Suicide

Dear Suicide victim,

I’m not sure we’ve ever met.

Perhaps we crossed paths in a store or passed in town somewhere. Essentially, I’m a stranger, but I wish I could talk to you.

I’d wanna know some things. I’d wanna know some things about you, but probably not what others might want to ask or to know. I guess what I would want to know is what messages you’d send to your family now that you are on the other side of this life.

Do you want to know why? Well, I guess I read your obituary, and I read about your life, and all the great things about you…..and it made me wonder. It made me wonder what you would want people to know about your absence. About the loss of you.

May I try?

I think if you could talk to them, I think you’d tell them that you’ll do your best to watch over them from the other side. From the “bright place.” You know, the one we humans get a glimpse of right after sunset. The gift we view that is the best of the universe. I think that’s where you are.

And I think you’d tell your parents that you’ll pop in from time to time, maybe on each wedding anniversary, or on their birthdays, and that you’ll try to touch their hearts from where you are. From that bright place.

I think you would tell your dad to never wonder what kinda man you’d turn out to be, because you’d be the best of him. You’d be the best of who your dad is. That’s who you would have been.

I think you’d tell your mom the same. I think you’d tell her that she is so beautiful, and that she reminds you of how the sunsets look from heaven. From the other side. I think you’d tell her to look up at the expanse of the sky, and you’d remind her that no distance can separate a mother’s love from her boy. I think you’d want her to know that.

And I think you’d tell your sisters, and brothers, that even though you can’t be there for them in the way you’d like to be, you’ll still be the guy they thought you were gonna be. You’d be the brother that they thought you were gonna be. The brother that you ARE. And I’m sure you’d tell them to imagine that fact often, so that your memory lives on. So that YOU live on, in every moment, at every family gathering, and in all times, dark and light. I think you’d tell them that you’d like to take away the pain they feel. And that you miss them. Every day.

And I think you’d want all of them to know that when it’s their turn, on that last day, when they see the light and they cross over, that they’ll see a beautiful field, in some other reality than what they live in now, and it’ll be you that meets them, welcoming them to the other side.

Wherever you are, I hope that the view is beautiful.

In our toughest times, although I have no proof, I believe that those that have left us, wish they could comfort our pain, quell our fears, and with a gentle touch, remind us that they miss us, too.

Good things…..

Cw