Rough Holidays, Forgiveness, I'm Blabbering.

I’m not usually one who puts together a blog or a forum posting about a topic such as this, nor am I one who usually sits around a chats about most of my personal issues as I’m not one of those people who strive for attention or the kind that merely wishes for others to feel sorry for them but there are times when it just feels better to speak and get things off your chest. This is one of them moments.

I’ve spent a bit of time reading through the threads that have popped up regarding suicide, and have read what appears to be the most heartless of words being uttered and at the same time reading what can only be described as poetic heartfelt responses as well. To those who have put their hearts into their posts you have my respect.

I joined LPSG during August of this year, and shortly after I joined my older brother felt the need to take his own life. I’ve had very mixed feelings about it, anger for him being selfish enough to do so, pity for him being at a point in his life where he felt it was the only way out and even a brief moment of happiness knowing that he no longer suffers the troubles that led him to do what he felt he had to do.

The holiday seasons quickly approach us, and I know that it’s going to be a rough two months, this being the first Thanksgiving and Christmas that he’ll not be with us. Even Halloween was rough as he and I use to have so much fun trying to see who could roll the others house the best. A memory that even as I type this in my blog, it brings a smile to my face.

Most seem to look at me at times as if I’m a heartless bastard, because I deal with my own pain differently than most. I don’t try to kid myself into believing that it didn’t happen, I don’t sit around crying day after day, I’m just a firm believer that life goes on and we have to live our own lives to the fullest and that we can’t try to live the lives of those who have moved on. That and I tend to envelop myself in my work while my thoughts wage a war against themselves in my head. I guess I’m fairly transparent to some, as even some of my new friends that I have met here on this site say they can tell a difference in me I myself don’t see it.

Anyways, there was of course a huge investigation that took place, as my brother’s wife was in the room when he did it, but oddly enough her stories never matched and changed depending on who she was telling, though I guess that could have just been from the traumatic experience of witnessing what she did. As the days turned to weeks, it was leaked to me by a friend who works for the police department that there was a suicide note, something that none of us were made aware of. Apparently, my brother’s wife had ripped it out of a journal that he had kept and if it weren’t for my brother being the type that bears down on when writing the police would not have made out the indention of the word suicide on the page beneath it.

So they of course questioned my sister in law; and reluctantly she handed over the suicide note, or so they thought. After they read the words and compared it to the writings in the journal they quickly accessed that the note was not written by my bother and it was in fact hers. She had given them the wrong note, and when confronted again admitted that they had planned a Romeo and Juliet double suicide and after he had shot himself she couldn’t go through with it.

Now the question that rages through my mind is, "How do I look at her"? Yes, most of us were ignorant of the fact that he was as unhappy as he was, but her, she knew, they planned it together – could she have stopped him from doing it? Could she have told someone and them try to pull him from the slump? Basically, could she have saved him? I haven’t been able to answer this question, and most likely never will but as the holidays approach, most members of my immediate family look at me with a distasteful look because even though I’ll never be able to answer the question above, I forgave her. I’ll never know what went through either of their minds, as I certainly know that I’ll never be able to believe anything that she says after all of the lies that we were told while he was on life support at the hospital, but in my heart I knew that holding a spiteful grudge is not how to live my life. I’ve never been good at holding grudges, because I feel that people who are holding grudges are not doing anything but hurting themselves because the person that they’re holding the grudge against isn’t usually having any problems sleeping at night. So, forgive and move on.

Ok, I’m done, thanks for being a ear and please do not respond with comments of pity, as I’m not looking for any, I just had to get these words out of my head before it exploded.

Comments

Oh my god!

I lost my older brother over twenty years ago. I had stopped him from committing suicide one time, another time he was found and had his stomach pumped, but the time he succeeded he was too far away to save.

If I were you, I'd probably wanna shoot the sister in law, but I'd never do it simply because I know the pain that it would cause her family.

I just hope that they didn't have kids.

Do you have any other brothers or sisters, or was he it?
 
