*trigger warning: suicide*
My aunt said suicide was like a bad spirit. She said this during a funeral service of my cousin who committed suicide. It was days, if not weeks, after the funeral that I could feel that heaviness. It was constantly there in my mind. The word was always lingering on everyone’s lips.
There were crows that moved above my front door way of my home. They would be there when I left for work and there when I came home. It went on like this for a long time. I finally had enough and told them to go away. I’m not saying they were bad spirits or anything like that. Truth is I still do not know what they meant.
Years later I would relay this story to my cousin. He looked at me with this odd look and said that our uncle (the father of our deceased cousin) had the same exact experience. One day our uncle got so angry and began to yell at them. They left after that.
Our cousin’s brother would also commit suicide a year a part. I have written about this here before. I was six or seven when my uncle committed suicide, three more cousins (plus the two brothers), my cousin’s partner, that would follow. It felt like an option. It felt like how alcohol or drugs feel. It was just another way out and another escape.
For years after their deaths I would always feel a sense of tragic loss because it was suicide. It was as though we had failed as a family. Those feeling have faded with time and distance. I no longer think of them as how they passed on. I just think of them as who they were and will now forever be. Suicide became less and less of an option when I began to fill my life with the right things. Life does not just get better - we make it better by our actions.
There is no answer for suicide or suicidal thoughts. We all have to be vigilante. That bad spirit, my aunt had talked about, has now been replaced by the spirits of our lost loved ones. They never left our family. It was only the shock of suicide that tried to take their place. Creator knew what to do when we were made because love is the only thing that lasts forever. Souls are made of love. I had to release what was in my heart. Attawapiskat is on my mind.
Thank you for always taking the time to read what I post here. Even when it doesn’t always make perfect sense.