For me, being a survivor has made me a reluctant participant/observer in my own inner struggle between wanting that to be the most important fact of my life and wanting it to be the least important. -Edward Dunne
After Lauren’s suicide, I repeatedly scrutinized the events leading up to it, turning every fact I could unearth on every side possible.
No matter how many times I rewrote the script, Lauren always died.
The dreams I have sometimes come as bad dreams. Lauren and I end up fighting. Yet somehow we know she’s back from the dead. We ask many questions such as, why are you here? Why did you do that? How could you have left us? And even in my dreams, there are no answers.
Looking back, do I know the exact moment when I lost Lauren? Was it when she told me she would write me back on Monday-the day she died? Was it when I spoke with her on the telephone the day before? Was it when she told me that she never wanted to have children to pass what she had on. She was scared to get married because she didn’t want to burden someone else with her problems. Was it when she made a peace offering with me? A promise that neither one of us would hurt ourselves again?
That makes me angry. That’s something I’ve held onto all this time. She promised me. And she broke that promise. I have every right and reason to be upset.. But how can I be mad at someone who is dead? Looking back I’m sure everything about her death was planned when she made that promise. She wanted to act normal. She didn’t want to raise any flags.
What hurts a lot is the pain I know she was going through. I’ve been through the same pain myself. But to that extent? I don’t know. On the last phone call with me she cried. After she died a neighbor of hers told us that they saw her on her apartment steps crying the night before. I want so badly to go back and be there with her. Loving her like I should have, hugging her, letting her cry on my shoulders.
Was there a different moment for each person of my family? A moment when they knew they lost her? Looking back? The thing with suicide is that not only is every suicide different, but everybody affected by the suicide is affected differently. My parents, my brother, her friends, the rest of her family–we all loved her so much. But each one of us has had such a different grieving experience. We all had different kinds of relationships with her. It’s only normal, and yet it makes grieving harder because there really isn’t one person that understands exactly what you’re going through.
Afterwards was the weirdest. That’s not a good word, but I can’t find a better one. We all saw to what extent she had planned all of it. She had completely cleaned her apartment. She had taken out her trash so we wouldn’t see anything she didn’t want us to. She got rid of her journals. She cleaned her computer. What a courtesy..? Should we have felt..thankful? Or more angry because she hid so many things that could have been answers.
Although there never is a real answer is there? We will never get our loved ones back.