When one of my
favorite organizations, TWLOHA,
named this week as
National Suicide Prevention Week,
it hit me stronger than I expected---
perhaps because, by this stage in my life,
I've known many people who have either attempted or committed suicide,
or perhaps because I think about deeper and less shallow subjects
than I focused on ten years ago,
or maybe simply because I personally know how desperate hopelessness can feel.
And a haunting memory has crept in and out of my thoughts during this past week.
My first memories of her were as my Sunday School teacher, when I was barely even in school. I don't know if she was born with a birth defect or had some type of disability. During that time period, some conditions did not even seem to be labeled or well-known yet---it was just understood that Debbie "had something wrong with her." She wore large glasses on a face that showed a bit of deformity, and I can still hear the timber of her voice as she asked our little Sunday School class, "Now, what does it mean to pray?" And in unison we answered back the very words she had taught us, "Prayer is talking with God." And she would nod in approval and reaffirm, "That's right. Prayer is just talking with God." I remember my young spirit feeling lighter by that simple revelation of God being someone I could "just talk to."
Debbie poured her love out on the children in our small church---with my brother, two cousins, and I making up a large percentage of that population. She sat in the pew every Sunday, assisted with every Easter Egg hunt, and the church people treated her tenderly with kindness and acceptance. My Aunt Sandy particularly took Debbie under her wing, befriending her and helping her with activities she needed help with. Debbie was a permanent fixture in that little church as I passed through elementary school and began my middle school years.
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas of my 8th grade year, the dark, dreadful news spread quickly among our congregation---Debbie had killed herself. I still remember my mom, sitting on the couch, when she was told the details of how Debbie's mom found her. My mom dropped her head and put her fist to her mouth. Eyes wincing and breathing hard, she quietly walked out of the room, into the bathroom, and shut the door.
My Aunt Sandy spent that whole holiday season in tears.
I dealt with the news the way I dealt with all bad news in my junior high years---I processed it as a machine, revealed no emotion to anyone, and tucked the information tightly into a steel compartment I had built inside myself.
I had not always been that way. When my loving, 45-year-old Aunt Kathy died suddenly the week before I started 5th grade, I apparently wore my devastation so plainly that my teacher asked the guidance counselor to meet with me. When my beloved grandma died from cancer the very next summer, I felt grief-stricken and bewildered that the sun could keep rising and setting in a world without Mama Grace. At some point after those heartbreaks, I learned to tuck everything inside.
Yet now, twenty-three years have passed. And I learned long ago that those feelings I tuck inside eventually do come out. And this week, sadness and grief have emerged over a name and memory of a life that, for some reason, so many years ago, lost hope to go on. I looked on the internet for her obituary, knowing it was too long ago to be online, but found a picture of her headstone instead---which I remembered being tucked away in a shaded corner of the cemetery---a simple stone engraved with the words of hope: "After rain, a rainbow," and the dates: August 17, 1959 - November 29, 1991.
She was 32 years old.
Three years younger than I am.
Did she seem older because of her disability?
Or because I was young and everyone seemed "old" at the time?
Why did she lose hope?
Was she tired of feeling that she didn't fit in?
Did she consider herself a burden to others?
Did she long for things in life---independence, a home, a partner, a family---
things she didn't believe she would be able to have?
Did she think nobody cared?
And this week my heart has ached for her.
My heart hurts that we, her church family,
didn't see it coming and weren't able to intervene.
And my heart grieves for each of us when we lose hope,
because---at some point---we all do.
Whether good health or poor health, a sound mind or troubled one,
living as humans in a fallen world means we are all at risk
of losing hope to the point of self-destruction.
And my heart breaks at how many times
we don't see the brokenness in those we interact with,
how many times we---or I---hide it from those around us,
how many times people do tentatively reach out for a bit of hope or help,
only to feel rejected or turned away.
And I pray that our eyes become more aware
of those around us who are breaking,
and that our own voices feel a little more encouraged
to speak out when we feel ourselves breaking.
Different religions and individuals could debate and argue the fate
of a soul feeling as despondent and hopeless as Debbie did.
But I don't.
I believe God sees into ourselves more deeply than we do.
I believe he has compassion for human moments of desperation.
I believe Debbie is peacefully resting in his arms and---
finally---seeing "after rain, a rainbow."
But I wish she could have seen it here.
My hope is that our words, our actions, our love
will somehow encourage each other to reach out in times of pain,
hold on through the storm,
and,
after the rain,
still be here to see the rainbow.
http://twloha.com/
#NSPW13 #WSPD13
#YouCanNotBeReplaced
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