“Coming Home.” Finding Solitude after Loss to Suicide

This week we welcome Catherine Gorey, a survivor who lost her mother to suicide 6 years ago today.  We honor Catherine’s mother, Breda, by sharing her story.  Catherine’s journey to find solitude after experiencing a personal loss to suicide provides hope and inspiration to those who still struggle to find their own solitude.  Thank you Catherine for sharing your journey with us.

Catherine’s Story:

I love the melody and the lyrics to the Skylar Grey song “Coming Home.” It has a mantra type melody that allows me to find my center when I am off kilter.

I’m coming home
I’m coming home
Tell the World I’m coming home
Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday
I know my kingdom awaits and they’ve forgiven my mistakes
I’m coming home, I’m coming home
Tell the World that I’m coming

It speaks to me often when I am in the midst of interior conflict roused by change, growth, transition, disappointment etc. Each personal encounter causes a shift in my interior landscape which in turn requires me to find my center again. Sometimes the homecoming takes longer, depending on the cause of the axis shifting.

March 15^th, 2015 will mark the 6 year anniversary of my mother’s death. A day that caused me much turmoil within and a life event from which I continue to search for my center. I would never have thought that this life event would shake me to the core as it did; causing me to question everything I ever thought to have known about my mother.

Her exit from this world was sudden, unanticipated and tragic all at the same time. She walked down to our farmyard that morning sometime between nine am and noon, took a length of blue rope, strung it over a beam in a barn and hanged herself—a sudden and violent end to a life, which seemed to me to be as ordinary or extraordinary as any other. Her personality was such that she was the first to reach out when others were in need, her hospitality to all was second to none, our door was always open, strangers always left as friends and food was served regardless of the time of day or night. The home I grew up in was one of welcome and community. For reasons unknown, this day was one of darkness, aloneness and hopelessness from which my mother, the center of our home and community, would not emerge.

I received “the call” at 7:45 a.m. that Sunday morning, March 15^th, 2009 as I was just waking up in Tucson, Arizona. The sun was bright, the sky clear, the day full of promise. I have often heard people speak of times when “life stood still,” where the activity of others continues while yours comes to a sudden halt. And while not sought or desired, this was my inaugural experience of a phenomenon that leaves you paralyzed, frozen in time and space. In the moment between when I learned of her death and heard the cause of her death, my mind turned over and over the different possible scenarios that had taken my mother’s life: perhaps an accident, a heart attack or brain aneurism. Nothing could have prepared me for the truth I was about to hear.

The rest of that morning I was on autopilot, packing up and driving back to San Diego to make plans to fly home to Ireland the next day to attend her funeral. Replaying in my head questions of “why?” and “could there be some mistake?”

“I’m coming home, I’m coming home, tell the world I’m coming home”

I had anticipated that one day I would be making this long journey home, that my homecoming to my homeland would be met by one less parent, but never, never under these circumstances. The time, filled with family and well-wishing friends went by quickly, insulating me from the goodbyes and hugs that lasted longer than usual.  As I made the long flight back to San Diego I came back burdened with the questions of why? What if? What could I have done? If only… And the sleepless nights gave way to numb days of me just going through the motions. From the time when I learned of her death to my flight home to San Diego from her funeral, my whole interior platform had imploded.  I was barely staying afloat. I began to question all that I had believed to be true of who I thought my mother was. Reality came collapsing down around me as I struggled to make peace with my new motherless way of being in this world.

There were times when I too thought I wasn’t going to make it. “Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday,” I was lost in an abyss, without a map or compass. How do I emerge from here? Will I emerge from here? When will I emerge from here? What will I be like if ever I emerge from here? Will my feet ever find terra firma?

I researched suicide loss groups here in San Diego, finding one that met once a month close to my home. Thinking “what do I have to lose”, I gave it a shot. This was a huge shift for me, being the participant and not the director.  Up until this moment I was the queen of creating and facilitating groups but NEVER felt the vulnerability of joining one. I discovered in my vulnerability my saving grace. I found myself in the midst of people from all walks of life who had experienced the same kind of loss as I did, understanding the complexity of it all as much as one is capable of understanding. It was restorative – to hear others voice the same questions I did, questions that may remain unanswered, to hear the expressions of helplessness associated with the loss of a loved one from suicide, and to meet people who were further along in the grieving process who were healing, giving me hope.

As months went by I too saw signs that I was healing. Instead or wrestling with the questions that had haunted me since my mother’s death, I was able to lay down with them. The questions still remained unanswered, but I found peace with the questions and little by little my need for answers waned.

“I’m coming home, I’m coming home, tell the world I’m coming home. Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday. I know my kingdom awaits and they’ve forgiven my mistakes, I’m coming home, I’m coming home, Tell the World that I’m coming.”

I have been back to Ireland a number of times since my mother died, and words cannot describe the gaping hole her absence has left in our family home. She was always so excited to have me back, always receiving the VIP treatment as soon as I arrived. I’m afraid those days are now gone, but the knowledge that I was loved remains. I will return in March this year, surrounded by friends and family as we remember Breda, my mother, on the 6^th anniversary of her death. We honor her by remembering how she lived not the way she died.

Arriving in Ireland for her funeral in March 2009, I recall the striking beauty along the roadsides filled with blooming daffodils. Ireland at this time of year is kissed with blankets of golden daffodils, the first signs of the earth awakening from its winter slumber. Arriving at my home my mother’s daffodils were blooming too. This year will be no different. I will always remember my mother when I see the daffodils. “I’m coming home, I’m coming home. Tell the world I’m coming home”