No pity, but I sure understand what you're saying. I have been seen as cold-hearted when voicing my opinion of a friend's suicide as selfish, and her choice, and none of us were in any way responsible for it. C'est la vie. Hell yes, it hurts, we miss people we care about no matter the manner of their leaving. But spare me the never ending dramatic grieving for someone who ultimately, thought only of herself. No more for me the 'what did I do wrong? What could I have done?" Nothing. Sucks, but its true.
My ex boyfriends 16 yr old daughter hung herself in the barn- for her GRANDPA to find when he went out to feed horses in the morning! I saw that family, generations of them- fall apart over her suicide- blaming themselves, blaming each other. Its so sad but angers me anyway.
anyway, off my soapbox! remember the good times, yeah, mind? Ultimately how you deal with this is a choice of yours, so make a good one.
and yeah, I do extend condolences all the same.:smile:
 
You'll get no pity from me mindfawk, though I hope you can handle a bit of compassion from those around you at some point. You do have my most heartfelt sympathy.

I'm with hotmilf. I may not have shot her; but I sure as hell would have shook your sister-in-law until her brain rattled around in her head. :mad:

I am impressed, and awestruck that you were able to reach the conclusion that forgiveness was what was needed so soon. I know it's the right thing to do for all the reasons you mentioned; but I still have a tendency to hold a grudge way too long. :frown1:
 
To hotmilf
He was my only brother, but I do have 5 sisters, all but one are half sisters.
Dad and previous marriage number 1.
- 1 daughter
Dad and previous marriage number 2.
- 1 daughter, 1 son
My dad's ex-wife and husband number 2.
- 1 daughter (not sister by blood so to speak, but we've always considered her our sister)
Mom and husband number 1.
- One daughter
My mom and dads marriage.
- Me and 1 daughter.

(Believe me, the thought had crossed my mind in regards to wishing harm on the sister in law during the midst of emotions that were pouring in.)
They didn't have children, but all together there's 7 nieces and 2 nephews and he was close to them all, they're all 9 years old and younger, with the youngest being almost two years old.

It was easier to forgive the sister in law than it was to forgive the rest of his immediate family. They chose such a childish road to travel down when it came time for the funeral. They refused to allow two of my sisters and myself to have anything to do with the funeral arrangements, and it was when the obituary was due to be printed that an ex-gf of mine who writes for the local paper called me saying that the paper had recieved the obituary from my brother's mom and wanted to tell me that they did not mention two of my sisters, myself, or even my dad as his father. I'm actually glad that she had called because she was kind enough to add us at my request and even on this day, my dad has no idea that they tried to not include him as his father in the obituary itself.

The day of the funeral came, and to everyones complete shock, except my own, it was only said that my brother had 2 sisters, 3 of them weren't mentioned, my dad wasn't mentioned as his father, and I wasn't mentioned as his brother. I don't know how I managed to keep my mouth closed during the funeral as I could feel more hate running through my head than I did when I was first told that they found a suicide note. At the close of the funeral, one of the sisters mentioned in the proceedings came up to me saying that she was sorry, but there wasn't anything that she could do and that it was a joint decision by their immediate family to do it as they did. Then the preacher who was speaking came around to introduce himself, and has he said his name and shook my hand I replied, "I'm the brother that you failed to mention". His response was, "Oh my Lord, you're the other boy". Never in my life have I ever said anything disrespectful to a church going man, especially not a preacher but I looked him right in the eye and said to him, "So you knew, and you still stood there and gave that bullshit sermon?" and with that I turned and walked off.

A few weeks went by, not speaking to that part of the family and I sat down and decided to write a letter to them, by the time it was finished, it was 3 pages long. (As you can tell from my blog postings I tend to rather wordy.) I won't go into a lot of detail about what I wrote, but I closed the letter stating that I forgive them, but it's not my forgiveness they should look for, but it's the forgiveness of our brother. I gave the letter to my grandmother and had her take it to them. She told me that she gave it to my oldest sister who read the letter, and then immediately ripped it to pieces. Afterwards, instead of calling me about it, she calls my dad saying that the reason he wasn't mentioned was because he left their family and decided to start a new family when he and her mom had divorced.

I know that there's a thread here on the forums that asks what people feel is the most incredible part of the human body and after this experience, I have to say that the most incredible part of the human body is the mind itself. Capable of so much love, so much hate, so much grief, the many emotions that we can feel from one small organ is just amazing.

