Before They Were Suicides

Before they were suicides, they were our children.

All soiled hands and scrapped knees. Laughing; Playing

with abandon. As if time had no consequence;

As if forever was a given.

We could not see beyond the limit of their lifetime

then. Could not imagine the urn holding their

ashes, or the single rose on the coffin, lowered

slowly into the hard, cold ground.

Before their final struggle they were our babies.

Dimpled hands grasping wildly; New eyes shinning

smiles; Gleeful squeals under peppered kisses,

and raspberry blows on soft bellies.

I remember the way you gripped me; Legs

straddling my hip; Tiny arms circling my

neck; Holding on as if there were no options;

Clinging tight, as if your life depended on it.  

Before all faith was shattered they were believers; In Santa,

magic, and the tooth fairy. In the power of the dark

and monsters in the closet; That we could fix all

things; That we would never let them fall.

We believed kisses were the soothing balm for

bruises then, that simple band aides covered 

stinging wounds, and our squeezing hugs to

quiet bitter tears would always heal.

Before the mark of teens they were our toddlers.

Explorers on unsure, testing feet: Fearlessly consuming

life; Brave discoverers of worlds inside the

tiny universe we made for them.

And the first time you peddled the big wheel away

with dawning independence; Small and determined.

I always believed I could call you back again;

And that you would come.

Before they were statistics they were our beloved;

Restless, pensive, joyous and despairing; Embattled

keepers of conviction; Carriers of all our hopes;

Our dream into the future.

And in this anguished aftermath, this

bleeding, empty present; The vivid color of your 

lives will linger; And we will remember, before

you were a suicide, you were our child.

                                                 

Ann Woodly

Forever Justin’s Mom

September, 2010

How I’m Feeling It Today

I feel like I'm dying today. And so much would be solved by my death. It's been almost five years, and still I'm entering a time where I am in constant physical and psychological pain. Silent, convulsive tears took the place of sleep last night; left me with highly visible, red edged bags under my eyes, not to mention a dull headache. Good thing Donnell found my sun glasses yesterday. I haven’t had a night like that for some time, but it feels so familiar. Like it is my actual reality, and the weeks before that were really the exception. My soul is drowning; don't feel like I'll be making it to those "better days" waiting just around the corner. And I don't feel like holding out for remote possibilities. I awoke this morning with that persistent pain in my left leg, and my back felt wracked in a giant, aching spasm. I don't want to do this anymore. And as things are progressing, there seems to be only one way out of this mess. Today, it doesn’t feel like I’m ever going to become healthy in any way. Like Justin once implied, this is taking the slow, agonizing route home. I wish I could facilitate speeding up this journey somehow. But I'm not as brave as him. I’m your typical groveling, ambivalent coward, who is only different from the general population in that I have no illusions that continuing to live like this is courageous. That's a myth the despairing tell themselves to avoid facing the reality of their fear. But getting to the point where the fear of non-existence is less than the fear of a long, crawling, failed life is not easily accomplished. We become so used to it. And unlike Justin, most of us don’t have high enough standards to find this unacceptable.

Still, I’m feeling today like my body may make the end of this stalemate easy by leaving me no choice in this. I'm like a balloon with a tiny, steady, imperceptible leak. And my sprit seems to be instinctively moving into a period of mourning for my life. Maybe it will be over soon. And that would be totally o.k. Financial challenges for Deva solved! Sadly, that’s probably the best thing I have left to give her now. The best option I’ve got in supporting her promising life. It feels like the least I can do, and at this juncture it’s not much of a sacrifice at all. The only regret would be my unfinished tributes to Justin to mark the fact that he was here. Maybe Donnell could go on to make something meaningful of his tortured existence. At least he’ll have the funds to live comfortably. Whatever he chooses would be just fine with me at this point; no hostilities about that at all. It’s too late to fix the things that can’t be salvaged.  

And if there is an afterlife, some other option to rotting in the ground, perhaps I’ll see my son again. And I can tell him once and for all how sorry I am. And let him know how deeply proud I am of him.

Absent

I've been absent from this space for several months now. There are a multitude of reasons, some of them conflicting. Sometimes I've been too busy. Other times, my absence had more to do with being distracted. Still other times, my reason for not posting is just because I've been unfocused and lacked the energy. This morning I got up and out of the house later than usual, largely because I felt emotionally lethargic; hopeless; wanting to not have to live this life anymore. I felt as if there was no meaningful reason to get up and continue this awful slog. I wanted not to have to get up again at all. As of 2:00 p.m. I still feel that way.


