Today is the 15th World Suicide Prevention Day. Which means this 'day' did not exist when I lost my mom and sister in 2000. Maybe every day being a 'day' for some cause or quirk or hobby became a thing once the internet provided a truly mass market platform? Or maybe stigma against conversation about suicide had the upper hand until the internet made less personalized discussion possible?
Stigma-- do we think that's changed? Do we think it should? I don't want a world where suicide becomes a normalized, much less accepted, response to despair. But I do want a world where those who are at risk but are not yet suicidal are able to access effective intervention for whatever is contributing to their risk, and where more of those who are acutely suicidal are able to see a way out of their desolation. I want a world where we do better at teaching emotional coping skills to our children. I want a world where those who have gotten past their own suicidal crises talk about it as much as those who have survived cancer or heart attacks or other deadly diseases do now. I've seen commercials with celebrities encouraging screening and treatment for all manner of illnesses that almost killed them or someone they love. I've never seen a commercial with a celebrity acknowledging how suicide, attempted or completed, has affected their life. I know such things exist on the internet. But I've never seen it on television.
There is a lot to learn– about why suicide rates are higher in some racial and ethnic groups than others– what are the protective factors? About why, in the US, men complete suicide at considerably higher rates than women, even though women attempt consideraby more often. (Choosing more lethal means is a definite factor, but why do men choose those methods more?) About why primary care providers continue to under-screen for suicidal ideation and depression, even though data suggests that 1/3 or more of those who attempt suicide had an appointment with their PCP within the week prior to attempting, and almost 2/3 had an appointment in the preceding month. There is a lot to learn.
But I suspect that suicide will always be hard to discuss. In late 2002, in one of the moments where we suicide survivors search for answers to the unanswerable, I wrote "... I am left with the hollow, sterile explanation of mental illness. Soul illness. A malfunctioning of such extreme magnitude that life turned on itself. A malignancy not of any cell or tissue, but of the very will to be." Suicide is different from other deaths. It makes people use words like "how could he/she be so selfish?" It makes people question, in ways few other kinds of death do, their own culpability for someone dying. "If only I had __________." It makes people unsure of how to answer when someone asks them how their loved one died, because the survivor knows the word "suicide" will frequently make the inquiring person feel awkward and off balance. And so the survivor will often deflect or even lie to protect the other person from that palpably uncomfortable next several moments of conversation. They say we need to be able to be open about suicide to reduce the stigma. And that makes sense. But maybe it's not just stigma. Because I can respond to that question without shame. But I don't think the day will come when hearing that answer won't elicit a wince, or flinch. Inwardly if not openly. In many ways our culture trivializes the word suicide. But in actuality, the enormity of the act of self-destruction will always cause the person suddenly forced to contempate it a moment of disorientation. A startle of reflexive, instinctive fear. We are made to live.
Rates of attempted and completed suicide are, however, increasing. Or else we're reporting them both more accurately. But either way, they aren't diminishing. Which means these 15 years of World Suicide Prevention Days have not succeeded. Perhaps we should rethink the goal. Perhaps it should be World "Prevention and Treatment of Things That Increase Risk for Suicide" Day. I don't think society is interested in investing in that endeavor though. Definitely not financially. Perhaps not emotionally either.
And in the meantime, hundreds of lives were ended and thousands of lives were forever changed across the world by a suicide today. And every life lost is a tragedy. Even if no one is left behind who mourns them. Maybe especially if no one is left behind who mourns them. And to those hundreds who are gone and those thousands who are staring into the abyss of grief today, I stand in sorrowful witness. And to the thousands upon thousands who are weeks or months or years beyond that first day, I walk in kindred solidarity. And I wish me, and you, and the one you loved and lost, peace. Wherever we, and they, may be.
Monday, September 10, 2018
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
5/20/1996 ... because of Rita's post 4/17/2018
two little girls picking dandelions. how long ago was that me?
child's hands clutching a bouquet of brilliant yellow, sometimes mixed with delicate purple violets, clover blossoms, and the queen anne's lace that grew along the cow path. presented so sincerely to mama. into a tiny glass they would go- already drooping, heads snapped by my clumsy, eager fingers. but mama never seemed to mind.
why did we used to rub the fuzzy soft dandelion flowers underneath our chins and along our arms and legs, the petals streaking stains across in our suntanned skin? how can i not remember the reason, when so much time was spent doing nothing else? maybe there was no reason. Maybe that is what i need to remember.
