It was a lovely quiet Sunday morning, on 5 February 2006, when my life irrevocably changed in the blink of an eye. My husband and I were on our way to the shop when an emergency vehicle passed us with loud sirens and flashing lights. In my ignorance I said to my husband I wonder who died now. In the meantime the vehicle was on its way to the scene where my son Emile, 20, hanged himself during the Saturday night or early Sunday morning in a weeping willow tree in a park near our house. I will never forget those words I uttered. About a half an hour after we returned home children from the neighborhood called my youngest son to our gate. They informed him that a young man, who fit Emile’s description, committed suicide in the park. We quickly drove there. The area at the tree looked like a crime scene. Emergency and police vehicles and personnel were everywhere. The place where my son was lying was surrounded by police tape. I told the trauma officer I thought it could be my son. He led me to a body lying on the grass under the tree covered with an emergency blanket. I stood there looking at my son’s face in shock. It was like a dream, I could not believe my eyes. It couldn’t be true. I kept asking my husband if I was dreaming, it couldn’t be Emile lying there dead. Everything felt like a nightmare, the daylight was blinding and I heard a roaring noise in my head. The trauma officer spoke to us but I did not understand one word he was saying. We went home and I started phoning family and friends to tell them. Nobody believed me because I didn’t cry and told them in a matter of fact way that Emile hanged himself. The only thing that went around and around in my mind was: “It can’t be, it can’t be, my son can’t be dead. This is all a nightmare and I’m going to wake up any minute.” On the Sunday evening I returned to my senses and realized it was true. I never understood the meaning of keening, but that night I keened for hours and the weeks following Emile’s death. It felt as if I was going insane. My thoughts were in disarray and I felt anxious the whole time. The next day we had to go to the mortuary to identify him. It was the most horrid experience I ever had to go through. I could not believe he was lying dead on that cold slab of cement. It didn’t look like my beautiful son. My heart was torn into pieces and I felt like dying of a broken heart! Every day was a nightmare. A part of me died with my son on that fateful day and I couldn’t function in a normal way. I stayed in bed for weeks and all I could do was cry my heart out. Every night I was on the Internet for hours searching desperately for somewhere, where I could share this unbearable pain I was feeling. I phoned radio pulpit every day and told my story to Christian therapists over and over in the hope that someone could make it better for me. There was nothing in South Africa apart from The Compassionate Friends who helped me tremendously. There is no help for the unbearable pain a parent experience after the suicide of a child. Nobody out there understands what you are going through. There is nothing anybody can do or say to make you feel better. For months I ate almost nothing and didn’t cook or clean or did anything in the house. It felt as if I was all alone on earth. I couldn’t imagine a future without Emile. I couldn’t think properly or remember anything I did or said or what anybody else did or said. I didn’t remember anything that happened to me, I was on autopilot the whole time. The worst thing was that Emile didn’t leave a letter or anything to explain this to me. I searched everywhere like one possessed for anything that could explain why my son did this awful thing. I searched the area under the tree and in the tree for a clue. I scratched around in his clothes and searched every pocket and place for something to give me an idea why my son did this. The questions are still driving me insane. Why, what? What was wrong with my son I didn’t see? Was I so selfish and self centered I never realized there was something wrong with Emile? I still blame myself that I didn’t realize what was going on in his mind, what he was planning. What did I do wrong in his life, where did I fail as a parent?
I look at other parents with big sons and I can’t believe that Emile isn’t here any more. I didn’t just lose a son to suicide, but a friend. The sorrow and despair is indescribable, and if you don’t find yourself it that situation, you can never imagine what parents go through. I started an e-mail support group for parents who lost their children called Loving Arms. We share our heartache and support each other with encouragement and understanding.
Nobody understands this hell and they don’t know what to say to you. People in their ignorance say all kinds of stupid things to a parent in this situation. They say things like: “Your son committed suicide and that means his soul will never find rest, you have another child live for him now, you need to get over it now and carry on with your life”. And it does nothing to change the destruction in your mind it just adds to the pain and heartache. On more than one occasion I just wanted to scream out at them: “please just leave me alone, you have no idea what you are talking about. My son is dead and I don’t know why.” I was on a suicide mission of my own for months and landed in hospital after I tried to overdose with tranquilizers.
Nobody can come through this pain without any help. It is an emotional roller coaster ride and you never know how you are going to feel in the next moment. One minute you are in this deep dark hole of despair, and the next you feel so angry that this abominable thing could’ve happened to you. Then there are days when you feel quite calm. On other days all you can do is cry uncontrollably and feel as if you will never ever be normal again. My perception of life changed completely, and things that were important in the past don’t mean anything any more.
| Betsy Hester | September 19, 2009 |
I don't even know where to begin. I search the interet, looking for answers and for someone who understands. I found this site, and now I don't know where to begin.
My son committed suicide on a beatiful Monday morning, October 13, 2008. It wasn't without warning, as we had spent much of the previous decade battling his depression, alienation, isolation, and desperation. However, this day, this week, this month was at the end of a very long, sweet summer of healing and bonding that lulled us into a sense of false security. The morning he committed suicide followed a weekend of normal, fun activities, which followed a month of normalcy and a summer of semi-normalcy.