I saw my grandbaby Vaughn this past weekend. His mom and dad brought him for a visit. They stayed at a hotel instead of my house; the house my daughter and son grew up in. There are so many reasons this fact hurts so much. All of them are emblematic of my failure as a mother; my failure to make a place my children would want to come back to. In my mind In my mind, this mirrors the uselessness of my failed life. I am 57 years old. Past the point of assuming things will change for the better beyond the next bend in the road. I'm arriving at the conclusion, and this is pretty much it; the sum total of things; how my life has turned out. And I don't want this life. I feel like I imagine I'd feel with a painful, terminal illness. If this is as good as it's going to get, I prefer not to do it anymore.


I am so in love with my grand child. He is purely, deeply beautiful. But I believe he'll be just fine without me. I don't do him justice with such a morose, distracted split mind. He deserves more than the splintered bits of my soul that remain alive. And today, it just doesn't feel as if there's anything I'll ever be able to do about that. And the most awful thing is I'm sure there are bad things still coming.

"Trouble in the air. I don't want it. But I've got to breath. It's

coming through the door,

behind the shadows that surround me when I sleep."

The saving grace is that it's all down hill from here. I believe I've reached the zenith of how bad living can be. Instantaneously eviscerated while standing. The rest is just falling. That's exactly what I'm doing now. I'm falling down. Once that happens, I suspect I won't want to get up. And the strange thing is, at this very moment, that probability doesn't matter to me one bit.

My Crystallizing Idea

I was recently a part of the cast of Atlanta's 2010 Vagina Monologues production. It was another affirming, cathartic experience but it seems right now like it was a hundred years ago. I need something to feed my soul on an on-going basis. If not, I succumb to the most awful, pervasive feeling of empty grief. Finding that next thing to engage my attention and energy is the difficult thing. Since the VM show, I feel like I've returned to that desire to just go home from work and take to the bed for the rest of the evening. That was my pattern in the many months following Justin's death. Even with the impending birth of my first grandchild I am caught in a thick malaise and think about Justin’s absence nearly every minute of the day. I know I have to somehow combine my focus on Justin with some project that engages my creative energy. While its barely paying the bills, the work I'm doing right now is void of satisfaction, so I've got to make this connection in some other area of my life. One good thing is my involvement in the VM production helped me crystallize my idea for the production I envision that’s now titled "The Spoken Word Project: Suicide Survivor Stories." I want this dramatic piece to have a similar format to the VM production we did a little over a week ago. The seven actresses who participated were seated in different places on a multi-level stage. At different points we stood and came forward slightly to deliver our lines/monologues and at other times we shared what were typically shorter lines while seated, sometimes in unison. It made for a dynamic presentation that had a lot of energy and visual interest and seemed equally suitable for the comic and dramatic parts of the show.

If a small group of six to seven performers (all parents of suicides) could be staged in this way to deliver lines, poems and monologues on the topic, I think it could be a very powerful piece that educates the audience about suicide and brings the people our children were to life at the same time. I've already composed a draft script, but it focuses solely on Justin and my struggles as a survivor. Ultimately, my goal is to incorporate the diverse voices of five to six others to create an illuminating, moving and at times, tenderly funny theater experience. In addition to line and monologue delivery by the stage performers, I envision a large screened backdrop with an audio visual presentation synchronized with the live performance. This feature would include pictures/video of our children, facts about suicide and other visual imagery along with appropriate music (songs and instrumentals).

Now my challenge is to pull together an updated script template based on these ideas sufficient to attract other parents who might like to participate and can visualize the goals of such a piece. Rather than make it a requirement to memorize all the lines, it should initially be performed as a reading theater like the early VM performances. While the written material and performances must be worthy of a dramatic theater piece, it is most important that the production be an authentic expression of real parents who are going through this awful tragedy. This vision is so clear to me now, but it all feels so awesome. Achieving this will require me to be part script writer, part talent recruiter, part director, and part collaborator with other creative parents in shaping this project. That’s not even including the promotional aspect of getting venues to present the piece. Yet I know this is what I want to/need to do. It’s a key activity to help me with the on-going challenge of retaining my sanity and to move forward in this life-long grief journey. Unfortunately, the bed-ridden malaise has been calling a lot lately, making productive activity a trial. I must try to pull it together and marshal a self generated burst of energy to make this creative vision happen. It's a struggle right now. Please wish me encouragement and luck. And please, pray for me.

Under A Weepy Black Fog

I don't know why this is happening now. I have felt awful for the last couple of days. Drawn back to the constant malaise I felt in the first couple of years after losing Justin. I'm feeling pretty crappy and am experiencing spontaneous crying spells. It's like a spiritual flu. I don't know if it's nervousness over my upcoming performance in the play that's adding the straw that's breaking me; Or the knowledge that Donnell is drinking again; Or the prolonged insecurity about the status of my mortgage. These all seem like small things compared to a life time without ever seeing my son again. His decision took so much from me. I don't think I can overcome all this. When it's finally all said and done, I will be glad. I may be coming to the same conclusion Justin did. That cessation of life is the only path to genuine peace and release. I think I lack his courage of convictions however. Part of me thinks this mood may be neuro-chemical. It's too sudden and sharp to be a response to environmental pressures, most of which I've been living with for years. I need to get past this. This is nearly intolerable.