i mourned those dandelions when the merciless lawn mower blades swept across them, leaving only stems behind, the flowers now scattered on the sidewalk or overturned and hidden in the freshly-cut grass. my father called them weeds (one piece of his cynicism i never have absorbed). but, without them, the yard looked less alive to me.
my father preferred the marigolds, which i didn't understand. to me they were dull and smelly and, most importantly, utterly forbidden. the first time i added marigolds to mama's bouquet was the last. i was a fast learner.
but the question i asked myself then still remains-- of what use is a flower that you cannot touch?
child's hands clutching a bouquet of brilliant yellow, sometimes mixed with delicate purple violets, clover blossoms, and the queen anne's lace that grew along the cow path. presented so sincerely to mama. into a tiny glass they would go- already drooping, heads snapped by my clumsy, eager fingers. but mama never seemed to mind.
why did we used to rub the fuzzy soft dandelion flowers underneath our chins and along our arms and legs, the petals streaking stains across in our suntanned skin? how can i not remember the reason, when so much time was spent doing nothing else? maybe there was no reason. Maybe that is what i need to remember.
i mourned those dandelions when the merciless lawn mower blades swept across them, leaving only stems behind, the flowers now scattered on the sidewalk or overturned and hidden in the freshly-cut grass. my father called them weeds (one piece of his cynicism i never have absorbed). but, without them, the yard looked less alive to me.
my father preferred the marigolds, which i didn't understand. to me they were dull and smelly and, most importantly, utterly forbidden. the first time i added marigolds to mama's bouquet was the last. i was a fast learner.
but the question i asked myself then still remains-- of what use is a flower that you cannot touch?
Saturday, January 13, 2018
13 January ...
Today I finished putting my altar back together; it had been relegated to boxes the past 6 weeks to make space for my holiday decor. I have an altar because my mother had an altar. Hers was a shelf in our floor-to-ceiling living room bookcase and while it did have several religious pieces, it also had a variety of other mementos. Sometimes I would ask her to re-tell the stories of where different items had come from. Many of her favorites were the ones brought back to her by my dad from his business trips. My memory will not do my bidding to recreate that still-life arrangement in my mind's eye. I can so clearly picture myself standing next to it, picking up different trinkets, remembering as she remembered. But the specifics are mostly lost. I do know one figurine for sure, because my sister gifted him to me this Christmas. A tiny gray porcelain donkey. As soon as I unwrapped him, I could picture him on the shelf, although his origin I do not recall.
And now he is on my altar. He is nestled in with the rest of the animals standing vigil with Kateri Tekakwitha, my Confirmation saint, and the first Indigenous North American to be canonized, although she was only "Blessed" when I chose her. She is also a connection to my mother. Some of the images I have of her on my altar come from my childhood home, although not my mother's altar. Kateri Tekakwitha kept my mother company in the kitchen. I had gotten her a book about Tekakwitha's life and it stayed on the kitchen table, often with a vase of whatever flowers were blooming in the yard. It is because of my mom, at least in part, that I chose Tekakwitha. I was always fascinated by Indians (as we still called them then). As a young child, I believed my mom must be part Indian. She got so tan in her beloved sunshine, and she had long brown hair and high cheek bones. What I don't remember is whether I liked Indians just because I thought my mom was one, or if I wanted to think my mom was one because I liked Indians (I knew full well we were pretty much Germanic through and through). Indian ponies no doubt played a part in this, horse crazy girl that I was. But either way, once I picked Kateri Tekakwitha, my mom kind of picked her too.
Every time I have to reconstruct my altar I touch each piece, of course, but not always with focused attention. Today's recreation was more mindful, in part because I had things to add, and wanted to reaffirm that each artifact still belonged, still mattered. There is one treasure that will always belong, the most cherished relic in the shrine, and so I didn't have to give it any thought. But today I picked it up and really looked at it for the first time in maybe years. And in an instant I was weeping tears of longing for my mother. There is no way to fully convey in words the tenderheartedness and love that was in my mother, but it is embodied in every facet of the object I held: a handmade college graduation gift. It is my mother in its utterly practical use of a plastic yogurt cup cover, expiration date clearly visible, as its base. It is my mother in its equally practical but amazingly creative use of a broken egg shell, on which she had glued strips of paper with the date, a hand-drawn Notre Dame logo, and my name. It is my mother in the clever, whimsical rolled up diploma she carefully placed inside. It is my mother in the the embellishments of ribbon and yarn. It is perfection. It is perfection.
