World Suicide Prevention Day

This year, I felt compelled to blog on World Suicide Prevention Day, which is today, September 10, 2016. Some of you may not know, but last year my 24 year old brother took his own life. It's been a long road, with still a ways to go but I've learned a lot through the process. I feel it is my duty to share it, especially on days like today.

The most important lesson that my brother's suicide taught me is to not play the blame game. It's nobody's fault; not mine, not my family, not his friends, not even his. He couldn't cope with the way his life was going, didn't see it turning a corner at all, and decided to check out. That seems cut and dry when you take all of the emotions out of it, but it is the bottom line. He also, on a deeply emotional level, has missed my father dearly since his own passing in 2009, just before my brother turned 18. So I really feel he wanted to be reunited with our dad.

Another lesson that my brother's suicide taught me is to live my life with him in mind every single day. It's taught me to take each breath and each moment for him, for those he no longer takes in physical form. I never take one single breath for granted (yes, that's a quote from "I Hope You Dance" by Lee Ann Womack). I never usually sweat the small stuff by nature, but in the last years of my brother's life, looking at anything I go through is a cake walk in comparison to what his life was like and the struggles he had. I have zero cause for complaint.

If there's anything I can say to anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide, it's that a loss is a loss. We can say all we want that it would have been easier to lose them this way or that way, but no loss is ever easy. And we can never change how it's already happened. All we can do now is regretfully accept the things we cannot change and honor them by remembering the person they were and are now again in heaven, the person behind the struggles and look at every person struggling with depression, addiction, thoughts of suicide, with the compassion to reach out and help them and their loved ones. It may or may not save a life, but (at the very least) the world could always use more love and compassion.