What I'm Coming To Know

This is the first time since Justin's death that I've made a foray into drama and stage performance. I've been rehearsing for a production of “The Vagina Monologues” since early February. The performances are set for March 25th, 26th and 27th. This has been both challenging and invigorating for me at the same time, and along with my presentation at the NOPCAS conference two weeks ago it has helped me to know this. If I am to survive the tragedy of losing Justin, I must find a way to latch on and re-engage life in ways that matter and revitalize me. I believe one of the ways I can engage in what matters involves this cause of suicide awareness and prevention and my desire to commemorate Justin. Among the things I can do to renew and revitalize my life are writing and the dramatic arts. While other survivors have become activist in the area of suicide prevention, my way to do something that matters must somehow include writing and drama.

Of course, There are varying methods to bring attention to critical social issues and I'm coming to understand my way involves a blending of the written and spoken word into some kind of presentation that brings awareness of this issue to the broader community. It’s clear that brining this idea to fruition will not be easy. It will take all my creative abilities to make it happen. By creative abilities, I'm not referring to the creation of the written or spoken words themselves. I have already proved to myself I can do that. In this context, I'm referring to the ability to take a concept or idea and turn it into reality. The ability to create life experience in a self-actualized way rather than just letting life happen. I'm afraid I haven’t mastered this type of creative process. Yet this is what I must do to achieve the goal of a spoken word project that is seen by the public and spreads awareness of this awful, growing tragedy. Brining this vision to reality must be my goal. On a larger scale, the challenge is to be able to intentionally shape one's life; To be capable of growing mere ideas or concepts into being. That, I think, is the ultimate creative process. It is the God in us.

I believe Justin respected this ability above all others. He wanted us to create the lives we wanted for ourselves, and longed to be able to give this life to us, even if we were unable to do so. This ended up being much too much weight on his young shoulders. He could not carry us all there. But I believe with all my heart, if I could summon the creative power and energy to reconstruct my life to a self-actualized state, somehow Justin would know, and he would be oh, so proud

Word Portrait of Justin

As mentioned in my previous post, one of the things I wanted to accomplish in my talk at the NOPCAS conference this past Saturday was to present a clear picture of Justin’s spirit. A poem I wrote for him that attempts to do that was shared as a part of my presentation. It is shown below.

BELOVED PARADOX

My Beloved Paradox;

Seamless convergence of disparate things;

Unified and Splintered,

Whole and Torn,

Cynical with Innocence.

They don’t know how to reconcile

these ends of you, or how they blended

at your core.

And I grow impatient with explaining.

Yet it’s all I am compelled to do.

Marvels are hard to envision,

but they are worthy to be known.

So what can I say to

make them understand your

ancient, neophyte soul;

World weary at 24 years old?

Should I depict you, hunched in studies till two a.m.,

then rising at five for your ritual, pre-school workout?

Two hundred pound presses followed by lightning

quick kicks on three hours sleep.

No pain, No gain, no excuses.

How do I balance the steely perseverance that

pumped pre-dawn iron in middle school,

and that determination to bend life to your will,

with your deliberate, decisive, decision to let go?

The tenacious guardian of un-compromised,

single-minded belief,

stalked by merciless, unrelenting doubt.

Instinctive defender of the weak …..

Self appointed vanquisher of bullies everywhere,

who at times, expressed gruff indifference to

injustice’s inevitable tide.

How can I describe the joyful humor of your soul at play,

Eyes squeezed shut, head thrown back with laughter,

against the sullen refuge you took

to pursue your solitary path?

Rigid philosopher, unyielding on principal, stubborn with pride;

Rebuking the professor’s conventional notions,

Yet pausing in the hallway after class, listening intently to the

toothless cleaning man’s lecture on life.

How can I explain the fierce, warrior spirit; Bloodied knuckles

shattering boards, vowing no mercy, refusing captivity;

Against gentle hands that carried spiders outside,

rescuing them from my certain slaughter.

The large-eyed, serious child, struggling to keep up in class,

with the eloquent, earnest young man, holding assemblies

at rapt attention, master of complexity, advisor to

knowledge seekers twice your age.

How can I recapture visions of you focused in serine, lotus pose;

collapsing time into stillness.

The disciplined practitioner of patient meditation,

who could not wait?

How can I make sense to them of you,

reconcile your discordant edges;

fix you neatly in their box ?

My Beloved Paradox,

Seamless convergence of disparate things.

Wise and Naïve,

Proud and Humble,

Faithful and Questioning,

Steadfast and Changing,

Middle aged at 12 years old.

I grow impatient with explaining.

But I will speak your likeness to life.

For marvels are hard to envision,

but they are worthy to be known.

Forever,

You Mother
09/07