(A poem about suicide grief, my personal grief over my brother's final decision.)
Darkness. Deep, deep darkness.
Possible brain Injury from childhood.
Shaken baby syndrome?
Mental trauma from abuse and neglect.
He had offered to fix up his mother’s home
while she was out of town.
But he has another plan;
the darkness has enveloped him.
He enters the garage,
his mother’s garage –
his rageful, bitter, faultfinding mom.
He will now have the final word.
He opens the bottle of pills.
He pops the pills into his mouth.
He swallows.
He waits.
He could call for help,
but he chooses the darkness.
He faces the deep, deep darkness.
And he waits.
As he waits, another chapter is completed
in his great-great-grandparents’ book
of ongoing soul-slaughter –
the violence of generations.
Next morning,
his wife –
his new widow –
finds his lifeless body.
Later that day,
I receive a call from mom.
She informs me that my brother
has died of a heart attack.
I travel to the funeral.
As I grieve with mom and relatives,
holes appear in the narrative.
But the “heart attack” is consistent with family history.
Two years later, mom visits.
She drops the mother of all bombs.
The truth, previously suspected, is spoken.
I have now lost my brother twice.
First, shock and numbness.
Unable to process the new reality.
Then, after twenty hours,
the mother of all bombs explodes – in my face.
Sucker punch to my soul.
Then another.
And another.
No chance to recover.
Much more than I can handle.
I quickly find a small group,
other suicide grief survivors.
Together, we process the insanity.
For a year and a half,
the sucker punches continue,
again and again,
multiple times daily.
I know the sucker punches are coming.
I am defenseless every time.
Anger – outrage at my parents
for their physical and verbal violence.
In my gut,
I blame my parents.
In my brain,
the truth is far more complex.
Impossible. Impossible that my brother could die by suicide.
But facts are facts. Truth is truth.
“Suicide” becomes a new word to me,
personal, disturbing, severe.
Grief and screams.
No scream is sufficient to express the void.
I require a Richter-scale scream.
But I don’t have the lungs.
The impossible and necessary question:
Why? How could he?
Only a partial answer
and it doesn’t satisfy.
He escaped his pain –
his extreme, unbearable pain.
His pain has transferred to me,
to carry for the rest of my life.
As I carry his pain,
I have chosen to write.
I write about family violence.
I write about generational violence.
I write my grief and outrage.
I try to write my scream.
I write my healing.
I write my heart.
I write about my brother’s final decision.
I write about the process of imperfect healing.
I write about the power of choice.
I hope my writing brings healing and hope to others.
– Healing Heart Warrior: