Darkness, darkness

Old Man Grieving by Vincent Van Gogh 

 As we grieve with the families of those killed a few days ago in Washington, DC, I've learned that a man I knew in childhood ended his own life on Tuesday. It was not an accident: he left a note.

His wife had been uncomfortable about having a gun in the house - they had several children, one quite young. But it was still there, and he used it.

Would he have changed his mind, or waited a little longer, if the methods available for self-destruction had been slower-acting - drugs, for instance - or more difficult to arrange or contemplate? Could he have been found before he died? We will never know.

I weep to think that he was in such pain. I mourn for his family and friends, for I know he did love them, and they loved him. But depression overcomes, and then devours; at some point, for some people, the hands that reach out to help are not seen,  the voices crying "I love you" are not heard, and there is no light anywhere.

There is pain all around us. Some we see. Some we mismeasure. Some we don't notice at all. May God give us vision. May we help to ease one another's pain, even if only a little, and may that little somehow be enough.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Chicago Bob]

There is a verse that says I'm so glad that trouble don't last always. Because the sun's gonna shine in my back door someday. I think not enough people know that. It must be hard to remember when depression hits, harder than I have known. Darkness has always deepened me but not until after it's over. I wish we could lighten each others' loads.

[Laurel Massé]

I think we can, and that sometimes we don't, or don't see the struggle going on. Most people work hard to seem OK: they say, "oh, fine," and we accept that, because we are just "oh, fine", too; struggling, too; hiding, too.

And sometimes the person carrying the burden can't let go even when it is dragging her/him under.

Thank you for your comment, Bob. Always appreciated.

Blessings, Laurel

[Kevin Ainsworth]

Oh, Laurel, I am so sorry to hear about your friend. Many years ago, in my hometown church, a man I knew killed himself leaving behind a wife and young son, so I know something of what you must be feeling now.

I mentioned in a previous comment how I would lie awake at night as a child listening to the train in the distance as it ran through the woods. That is where he chose to commit suicide by jumping in front of a train. The trains run every half an hour and the woods are secluded with the track fenced off. The journey there takes time. It was not an accident or a spur of the moment decision but a premeditated one.

It was a big shock to us because we did not have a clue that there was anything wrong with him whenever we spoke to him. We did not know that he was depressed and there were no signs that we could see looking back that he was in a position where he would contemplate, much less do, such a thing. Over the years I have met many depressed people and been beside depressed friends and family. I have been depressed myself through certain circumstances in my life but the idea of actually taking that last, final step was one I could never contemplate.

Which raises the question: is there a depression so deep that others cannot see it and that person appears normal? Is there a depression so deep that it overrides all normal self-preservation instincts? We are programmed to jump clear of danger automatically by non thinking reflex so is there a depression so deep that those reflexes no longer function?

My Mother died of cancer when she was 47 years old and we buried her on her 48th birthday. She knew months in advance that the cancer was terminal and there was a day when she tried to commit suicide. I was away at university studying for my degree but my two brothers still lived at home with her. One of them came home and found her and she was rushed to hospital where they saved her life. What I did not realise at the time was that she had written each of us a note before she took the overdose. A few months later, after she had died, my brother handed mine to me and it is one of my treasured possessions.

It would seem strange that God did not allow her to die by suicide but allowed her to die of cancer a few short months later. I can only speak for myself but it allowed me to have one of the most profound moments of my life.

I was visiting my then girlfriend just before Mum died when we had an urgent phone call to get to the hospital as soon as possible as the doctors did not think she would last the night. It was a mad dash by last train to where my car was parked and then to the hospital with me praying desperately that we would arrive in time. We did and spent a few hours with her before going to my family home and returning the following day.

My family spent the rest of the day, a Sunday, with her with each taking it in turns to say a private farewell as she lay in a coma. Then we gathered in a group around her bedside until slowly each person left as it grew late. Finally, at midnight, I was the last person left. I leant across to kiss her farewell and said that I had to go and this was where the profound moment started.

She opened her eyes and looked at me and said just one word: “Why?”

I left her side and went outside into the corridor but I was not able to leave as that one word went round and round in my head. Why did I have to leave? What was more important than my Mother’s death? Was I simply making an excuse to avoid the pain of being there? They say that one of the roles of parenthood is to give life lessons and my Mum had given me one last life lesson on her deathbed as that one word “Why?” cut through, like the sharpest blade imaginable, to the heart of my soul. It put so much into perspective for me.

So I turned around and went back to her. The nurses set up a camp bed for me and I stayed in that room with her for the next three days and held her hand as she breathed her last. I realised what the special bond was between parent and child by its sudden absence as she died. Those three days were among the hardest of my life but also among the most special. She was there when I was born and I was there when she died.

When we first found out that her cancer was terminal I stood up in church and told the congregation and asked for prayer for healing. I believed that God could heal her and it was during this period that I found that poster of the white cat hanging by one paw with the caption “Faith is hanging in there.” I thought it was for my encouragement that God would reward my faith by healing her. In reality it was to encourage me after she died and I was wondering in anguish and grief why, why, why God had allowed it to happen.

You see, it is the same question for both my colleague at church who committed suicide and for my Mother who tried and failed but died anyway a few months later. Why did God allow it? Why does God allow it? We read of people who are miraculously healed and we read of those who tried to kill themselves but miraculously failed. So why did God intervene for those but not for my Mum or friend at church or, now, your friend?

God does not love them any less and they are now at rest from their pain but the pain is transferred to those who are left who are shattered, and grieving, and crying out in anguish and despair at their loss. I know that there are no words which can truly comfort or help and that only time can slowly ease the pain. But I also know that God is with them, and with you also, and is working and comforting in ways that cannot now be seen. They may not be seen for hours, or days, or weeks, or months, or years, or maybe never, but He is there nonetheless and I speak from experience.

There is comfort to be found in the Psalms where the anguished cries of the Psalmist can also mirror our cries of pain. Where the questions the Psalmist cries out to God are also the questions we cry out in our grief. We must not forget that, before he began his ministry recorded in the Gospels, Jesus, who raised others from the grave, lost his earthly Father Joseph. So he can truly understand and empathise with all that we go through in our pain and loss.

Your penultimate paragraph sums up in a few words what many would spend pages trying, and probably failing, to say. There is a great depth to those words. Your final paragraph is a prayer that we should all pray. I have been encouraged by your words to pray for you and for your friend’s family and I am probably not the only reader of your blog to do so. If nothing else you and they will be covered by the prayers of strangers.

I have one final word of comfort and encouragement for you and for them. My parents divorced when I was young and I was raised by my Mum and her Father, my Granddad. He died suddenly less than 6 weeks before my Mum so we had a double loss and a double grief.

One day, in my anguish and tears, I came across a saying which helped me tremendously and which I always pass on to those grieving a loved one:

“And each of us, in his own way, does what he can for those who will follow. That is the only true legacy we can leave to those we love – that we have made the world a little better than we found it.”

Regards,

Kevin Ainsworth.