Death and Love
Someone’s life worth of tears covers my cheeks as I sit on a grassy hill looking at the stars. The breeze rushes through my thin clothing alternating between warm and chilly as I alternate between sobbing and breathing. A satellite crosses near a partially full moon as I mentally compare it to a partially lived life, bright and wonderful for what it is, but incomplete none the less.
Processing suicide is really hard and full of sudden emotion. I’m crippled by love one moment and totally pissed off the next. But most of all really confused.
Why?? Life is the most precious thing any of us can ever have or experience. Why would you throw that away? Even if there is some sort of amazing afterlife, or another shot at life, why quit this one?
I wrote that weeks ago after hearing about Colin’s death. It bothered me a lot, tore up my world, and threw a lot of emotions around I haven’t used in awhile. But I shut it out. I didn’t think about it, got busy, kept going full bore with life, rescue, space, and fun, and processed in the background. Then, after a really busy week:
Sitting in my yard on this beautiful sunny morning in Boulder, listening to spring bird-song and looking at all the new green life sending it’s leaves and flowers into the world. As the smell of lilacs drift across the spring day, and the warm rays of the sun massage my skin, appreciation bubbles out of this world and gurgles it’s way across the day.
The processing came to the surface again. I cried a lot at the beauty that surrounds life, supports life, propels life. And conversely, is lost to death.
Processing went on for a long time like that, sporadic, harsh. And then, sitting again in the forest of my life, watching the depths of death dance through the sunbeams, ideas began coalescing last night as a friend told me a riddle:
Those who make it don’t need it.
Those who sell it don’t want it.
Those who need it don’t know it.
She lost a best friend to suicide in high school, and another best friend last year to an Air Force Accident. The juxtaposition of those is striking. Someone taking their own life and choosing to end it, and someone so full of life and motivation having it ripped from them in an instant.
Mourning is essential, as we struggle to piece unknowns into our life, things that completely overstep the boundary of our understanding, and yet happen again and again. We must give in to it sometimes for awhile, but then also come back and help it settle into meaning.
Doing technical rescue work in Boulder; I am exposed sudden death more than most: motor vehicle accidents, water rescues, climbing accidents, medical problems; but I am especially torqued by it right now. What is death? And what roll does it play in life? And what is the answer to the riddle?
“A coffin.”
And there it is, hidden in the answer to a 6th grade riddle. Shockingly simple. “A coffin… those who need it don’t know it.”
Death, unlike life, is unaware of itself as a physical entity. It is the separation and rejoining of energy, which causes pain and joy. A doorway in, and out of this world, sometimes locked, sometime left open, but there throughout life, whether we look closely or not.
Those that pass through the door, leave loved ones on one side, and find loved ones on the other, but it is not the leaving, or the finding that is important, but the love itself, and the wonder of it belonging throughout life, death, and all that happens from one to the other and back again.
We feel pain at loosing a loved one, but that pain is a reminder that the love continues through all in a brilliant embrace of life, death, and all that is important in being.
I don’t know the circumstances around your friends suicide. I don’t think you need to tell me, either. But I’ll tell you that my best friend and roommate for two years killed himself a few years back. It was one of the reasons I moved to Asia, in fact. I became convinced my little shithole corner of northeast Florida was eating my friends alive.
What brought me peace, however, was two things. One was that he had told me earlier that he might do this, and I knocked it down as crazy talk and did the whole “I’m always here for you.” He wanted to let me know, though, that if he did it… it was his only option. You know the rebuttal, of course.
He did it. He was dead in his car for three days before someone found him. He never had a funeral.
So I accepted his words. I accepted, with all my heart and mind, that he was really making some sort of last stand and going out on his terms rather than be dragged down for the rest of his life. Indeed, this is a world where some of us swim and many more sink. Some aren’t born with the temperaments to fight for your place if you weren’t born with the right family.
I don’t agree with it, but then I don’t need to. I just need to accept that everyone has free will, and everyone makes their own choices. I choose to live until a relatively natural death, he chose the time and place of his death.
The second thing I did was put a gigantic HST Gonzo fist tattoo on my with shoulder with his, and another suicide victim friend’s, initials on it. I realized my biggest fear was that I would forget him. I made sure that I couldn’t. It gives me a lot of peace.
If there’s any advice I can give, it’s this: try to think of your friend as actually being much stronger willed than us, not weaker. Try to believe he did what he did with a sober mind, sober judgment, and in circumstances you will never be able to understand. Use that as a wedge to understand how amazing your own life is and to be (even) kinder to others. Believe in free will and people’s right to exercise supreme control over their own destinies. Now go get a tattoo
The love of my life, my nephew, has tried to kill himself 9 times.
When he’s drug-free, he’s fine. When he’s not, he tries to end it all.
He’s been in and out of rehab. In and out of counseling. I’ve talked to him until I can’t talk anymore as has the rest of my family. He has no good explanation…he doesn’t even try…he just says when the drugs take over, he’s a different person that hates himself and what he’s done and what he’s put his family through.
When I get the calls that he’s gone missing…again…a little part of me dies. Steeling myself to the possibility that the next call I get will be that they’ve found his body.
I just don’t get it. Never have. Never will.
My way of coping is to convince myself that he’s not 100% himself when he overdoses. How could he be? Maybe because I can’t believe that someone with as much talent, intelligence, empathy, kindness and potential could throw it all away?
Suicide is the eternal question why that is never truly answered.
I feel for what you are going through and what you have gone through, Larkin. And don’t really have any advice to offer other than to do what you’ve already done; honor your friend’s memory and never forget him.
Hugs,
Kath
[...] one of my posts, because it is something I think about every day. I recently wrote a post about death, exploring life from the perspective of it’s negative space. I spent the weekend spending [...]
Trey, thanks for sharing. I remember that tatoo, and actually talked to Sean about it while we were all in Pai. It puzzled me somehow, so your description closed a previous question from way back.
I recently watched part of Seven Pounds, and was struck by the outlet he chose to deal with his loss of meaniing in life. It was striking to see such a mainstream movie deal with suicide in such a different light. Watch it if you get a chance, and let me know if it makes an impression on you.
I don’t have any tatoos, and don’t know if I ever will, but I do have a scar that reminds me about the preciousness of life, and the importance of each moment.
I like your wedge of reason, although it is so hard for me to believe suicide can come from a position of strength. I’ve tried that thought train before and had a really difficult time with it. It came up when I read Atlas Shrugged (blog post about it if you’re curious http://larkinflight.com/?p=308 ) and was presented with the idea of suicide as a part of living free. I understand the concept, but in practicality, unless one is captured and forced to do things against ones morals it seems like there are many more options.
Trey, I’m glad we’re still in touch, even as periodically as it is. You have a lot of deep thoughts and great points of view on the world. It was a fortunate day that we met 2 years ago.
Wow Kath, that is a really hard situation. *hug!* If I were him and saw what drugs did to me, I would be so tempted to run away to the wilderness and do something that would keep me away from drugs for the rest of my life.
It must be so rough to know that someone you love might be harming themself, and yet be unable to help them. The strong side, is that when he conquers this himself (because that’s what will eventually have to happen), he will be SO strong! It is a hard forest to navigate through, but wow, what power he will have when he figure it out!
Thank you for sharing a little of your grief and heart. Hope your day is wonderful, and bright, and that the next call you get from your nephew is to tell you something beautiful.
[...] what is Death then? What roll does it play? What roll should it play? Well F$%& Death! I’ve had a [...]
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