2 months. 8 weeks. 60 days. 1,440 hours. 86,400 minutes.
I’d love to say that sixty days has given me peace, or hope, or comfort... but the truth is, I still feel just as broken as the night he took his life. I knew before I was ever even told that he killed himself that he was gone... I FELT it. I just KNEW.
I see his face in strangers, I hear and see his name in the most unexpected places.
It wasn’t always easy with Josh, and I’m learning that that’s ok. If it was an easy relationship with him, then you didn’t even really know him. If it was happy, rainbows and sunshine, and he was “the one” then you only knew him on a very surface level.
It takes a lot for me to say that. A lot of guts to speak truth about his life, his suicide, and his relationships.
Isn’t it usually after someone is gone that you are supposed to only remember the good? Seems like suicide isn’t like that. It’s complicated grief. It’s feeling mad AND sad. It’s feeling confused AND having clarity. It’s missing him AND being mad that you’re left to clean up his mess.
Suicide is the dirty little AND of life.
It wasn’t always easy, but I loved him. His Mother, who birthed him, loved him. His wife loved him. His daughters loved him. So many people loved him and that makes me happy.
I do remember the good times and good memories, but I also remember the not so great times too. Because that WAS reality. It doesn’t make him a bad person, not in the slightest, but it makes him a real person. And it’s OK to talk about the not-so-great times too. I don’t focus on the good or the bad, I take the memories as they come.
This isn’t an easy road. Emotions are complicated and complex without the aspect of suicide. Add that in and it’s a recipe for disaster.
I’d love to have simple grief and remember him for being an amazing, giving, loving, caring and tender-hearted person... and I can, and do, in some instances. But there’s also another part of him that I saw and remember too. I’m jealous of the people who knew him on a very surface level... it seems like they knew a less complicated person than I did. And if I’m being honest, I really just want this process to be less complicated. I want to just be able to grieve and be sad and work through it.
Frustration is a part of this I’m told, especially with complicated grief. I’m learning to accept that and just go with my feelings... to feel them, lean into them and move forward. But it’s hard.
It’s hard to remember only the good when you’re clouded by the bad too.
I know that Josh wouldn’t want me to only talk about the good though... that’s the weird part. I know he’d want me to talk about the truth and to share our (his and mine) story with others and maybe make a difference in someone else’s life, somehow. So, I’ll continue to speak truth and tell our story, how we lived it. And if people in his life wanted me to write more warmly about them, then perhaps they should have behaved better.
Josh, I talk to you all the time and think about you constantly. I hope you’re in a place where you can heal and become whole again. I hope you see your life with clarity and know how much and well you were loved, in all types of ways. I miss you, every single day. I love you brother.
Comments