The Dawning of a Brighter Day

The following is the story of a woman who lost a family member to suicide. In this article, she shares how this loss affected her, and how she was able to overcome the grief. Though we often do not know what provokes a person to take her own life, we do know that the effects of suicide on others can be both profound and long-lasting. We hope this post will be taken to heart by those who have had similar struggles.

Please note that all names have been changed to protect identities and personal information.

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It’s difficult to know how intensely someone has struggled when you hear of their troubles. It’s easy to hear the word “depression” or “distress” and not understand the full gravity of it.

My husband’s sister Lauren took her own life early this year. She was 21. Lauren was an infant when I married my husband, Scott. She’s been a part of my family her entire life. Trying to make sense of her suicide has felt mostly futile; that doesn’t mean we haven’t tried.

There is probably no simple explanation as to why Lauren did what she did. I think there may be more numerous and tangled reasons for these things than anyone can comprehend.  The overarching sense I have is just deep sorrow for all the suffering and darkness she must have endured to be driven to such an act.

Not long after Lauren’s death, a friend asked, “Was she self-deceived?”  The question disturbed me. Even if she was, how could I ever presume to speak for her or discern what she was capable of overcoming? Her despair was real to her, and I can’t seem to feel anything but heartache for that. More than anything else, I regret that I did not know how miserable Lauren was. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that we should be more aware of one another and love one another more freely. We should  reach out and help one another  along life’s thorny path—not judge or exclude one another.

I have tasted what I can only describe as ‘awful gloom’. We went to Lauren’s viewing the night before the funeral, and I couldn’t get over the dreadful, haunting impression it had on me. I remember looking at my little daughter, Kelli, who is naturally very pale, and thinking, “No! Don’t be pale!” because Lauren was very, very pale in the casket. I felt physically and chillingly ill. At first I dismissed the feeling for hunger. But we went out for dinner after the viewing, and I still felt sick down to my very core. I’ve never experienced such utter sickness within my soul. It seemed to saturate all of me – heart, mind, body, and spirit.

Later that evening, my mother-in-law and I sorted through Lauren’s artwork.  As we sat in her bedroom and leafed through her work, I saw over and over the distress of her soul revealed through art. She knew a darkness I have never known and can’t pretend to understand.  It was overwhelming to see such intense desperation.  My 19-year-old daughter Juliana (just 18 months younger than Lauren) took one of Lauren’s sketch pads and sat in the living room to browse through it. When Juliana returned the sketchbook, her eyes were all red from crying. I wished I could protect her from this.

After seeing Lauren’s artwork and her ashen corpse, I felt as if I had been hurled into a black hole and was plummeting into a bottomless pit. The further I fell, the less I could breathe. A suffocating despair seemed to be overpowering me. I tried to sleep that night, and found myself clinging to Scott.  I hung on to him and inwardly cried, “Oh thank you for being warm! Thank you for breathing!  Thank you for being alive! Thank you for having a beating heart!”  The agony of life and death felt overwhelming to me. I remember silently praying, “Please send me some light. I feel dark and cold and terribly alone and small and sick. Please send some light!” I don’t know how long I lay there, but it felt like hours and hours of pleading to no avail.

When I awoke the next morning, the sun was up and I no longer felt the ominous wasteland of misery. I was amazed at how much the sunlight helped, and was so thankful for the light of day. A sense of deliverance and gratitude washed over me – bright hope and liberation. What sweet relief! I thought of the words to a hymn, “And thus dispelled the awful gloom, that else were this creation’s doom.”

I wondered if my brief encounter with torment was anything similar to Lauren’s suffering.  If I had felt, even for one brief night, the same despair that she had, I am absolutely amazed that she hung on so long. I was struck by how exhausting and agonizing it must have been for her.

About one week after Lauren’s funeral, I had a simple yet astonishingly beautiful experience – perhaps one of the most memorable of my life. I was driving to the store, not thinking about anything in particular, when I turned onto a tree-lined street.  Right before my eyes, every tree I could see revealed itself to me. The unfolding scene was so beautiful, I caught my breath. Each tree seemed acutely aware of me, and I of them. The trees appeared to be reaching toward me with compassion, their branches stretching out to offer an embrace. As peculiar as it may sound, I felt connected to and cherished by those trees. I felt immeasurably loved and remarkably comforted.

This seemed all the more strange, since I’ve always thought bare, winter trees looked so drab and lifeless. But in that moment, scarcely had anything appeared more beautiful. For several weeks, just the sight of a tree warmed me. I would look at trees while driving and think in my heart, “Oh thank you! Thank you!” February used to seem the ugliest month of the year, but this year it was one of the most beautiful. I wish others could see what I saw.

I recalled that dark night of hopelessness after Lauren’s viewing and realized that I had been believing in the appearance of things more than reality.  The things I saw that night – or rather the way I had seen them – were not the truth. Lauren’s turbulent life and her perception of reality were worlds apart from my own. Life as I knew it was meaningful and beautiful–not devoid of hope. How quickly I had forgotten! At this point, I still felt a measure of grief, but I finally understood that I had been persuaded, by the appearance of bleakness, to fall into despair. In contrast, my encounter with those trees had restored and healed me. On the surface, the trees appeared desolate, but I perceived them as marvelously alive and filled with love.

Lauren’s death was indeed a tragedy to all who knew and loved her. But, from this tragedy I’ve learned to look at life with new eyes. So much of our experience depends on the way we perceive the world.

To Lauren,

Your heart was broken
Before you stilled it.

Weary, bereft of hope,
Storm-tossed and alone

You’d had enough.

“Far away from here, there is sun and spring and green forever.”

I hope you are there now.

No more ravished heart,
No more abysmal gloom,

But bright, abiding simplicity.
Clear fountains and verdant hills,

Trees whose limbs stretch out,
Bidding, reaching, enfolding.

I hope you have a mended heart.

A peaceful heart.

A free heart.

A joyful heart.

Love,
Me