Stupid me ... He met all the stereotypical criteria, Monday morning, follows a period of calm/almost happy, no note, male, lifetime pattern of substance abuse (though none was in and of itself debilitating). History of talk of "death" as a release from the despair. It goes on and on, but needless to say, we didn't allow ourselves to believe he would do this.
He walked out into the woods behind our home, dragging a gas tank from the gas grill. He placed a bag over his head, turned on the gas, and eliminated himself from his pain, our lives, this world.
Now .... we all struggle to find peace with his decision. I have to believe he knew what was best for himself. I have to believe he is at peace, I do not believe there is eernal punishment for his decision to seek a release from the pain. He just no longer suffers.
Some people ask me if I believe in an "after life" and I must say not really ... though there is nothing I wish more than to say I want so much to see him again, to hold him again, to love him again ... I doubt it will happen, but isn't that a nice thought to help me through the rest of my days .. without him ...
What suicide does best is leave all of us who are left behind with the nagging questions ... why didn't I see ... what could I have done ... what if ... what if ... what if ... I think I now realize there was nothing I could have done to stop it ... it was never "if" but rather "when" ... now I try to find my own peace ... I wish you yours ... We all miss our children ...
| Rea mom of Emile | May 20, 2009 |
Suicide is a dreadful monster, which comes like a slimy adder to steal your loved one away from you when you least expect it. Grief follows quickly on its heels to try and destroy your sanity. It finds its way with relentless steel claws into your heart and rips it to shreds. Reality has no meaning any more and you are lost and frightened by the senselessness of the act of that person you loved so much. How can someone who loves you and whom you love put you through so much sorrow and suffering? How can you carry on living a life without that person’s smile, voice, being, friendship and love forever? Why do you have to?
My son Emile, 20, committed suicide, by hanging himself in an old oak tree next to a stream on 5 February 2006. It is a beautiful peaceful place in a p
Heartache became my constant companion after Emile died. It consumed me and started eating me alive from the inside. Grief swallowed me whole and was destroying me like a cancer.
I realized along the way this pain was for myself, because I didn’t want my son on the other side, I wanted him with me.
After a lot of questions of why’s and what ifs I imagined I could see into his beautiful, clean, happy, healthy, free, without a blemish soul right now, and I know he loves me and misses me as much as I love and miss him. But I can also see his beatific happy smile, Wonderful blue eyes sp
In this pain of grief we are like raw gold and the Goldsmith moulds us into something exquisite with tenderness and a lot of searing heat. But, if not for the searing heat we can't be melted and molded into something better than just a raw piece of gold that means nothing to anybody. Out of His hands we become special, created by Him through all our trials and tribulations, and all our pain and heartache. How can we really appreciate something if we haven't lost it yet? How can we treasure life and anything that goes with it without feeling the pain of death? I would rather "laugh all of my laughter and weep all of my tears" like Kahlil Gibran said, than be like an empty dead piece of rock, because I can't take the love with the hurt. We can cry and weep and scream and be angry at death, but we can also rejoice in the new wonderful life our children now have, where there is no pain, hate, shame, anger, envy, loneliness, being lost. Have you ever heard the expression: I'm in a room full of people, but I feel alone? They don't have that any more. They don't sit somewhere feeling alone and left out and not accepted by society like us on earth. Let us grant them that freedom from hell on earth. Let us try and be happy for them. We still love them and we want them with us, to see them and talk to them and hold them, but what about them? Let's try and think of them for a moment and how heavenly happy they are now. We can still love and miss them and cry and rant and rave for the loss. They understand. More than we can. They know the truth now and some day we will also know the truth.
| Donna Brothers | February 25, 2009 |
My son, Jonathan committed suicide one month ago this Thursday. He had seemed depressed for several weeks but I didn't know why. He was 30 and had 2 small children. I like you have searched for the answer and I am actually putting together pieces of his life during the last weeks. It has come slowing and I have needed it too because it is so painful. I would recommend that you talk with is friends and more importantly listen to them. I have found out that my son mentioned to people he worked with that he was considering this, but they didn't take him seriously. He was divorced from the love of his life and she had moved on but he had not. He had lost the friendship of a close friend and was hurt deeply over that. He and I had argued over his children during Thanksgiving and this hurt him. There are many pieces that I am hearing and learning about. We are in counseling and they are explaining once a person reaches this point all they can think about is suicide, it takes over, they loose their focus and are in great pain.
There is no way that we as parents would have allowed or wanted our son's dead, if we had known the pain we would have surely tired to help them. Everyone tells me I may never know what happened and I may never, but at least I know what was going on with him since his friends are talking now (they feel guilty) they didn't act when he told them. He ate lunch with us that Sunday afternoon, he and the children left to go to his apartment, he carried them to their mom that night, got up for work the next morning and shot himself in the head. I was not able to say goodbye to him because we could not "open" him.
I agree with you that it is hell, it is, but we have to find meaning in the life of our child and honor them. Jonathan worked very hard to provide for his children and he loved them, he was at the time of the act hurting so badly that he could only focus on getting out of the pain. I have talked with other mothers who have lost children this way and it is like these children or grown children view the world so differently and they see the pain and they feel the pain more than others.
You did not want you son to die, you would have stopped him had you known, please try to find meaning in his life and honor him. People say stupid things to me everyday, I just smile and move on past it, they have not idea what pain I am in and I realize that my son smiles and went on and I had no idea how he was hurting.
God Bless you.