Not Another Suicide

I had a different blog I was going to post today, but that was before this morning, when a friend of mine from my old work called to tell me of our co-workers recent suicide .

I don’t do well when I hear about suicides (and I’ve been hearing about too many of them lately). As I sat on the couch and listened to my friend report the word “hanging” my stomach twisted and my eyes sprang immediate tears, my grief as instantaneous as if the man were my own dear friend. I didn’t really know him, but as a paramedic, hangings were always the worst scenes for me.

I couldn’t post that other blog, not today. I am inspired instead to share with you all that I have learned about grief since I resigned from the Ambulance eighteen months ago. This, I want you to know about, even though its dark and kind of messy.

When I was still a paramedic I thought that I was appropriately grieving. I would come home after a hanging or an overdose and wrap up on the couch with a soft blanket. I would sit, paralysed, at how awful it was to have seen a son murder a father. A few hours would go by of allowing my feelings. Then back to life again.

When I resigned, I had no idea there would be so much grieving left to do. Yet as the time passed, I found little memories hidden everywhere. They called my attention toward them like my sticky fingers to a raw vegan cheesecake, and I gorged myself until I was sick with its fullness.

When I was a younger medic people would ask me, “How do you do it?”
I would tell them something fancy and cool, like, “These aren’t my people to grieve for.” I would say, “They have their own sisters and mothers to cry for them so I don’t have to”.

Have to.
Or should…
Doesn’t matter.
What matters, is if there’s sadness. What matters is if there’s grief.

These days, now that I am no longer a medic, I have the luxury of not having to hold it together. I can just let go and cry when I hear of something sad. I get to grieve with a fullness that was not available to me before. You see, when I had to function, I didn’t want to be “weak”. So I kept the really dark and uncomfortable feelings in safe places. I did this, for thirteen years.

Thats a lot of grief piled on top of itself.

One day, many years ago, I stood upon a dead mans head to cut his wife out of a wrecked car. When my captain pointed out where I was standing I laughed. At the time, it was funny. What else was I to do?

I shouldn’t have to forgive myself for that, right?
Right?
Should
Doesn’t matter.
What matters, is if there’s sadness. What matters, is if there’s guilt.

Only three months ago I found myself crying for him. It wasn’t pretty. I ended up on the bathroom floor with my knees drawn into my chest and I’m sure there was snot coming out of my nose as I sobbed into the cold tiles. I was feeling really sorry for myself.

Before then, I hadn’t known I needed to forgive myself for that laughter. If I hadn’t let the grief in, I would never have understood. Now, when I think of him, there is peace in it.

It’s tricky business, this spiritual journey. At times I feel like I’m being forced to embrace unrealistic positivity. I go to yoga and its all about the light, the goodness. I’m continuously trying to be grateful.
I am grateful.
And sometimes, I’m also really sad. (There’s darkness in the world too, you know.)

I can get a little testy when people want me to cheer up. I get short-tempered when they’re not comfortable with my grieving. When they tell me to focus on what is good, when they say, “Be grateful,” I feel like they want me to wipe my memories away.
But that would be like throwing away the night sky and trying to keep the stars.

The stars are in the sky.

Maybe it’s the buddhist in me that demands the awful be felt, that I grieve completely, even if it makes people uncomfortable.

Yet I don’t want to make a habit out of pain.

I just want to feel it all. Like a child, I want to feel sadness when it comes, and feel bliss when it arrives too. Not ignoring anything, not pushing away what isn’t perfect. Being super grateful for the rising sun, and letting the grief come when it wants, too.

After the news this morning I walked through the busy streets of Bondi to get a cappuccino (after all, what else can cheer you up like a coffee)? When my order was ready, a gorgeous barista with slicked back hair and a thick Italian accent handed me the warm cup with two hands. He gave me a huge smile and said, “Have a beautiful day”. He looked me in the eye, and I wondered if he noticed the tears in mine.

As I looked down to take a sip I saw that he had written “100% LOVE” on the lid.

On the way home I chatted with an elderly woman about her old dog. I smiled at a couple in love. I told a woman she looked beautiful in her skirt. I just wanted to spread love everywhere, and make these strangers happy. I found it remarkable that I could shower out love, and be in grieving too.

That lid made me think. Lying on the bathroom floor and letting your body sob isn’t weakness. Its love.

100%, actual LOVE.

It’s immensely courageous too. Letting in whatever is really there, no matter how dark of painful it feels, is one of the bravest thing you can do.

As I walked the final stretch back to the house, Bobo lagged a little behind. The wind blew from behind us, wild and gusting. I felt the urge to turn back and jump head first into the heaving water. The waves were powerful and messy today, the sky grey and angry. Once again, mother nature was showing me her wisdom. The ocean lets all things come. She’s as soft and blue and she is wild and unruly, as nurturing as she is destructive.

There is nothing as complete, as raw, as divine, as the chaotic mess that is mother nature. Let yourself be like the ocean. Let everything in. Be the sky, and the stars. Spread love, and be in grieving too.

And if you find yourself reaching for a rope, a pill bottle, a knife, or a gun; if waking up one more day begins to feel unbearable, then let somebody know, so we can bear the pain with you.

We love you.

xo

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