Heart Felt Thoughts

Yesterday while scrolling through Facebook I came across an entry from my daughter-in-laws younger brother. After reading his comment and some of the comments attached to it, I texted my son and daughter-in-law and my fears were confirmed. Evan had lost a friend and member of the band that he played in to suicide. A flood of emotions rolled over me as the confirmation of this sank in… another family will feel the gut punching pain of the loss of someone to suicide. My emotions ran to the surface of my eyes as I remembered the phone call I received almost 8 years ago, my cousin on the other end of the line telling me that Scott, her sister and my cousin’s husband had taken his life. Scott was more than someone married into my family. He had become my husband’s best friend, the person who had inspired me to be a runner, a supporter of my art, a mentor and friend to my children and someone that we all truly loved. Re-reading Evans post it is all the things that I have felt in the wake of Scott’s death. The pleads for “one more” are hard to read and even harder to feel. I still have them, I don’t know if they ever go away when someone leaves you this way. The wanting of “one more” and the questions that you will never be able to answer are the things that we have to live with.

We relive the last conversations that we had with our loved one that is gone. Scott had called me a couple of days before to go running with him and his running friend. I had run with them a few times but was much slower and they were going a longer distance then I really wanted to do. Remembering now how much he tried to get me to come. His pleads that he would take it slow with me, to meet them at a certain location and just run a few miles with him…. I turned him down and three days later he was gone from my life forever. I only have memories of the runs that we did have, and the beautiful conversations on life, children and art. Those are some of the things that I miss.

The transition back to normal life is difficult. I don’t know if you can ever say that life is normal after living through this. You have to make a new normal, a life that is forever changed, sadder and a bit darker. For the longest time I was angry that life had to move on. To me it was not right that things could move on without Scott here. But as the years have gone by I know that we can’t live forever in the pain that we feel. As much as I didn't want to I needed to let the pain go. It’s not healthy. I also started thinking that the person we have lost would not want to see us in pain and suffering. I have often visualized Scott looking down on us and seeing that he was sad, because we were in pain. I thought… I don’t want to see him agonize any more. So now I try my best to choose to remember him in a positive way. I try to celebrate his life, by living mine as best as I can. He was a fearless individual and I have tried (not too successfully yet) to incorporate some of that into my life as a way to remember him. I think we all just need to get through the best way we can.  My thoughts and prayer go out to Evan, his family, friends and the family of the friend that took his life, you are in my prayers.