(Not everything in this article will find you where you are now.  Over time, some of it probably will.  That which does not apply to you may help in your understanding and caring for others.  If you don't want to read it all, look at the text box on the back page.)

When someone ends their life through suicide……..someone we have known and loved……..someone who has known and loved us………when that happens, we're in the midst of chaos.  Nothing makes sense.  All the meanings we have had about that person and our lives with that person are tossed into the air.  We're confused.  None of our thoughts make enough sense.  These words, too, will prove to be quite inadequate.  Yet we have to try anyhow because we are who we are:  meaning-creating creatures made in the image of God the Creator.  We have no choice but to keep on trying to create new meanings in the midst of the chaos, or to bring old meanings back into focus.  It's in our nature to do that.

St. Paul was one of the greatest wordsmiths who ever lived.  Some of the things he wrote can help us as we begin our task.  At the very end of his famous and beautiful hymn to love in I Corinthians 13 he wrote this: "At present we are people looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror.  (But) the time will come when we shall see reality whole and face to face!  What I know now is only partial; but the time will come when my knowledge will be complete -- even as I have been completely known by God."

Paul is only stating the truth:  we are not capable of seeing clearly deep down into the Mystery of Life.  That's hard for many of us to accept. We want to know all things, to control all things, (and we don't want to have to wait in line, thank you very much).  But life works better when we are clear about the limits we must live within.  We share creative powers with God the Creator, but as finite creatures, not as gods.

 When someone ends their life by suicide, just about everyone asks the same questions:  "Why?"  "How can this be?"  "Were all of my former understandings wrong?"  "Did I deceive myself?"  "Was I deceived by others?"    In response to these questions Paul's words give us the bad news that, in the final analysis, we will not be able to get our minds fully around this death by suicide.  Parts of it will never make much sense.  We are not capable of knowing what we wish to know.  We cannot finally, by dint of our brain power, answer the question "Why?" 

The good news is that this very limitation of ours might help us to live more fully into the power of that Compassionate Mystery we call God.  When events push us painfully up against our limitations, we may be encouraged to risk a new level of faith.  Ultimately, we must rely on God's power; not just on our own.   

When we try to make sense of this terribly painful event in our lives, we come face-to-face with our helplessness.   That is something which is very hard to face. It is an unwelcome guest who crashes our party.  We resist looking our helplessness in the eye.  Most of us will find ourselves struggling with the question of "Why?" and the reality of our helplessness for some time to come.
Since it is so hard for us to live with our helpless feelings, after awhile we may begin to substitute other feelings for the helpless ones.  Perhaps not now, but down the road apiece, you may want to experience something that connects you with a sense of your own power.   One of the things you might come to experience is feeling guilty instead of helpless.  This is seldom done consciously.  It just happens.            

When we feel guilty we assume that there was something that we could have done, should have done . . . or that there was something we did which we should not have done . . . and if only we'd done something differently there would have been a happier outcome.  Feeling guilty is like being angry at ourselves.  When we connect with our angry feelings, we at least can feel some power, even if it is directed against ourselves.

No one will ever be able to know completely why a person ends their life.  But you can rest assured that no action on your part that you did or failed to do caused that person to act as they did.  It is sometimes nearly impossible not to feel such guilt:  remember that it may be your automatic attempt to avoid feeling the even more painful emotion of helplessness.  But by all means buy a round trip ticket to that guilt trip.  Visit it if you need to, but return to the reality that there was nothing you did to cause what happened.  There was nothing you could have done to prevent it.

Alternatively, we might seek a sense of connection with our own power through our anger, but direct it outward toward others.  As adults we may point fingers and assess blame.  Children sometimes don't use words but act out their emotions.  They may break their toys, be rough with their pets or their siblings and friends.  Again, this may mean that we and our children are having a hard time with our helpless feelings.  While we and our children need to exercise care in how we express our anger, it's well to look for what the anger means and try to pay attention to that . . . in ourselves and in our children alike.

The destructive behavior of children may be their way of trying to handle emotions which are too big and scary to be faced alone, by themselves, on their insides.  It can be very useful for parents to talk about the many different kinds of feelings we ourselves are experiencing.  Our children will look to us as models while they are discovering how to handle their own emotions.  They will pay attention to what we do and say. 

We can also help them by giving them some language with which to talk about their experience.  The Book of Genesis (Chapters 1-3) tells us we co-creators with God were put into the midst of a garden and commanded to name the beasts and have dominion over them.  When we can name the beast, the beast is somewhat tamed.  It is initially hard to name our emotional "beasts," but once you get familiar with their names and their habits, you can live pretty well with them.  Among some of the inner beasties you and your children may be encountering are ones with these names:  betrayal, helplessness, anger, sadness, confusion, guilt, loss, and hurt.  We need to call the beasts by their names so we can have dominion over them.

In your congregation and in your families, work to sustain an environment where such things can be talked about, where no question is too strange, where no emotion is excluded,  no thought is too unconventional, where we can talk and talk and talk………and listen and listen and listen.

This is also a time in which you may come to feel very angry at God.  "Why didn't God prevent this?"  "If God is so great how come we're in this painful mess?"  If you have those feelings you're in excellent company.  The Book of Job and the Psalms are full of the cries of human hearts just like yours.  Some people believe that being angry at God is a terribly wrong thing to do.  Instead, it is more likely an indication that you are taking the relationship seriously.

You may also come to experience feelings of anger directed toward the person who has ended their life.  When a person ends their life through suicide everyone who has loved that person is in a lot of pain. Anger is an understandable, appropriate emotion to feel in response.  It's always difficult to feel anger toward those whom we also love.  But it's thoroughly normal and okay to do so.

Do also understand this, however.  People who end their lives by suicide are usually not aware of the pain their action will cause others.

Persons who end their lives can become so immersed in the terrible pain  they are feeling and trying to manage, that a sort of  "tunnel vision"  can set in, causing the person to lose their usual sense of perspective.  At such times the person may no longer be able to focus on the things they normally would have remembered, like the consequences to others of their actions.

At most difficult times like this, we realize afresh how and why we have loved the person who has died.  Without that deep love we would not be hurting so much.  And especially at times like this it is vital that we offer ourselves to one another in shared love, support, and hope, experiencing together the strong embrace of our God.

1. Your emotions are given to you by God . . . make room for them and do not judge yourself or others for what you or they may be feeling.                                                                                                                                                                                                
2. Realize that you are a finite creature, not God.  The question "Why" will never have a completely satisfactory answer.                                                        
3. Give children words to name their feelings.  Look beyond their behavior.                                                                                                
4. Create plenty of times in your family and at church to talk about what you are thinking and feeling.  This may be a good time to grow your faith into something even more robust.                                                                                                                        
5. Remember that we live within a Mystery whose most important names are Love and Compassion.

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