The long and winding road

I was reading on the Widow Board this morning about others who have experienced losing a spouse to suicide. Yes, after five years I still frequent the YWBB. Not so much for support, as to hopefully give someone a glimmer of hope. I can remember (barely) those early days of grief. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. All I saw when I looked forward was pain. It was dark and I was all alone, or so I thought.

Suicide causes a myriad of emotions to be dealt with. Anger, sadness, angst, guilt, deep feelings of abandonment, feeling like you were not "good enough" to stick around for, caregiver relief, fear of what others are thinking, remorse for every little thing you did in your marriage that "MAY" have caused the suicide. Yes, that is the mind of a SOS. It's a long winding road, this complicated grief. It is not linear. at first the dips and curves toss us and turn us every which way. Just when you feel you have worked through one emotion, you are hit with three more, and then the one you had "put behind you" makes a reappearance in your life.

Today, five years later, I feel I am on a more peaceful plain. My road is not so chaotic. I can honestly say that the stigma of suicide does not bother me, the emotions do not creep up on me like they once did. My mourning is in the past, for the most part. The loss is forever a part of who I am. Ed is forever a part of who I am. But today, I see the good that has come from surviving this experience. I can love more fully. I can appreciate the gifts we receive in this life. I treasure my new husband, wow, I have been blessed.

But still I look back and am amazed at the long and winding road of grief and survival that now lies behind me. I would have never made it without my friends and a God who loves me so.