Offering hope, comfort and support for survivors of suicide loss.
The fact that my Dad chose to end his life was one of the hardest concepts for me to grasp after his death. After talking with my counselor and reading books/articles about suicide, I've taken away that when my Dad decided considered suicide, it wasn't because he did not want to live anymore, it was because he wanted to end his pain.
For months, I couldn't even wrap my head around that idea. How could I when I didn't know my Dad was ...
One of the things I struggled with the most in the weeks and months after my Dad died was figuring out what I felt comfortable telling people once they questioned my Dad’s suicide. By nature, people want to know all the details, especially when it’s something so hard to comprehend as suicide. Suicide survivors are put in a hard situation because we don’t know the answers to questions after suicide, yet all of the friends/family think you know ...
Happy Independence Day! The Fourth of July is a bittersweet day for me because it was one of my favorite holidays to spend with my dad growing up and is full of so many memories. Our city put on one of the best celebrations in the Midwest, which included a three-hour parade and lakefront fireworks display. Each year, we’d wake up early to head to the Main Street home of a family friend to indulge in donuts and a BBQ while watching the floats ...
Prior to losing my father to suicide, it was not terribly uncommon for me to dish out the phrase, “I’d kill myself” in conversation (at the thought of sitting through a particularly long meeting) or make the gun-to-head gesture while telling a story about something annoying. Similarly, I didn’t think twice when those around me did the same. That’s because the notion of suicide was so far from my reality that these innuendos felt perfectly ...
Though my dad lived more than 60 full and beautiful years of life, it’s sometimes hard to think beyond the way he lived his last day. I’ve wondered why, nearly two years later, I continue to immerse myself in questions and thoughts about it. I’ll ask myself, “Isn’t it time to move on from the suicide and focus on the bigger picture and lifetime of amazing memories we shared?” I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think twice about deciding to open up ...
