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Monday May 12,2008

Suicide and Forgiveness

by Staff Writer

"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal" - a headstone in Ireland

Death leaves, in its wake, grief and sadness whether it is natural incidents or accidents that lead to the death. However, when it is a deliberated decision taken by a loved one, it also leaves behind anger and anguish.

When someone close to you chooses to take his or her own life, the emotions you feel leave you confused. There is a whole cycle starting from hurt to hate to anger to betrayal to denial to anguish and finally grief. Sometimes we feel more than one emotion at a time and that is even more confusing. And then there is guilt attached to feeling strong emotions like hate or anger that make things seem more difficult than they are.

This is the time when you most need that helping hand, the reassuring touch and a plan. A plan, which helps you recover from the shock and get your life back on track.

Forgive. The journey to self-recovery begins with forgiveness. To err is human, to forgive divine it is said and for a reason too. When you start to forgive, you begin to heal. It isn't easy to deal with the emotions but emotions are not the reality. The reality is that someone felt that living was too much of an ordeal and decided to do something about it. They were not really thinking about the effect it would have on you or your life. The intention was not to hurt you but hurt themselves or to put an end to the suffering.

Grieve. The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to them alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost . Sudden death is like a heavy blow to the heart. You stop feeling for a while. The numbness that sets in doesn't allow the tears to flow freely. You work like an automaton trying to reassemble the pieces of your life and get on with it. But if you don't give yourself enough time to grieve, to mourn and instead keep things bottled up, you will never be able to let go and get on with normal life. Tears cleanse the soul.

Take out time. Time heals. You need to take out time to sort through all the garbage. Reflect on what drove the person to do what he or she did. Sort through the old memories and select the ones that make you happy and the ones you would want to remember them by.