It is also my mother in its fragility. Egg shells when intact are remarkably strong, if pressure is applied only at the ends, as it is with eggs in the nest being incubated. But other forces break them easily. And this egg was already broken when my mother chose it as her canvas. And my mother, strong in ways I'll never comprehend, was also fragile, and pressures I will also never comprehend cracked and then one day crushed her.
But not the day she made me that gift. That day, the broken egg was the latest example of a creative genius that also escapes my understanding, but always captured my awe. Ask any of my siblings about the delights they received when our mother got them as her Secret Kris Kringle for the Advent season. Each creation, like my egg, conjured from the items of a housewife's daily life, transformed into magic. Oh, to find one on your pillow after school was an incomparable joy. And my graduation egg. KK enchantment in May.
And so it has traveled with me this quarter of a century. And the years and eight moves have taken their toll. The shell has broken, little by little, and is mostly collapsed. Today, when the weeping stopped, I tried to see what pieces go together still, but too much has disintegrated. And so I gently piled the smaller bits together, and propped the surviving part on top, and slid the diploma back into place. All the while admonishing myself for risking further damage by touching it at all. And back onto the altar it was carefully placed. My mother's beauty. My mother's love. My mother. My heart. And I am full and I am empty. And I am blessed beyond measure.
And now he is on my altar. He is nestled in with the rest of the animals standing vigil with Kateri Tekakwitha, my Confirmation saint, and the first Indigenous North American to be canonized, although she was only "Blessed" when I chose her. She is also a connection to my mother. Some of the images I have of her on my altar come from my childhood home, although not my mother's altar. Kateri Tekakwitha kept my mother company in the kitchen. I had gotten her a book about Tekakwitha's life and it stayed on the kitchen table, often with a vase of whatever flowers were blooming in the yard. It is because of my mom, at least in part, that I chose Tekakwitha. I was always fascinated by Indians (as we still called them then). As a young child, I believed my mom must be part Indian. She got so tan in her beloved sunshine, and she had long brown hair and high cheek bones. What I don't remember is whether I liked Indians just because I thought my mom was one, or if I wanted to think my mom was one because I liked Indians (I knew full well we were pretty much Germanic through and through). Indian ponies no doubt played a part in this, horse crazy girl that I was. But either way, once I picked Kateri Tekakwitha, my mom kind of picked her too.
Every time I have to reconstruct my altar I touch each piece, of course, but not always with focused attention. Today's recreation was more mindful, in part because I had things to add, and wanted to reaffirm that each artifact still belonged, still mattered. There is one treasure that will always belong, the most cherished relic in the shrine, and so I didn't have to give it any thought. But today I picked it up and really looked at it for the first time in maybe years. And in an instant I was weeping tears of longing for my mother. There is no way to fully convey in words the tenderheartedness and love that was in my mother, but it is embodied in every facet of the object I held: a handmade college graduation gift. It is my mother in its utterly practical use of a plastic yogurt cup cover, expiration date clearly visible, as its base. It is my mother in its equally practical but amazingly creative use of a broken egg shell, on which she had glued strips of paper with the date, a hand-drawn Notre Dame logo, and my name. It is my mother in the clever, whimsical rolled up diploma she carefully placed inside. It is my mother in the the embellishments of ribbon and yarn. It is perfection. It is perfection.
It is also my mother in its fragility. Egg shells when intact are remarkably strong, if pressure is applied only at the ends, as it is with eggs in the nest being incubated. But other forces break them easily. And this egg was already broken when my mother chose it as her canvas. And my mother, strong in ways I'll never comprehend, was also fragile, and pressures I will also never comprehend cracked and then one day crushed her.
But not the day she made me that gift. That day, the broken egg was the latest example of a creative genius that also escapes my understanding, but always captured my awe. Ask any of my siblings about the delights they received when our mother got them as her Secret Kris Kringle for the Advent season. Each creation, like my egg, conjured from the items of a housewife's daily life, transformed into magic. Oh, to find one on your pillow after school was an incomparable joy. And my graduation egg. KK enchantment in May.
And so it has traveled with me this quarter of a century. And the years and eight moves have taken their toll. The shell has broken, little by little, and is mostly collapsed. Today, when the weeping stopped, I tried to see what pieces go together still, but too much has disintegrated. And so I gently piled the smaller bits together, and propped the surviving part on top, and slid the diploma back into place. All the while admonishing myself for risking further damage by touching it at all. And back onto the altar it was carefully placed. My mother's beauty. My mother's love. My mother. My heart. And I am full and I am empty. And I am blessed beyond measure.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)