loved his friends, and family. On the surface, he was generally a happy kid. Hiking, camping, playing. He was a gamer, a musician, a brother and a son. He was a normal teenager, with normal teen angst. But somewhere along the line, he got lost.
I believe the spirits of these young men who have been lost to the tangible world are still with us. I do not believe that these things happened through any fault of the parents of these children, nor friends, or school officials. Its been a little over a week since I went to this viewing, and I still have no words.
As a parent myself, I fear the pain of this kind of loss, and can only sit back helplessly as other parents go through this and attempt to carry on as if life was still normal. But it is not.... not for them, and not for anyone close to them. I find myself attempting to start a conversation with the parent's. Thought out in advance in my head, and nothing seems appropriate. Everything is trite. Flat, as I imagine it is for them. Words hold no meaning. We take them out and analyze them, yet there is nothing cohesive. Nothing to put the word together and make it mean something.
I think about the 1st's; 1st Christmas, 1st birthday, 1st everything. How do you get through this, knowing a piece is missing. Getting up and facing the day because there is no other choice. Stumbling through, acting as if nothing is wrong, but everything is.
31 years ago, My best friend in the whole world lost her 15 year old son. My godson. I was on the search and rescue for him. I really did not know how she did it, getting through all these things, going back to life again. I asked her this past week, and the only thing she could put her finger on was life. Her life, her 2nd son's life. She said the 1st few years after loosing Tim were a blur, as I imagine it will be for Daniel's family. Things will cut you and make you bleed, memories will make you want to curl into a fetal position and never come out of it. But the human spirit is stronger than we realize, and for the parent's of these lost boys, they will also find a way to get through In their own time.
I want to tell Daniel's family that they will make it. Yet I don't know how. I want to say to the other 2 boys family the same thing, and again, do not know how. So in this, maybe this is one of the 1st answer's we really have, these lost boys did not know how to tell someone how they felt. The words they may have used would be flat, and hold no meaning. There was nothing tangible for them to point to and say, this is why I did this. This is why. And maybe this will be the 1st step in the healing process for them.
Warning signs of suicide
- Talking about wanting to die
- Looking for a way to kill oneself
- Talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose
- Talking about feeling trapped or in unbearable pain
- Talking about being a burden to others
- Increasing the use of alcohol or drugs
- Acting anxious, agitated or recklessly
- Sleeping too little or too much
- Withdrawing or feeling isolated
- Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge
- Displaying extreme mood swings
What to do
If someone you know exhibits warning signs of suicide:
- Do not leave the person alone.
- Remove any firearms, alcohol, drugs or sharp objects that could be used in a suicide attempt.
- Call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or send a text to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741.
- Take the person to an emergency room or seek help from a medical or mental health professional.
Most people who die by suicide grapple with mental health or substance abuse, or both, although sometimes those conditions go un-diagnosed. In 2015, suicide was the second leading case of death among 15- to 35-year-olds in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of suicides that year, 44,193, dwarfed the number of homicides, 17,793.
I'm choosing not to use photos in this piece, because I don't feel that photo's belong to this story. Photo's do not belong to the term Suicide. A voice does. And word's can become a voice.
This is dedicated to Daniel, and his family. May god surround you with his love and peace, and may Daniel fly with the Angels.
Please; If you can, make a donation in Daniel's name to https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org
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