Searching for Familiarity: Surviving Suicide Loss in a World Barren of Conversation

How can I write?  Little tiny Tasha write?  I can feel so small and so big at the same time.  I was raised to feel BIG and proud and worthy…..where does my worth reside?  Is it with my parents, my career, my family, my children?  Approaching 40 – a big number, but feel so small.  Where does my creativity lie dormant?  Is it my OCD planning or is it my loss.  My HUGE loss.  As I write this it has been only 198 days since my brother took his own life. 198 days of life without you. The grace of God is more than sufficient and the gift He has given me to use the power of words was meant for a time such as this. We may never know what our gifts are to be used for, but it is my honor and blessing to be able to share of a love surrendered. I dedicate this space to Austin.

Here is my story.

It sucks.  It does.   Do I have the answer? NO!  I am not even close to having answers, but what I can tell you is when I buried my brother I didn’t want or need answers – I needed to feel normal amidst it all.  I am a researcher, and I immediately researched suicide.  I looked for comfort in knowledge but all I was seeking was familiarity.  Sadly, I searched for a sister who lost a lost a 37 year old brother, a father of 3.

Grief and loss is personal and unique and hard and awful.  You will never find someone who fits your exact shoes, but in the aftermath of suicide there is a lot of words that you try to find comfort in that don’t seem unique as you.  My hope is that you can take the raw words you see on these pages and let them transform your life in some way.  Maybe it’s a sad story, but it’s a shiny new way of making the tragic into good; a way of taking sorrow and making it into peace.; a way of changing bedridden into making coffee; a way of manifesting the best of your life in the middle of your worst.

March 22^nd, is that a date worth remembering?  Or was it March 21^st?  Who pays attention to the dates between holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries?  YOU do.  Because something changed you and the angst of wondering between two days can change you if they rattle you.  Did my brother’s crisis moment come on the 21^st and end on the 22^nd?  It can haunt you.  The worth of a day on earth and a date is precious.  Fingers to a keyboard is what you are left with and in time you just pray, seek, and hope those fingers reach another. 

This is for those who are seeking something other than “going on” in the years after.  This is for those who have recently lost someone and cannot process it other than reaching for another’s words.  This is for those who haven’t suffered the loss, but want to be present in a difficult situation for someone else.  What to do and what to say will be you, and only you.  How you respond to tragedy is yours to keep and it’s not wrong.  Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.  You are reading this for a specific reason and only you know that reason.  But what I can tell you, with extreme confidence is that without my Lord and Savior I would have not survived.  My person whom I would tell since college “if you did anything to yourself I would just die”, was actually the person who has now taught me what survival actually means.

Wow, it takes a lot to put feelings to paper and I am ready to share them with you.  My younger brother Austin would be so proud of me and his beautiful smile and soul smothers me as I tell you about it all.  

Grief. What a Strange Language it can be.

Have you ever spoken another language without first being taught?  On March 22^nd my language changed into something indescribable.  A language I didn’t know I had in me nor did I want to accept.  I woke to a normal work day, straightening my hair and like a double-tasking wife and mother texted my sister (she’s a hairdresser) as to when I could get some time with her.  How mundane and perfectly normal life can feel at a moment and then 2 minutes later a phone call separates normal from unbearable. 

I answered the phone and my mom said, “Aussie shot himself last night”.  WHAT?  WHAT?  WHAT?  You are wrong.  Have you seen him?  Are you sure?  Have you checked?  No, No, No.”  That is when the other language I didn’t know I could speak came out.  I dropped my phone, screaming, shaking, in a world unworthy of wanting to live.  My husband at my side on his knees after hearing a scream I didn’t know I could produce.  I was speaking, but like he later recalled I was speaking another language; words that didn’t make sense.  The first words of grief don’t have a space in the human dictionary. 

I found it.  I somehow picked up my phone and navigated to the living room.  Searching for my phone that was already in my hands I landed to the ground once again.  I screamed “Where are you Aussie, where are you?.  I asked the question not because I didn’t know where he would end up, but because I wasn’t ready for him to leave me for that place.  How was I supposed to get from here to there, to my mom and dad without dying on the way?  My kids saw a version of their mom that seemed unrealistic.  They followed our motions in their sweet innocence, and they watched, listened, and unnecessarily learned too much too fast. 

The Beginning of a Lonely Journey.

I think the ride was silent for those 45 minutes, but inwardly the peaceful silence of a normal and robotic workday turned into a hurricane of messy emotions as I stared into the fields.  I drove these roads so many times to my family gatherings, but now it was driving to the worst gathering a family could have.  How could my positive, encouraging, beautiful soul of a brother make a decision to take himself out of a world that needed people like him so much?  I was numb, and those questions only had just begun…….it was the beginning of a hard and almost impossible conversation I would have with myself.  Conversations with your self are lonely, and I was just only beginning to experience the loneliness loss brings. 

Heavy feet, feeling like a giant but as small as a piece of sand in a cruel world I walked into my parents cozy home.  My home, at 39 I would never describe it other than “home”.  This time I walked in and saw my sister’s wet hair, towel around her waist and sadness on her face I cannot describe.  I don’t even want to describe it, because sadness changes people and it never looks the same from person to person.  Silence in a home where it was rarely found.  The world had literally stopped.  I know the world doesn’t stop for one person.  But on March 22^nd it did. 

I hope you never have to know what it feels like to go from scheduling a hair appointment to having to schedule the funeral of a brother.  I felt like I stepped into a world of scheduling things I never thought I would have to fit into my structured, comfortable world.   Boy, the devil does really hate us and he so badly wants to defeat us.  Little did he know…..he was about to fuel a fire he thought he started, but God shows up in a burning bush. 

My Prayer for this Space.

Thank you JESUS.  Bless this keyboard; use my fingers to share of your great love and mercy and mysteriousness.  Alter the course of those that need it to somehow be led to that special number of “clicks” to get them here, in this space of comfort, sharing, healing, and intervention.  Have them know that they are not alone and the way they react to pain and sorrow and grief is normal and have NO judgment sway their path to healing.  Use this space to create awareness that hasn’t existed thus far, to stifle the stigma and words of the enemy, to catch someone in that exact crisis moment, to provide peace to broken hearts, to share of God’s mercy for those that you call your children despite the desperate worldly moments that clouded their thinking.  I ask of you Lord to continually guide my hands and build this space to be what you have already planned for me.  “For I know the plans I have for you”, says the Lord – Jeremiah 29:11.  Utilize my pain, and let your will for this meeting place be a resounding message for those that have been led here.  Let us surrender whatever it is that causes us to be saddened, whatever it is that makes us feel weak, and whatever it is that stalls our living abundantly.  For it is YOU that gives us strength to not only survive the hard things in life, but to thrive amidst it all.  Amen.