Ryan’s Place, like many of you, follows several blogs looking for inspiration in the midst of grief and often unanswered questions. The Gift of Second, is a blog for those that have lost a loved one to suicide and offers hope, encouragement, understanding and community. Here is their latest post that we found inspiring. Hope you do too!

Reinforcement in the Aftermath of Suicide

LaRita Archibald

RESPONSIBILITY: Putting it into perspective.

I have a responsibility TO those I love…

to be loving, patient, considerate and kind,
to be loyal, respectful and honest,
to be appreciative, encouraging and comforting,
to share myself and care for myself;
…to be the best possible “ME”…..

BUT

I am not responsible FOR them…

not for their achievements, successes or triumphs,
not for their joy, gratification or fulfillment,
not for their defeats, failures or disappointments,
not for their thoughts, choices or mistakes,
….And, most of all, not for their suicide….

For HAD I been responsible, this death would not have occurred.

***

To assume responsiblity for this death, or to place responsibility upon another, robs the one who died of their personhood and invalidates the enormity of their pain and their desperate need for relief.

***

THE PROCESS DEFINED:

ANGER is my protest against my loss and its cause. Anger is an effort to control that
which cannot be controlled or changed.

ANGER is energy that cannot be denied, destroyed or forgotten; but energy that must be
expressed lest it become a pool of hatred, resentment and bitterness within myself, depriving me of wellbeing
dignity, peace of mind, wholesome relationships and my hope for future happiness…and so,

it must be converted

into

UNDERSTANDING    this death resulted from another’s distorted “grief”; from viewing their life situation and their
ability to exist within it, with doubt, fear and hopelessness and not as it, in fact, existed.

ACCEPTANCE              this death and its cause cannot be changed; this loss is part of my life;
this part is not the whole of my life.

RECONCILIATION   my life is forever changed by this death, but it is not destroyed I CAN and WILL live through and beyond this loss.

I WILL NOT always hurt as badly as I do today

I WILL have happiness and peace of mind in my life again

through

FORGIVENESS             is allowing myself and others the humanness to have made mistakes, even of this magnitude.
I don’t have to like it! is relinquishing anger, guilt and the need to fault and blame.

does not mean finding reasons, causes or justificationfor my loved one’s death.

does not mean forgetting. I will never forget”

does not mean being completely free of emotional pain, but allowing anquish and despair to transition into sorrow and regret

achieving

RESURRECTION       living again….           free of emotional bondage to the fact of suicide;
free of emotional bondage to the one who died.

and

taking back into myself, as sustaining strength, treasured
memory of the life shared with my loved one.