To SassySpy
It's not the first suicide that I've had to deal with in my life, when I was a young kid my best friend, who was also my cousin hung himself in his bedroom, oddly enough it was in the same house that my brother ended his life in. I do feel that it is healthly to grieve, but I don't feel that it's healthy to grieve for extended periods - this is partly why some of my family have made comments to me that I seem a bit cold hearted.

To njgt466
Compassion is something that should never be turned away, by anyone. There's a huge difference between pity and compassion and while I did display compassion when forgiving my brothers wife, I pity her because it's a memory that she'll always have to life with.

Thanks goes out to everyone who has taken a moment to read through this blog, I know people don't come here wanting to read things of this nature but as I previously mentioned, it does the mind good to get these out and really helps release emotional baggage so to speak, so thanks for being my outlet.
 
That was really moving Mindfawk and you are a truly better man than I am. I tend to be all about forgiveness, but I don't know if I could forgive her as you had. I could overlook some of it, but not the lying and decieving. It's my suspicious nature. I do know I could not hate her either.

If nothing else friend, you have gone through the seven stages of grieving to a more advanced level than your family. With a suicide, most people get stuck on the "blame" phase and it's going to take you to lead by example to possibly get others to see the truth in your feelings.

Mindfawk, you are in our prayers.
 
First, how could I ever find one with whom I share the common bond of a phobia ever heartless? Second, the fact that you shared something that is so personal to you proves you are not! Thankyou for sharing, and no, you will not receive my pity either, but I do want to offer my sincerest sympathy. I have had to forgive some people for some pretty horrific things in my own life as well and I can honestly say it is the sane thing to do, because anger and hatred will only hold you down. Sometimes people seem to forget, or maybe just don't know, that forgiveness is not about forgetting or letting the violation just slip by ceasing to have it's consequence. Forgiveness is giving yourself the permission to go on and live your life to your best ability. You have a good heart; try to be patient with your family...they haven't come to the same conclusions as you have yet, but I hope they will.
 
hey dude
here's wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving full of fond memories of your loving brother - now at peace with himself in a better place.
take care
xx
 
Thanks everyone again for the comments.

To Osiris:
I always enjoy reading your responses to threads and blog entries here. You're always calm and polite, if you are offline as you are online you're definately the type of friend that I would want in my life.

To 36DD:
You make me laugh and your words are appreciated. Watch out for Chuckie!

To str8brad:
Thanks bud, always enjoy our talks and your words mean a lot. See ya sometime soon in the chatroom bro.

Thanksgiving day started off as a tough day, the tension in the air could have been cut with a dull spoon. Not a moment passed that I didn't think of my brother, my nieces and nephew got into a food fight at the kiddie table while eating snacks as they waited impatiently for the main course to be served which brought out a smile and a loud, deep laugh from me, thinking back to last Thanksgiving where my brother and I started our own food fight. My mom was yelling and griping, my sisters were looking at me like I was a mad man, asking what the hell I was laughing about.

Until that moment there had been no laughing and having fun, and I decided to do the same thing that my brother did to start a food fight amongst the adults in the kitchen last year. I stuck my hand in the bucket of half used cool whip and slung it at my older sister, it splattered on her mouth and chin and she just stood there with this really ticked off look on her face as she wiped off her face. My younger sister stood beside her and started laughing and with the cool whip in hand my older sister turned to her and smeared it across her face and the food fight was on.

My mother was throwing the biggest fit, though I can't blame her, we were making a mess of her kitchen. My dad came in to see what all the fuss was about and got hit in the cross fire of macaroni salad, cool whip and sliced peaches. He cracked a smile and walked over to my fuming mother, put an arm around her and then took a small portion of cranberry sauce and did nothing more than stick it to her forehead. It was at this time that my mother caught on to what had happened, because the cranberry sauce on the forehead is the same thing my brother did to her last year.

The silent tension turned into laughing and tears as the family began to speak about the good times that we have had in our lives, followed by embarassing moments that will haunt me until I leave this world. At the end of the day, it turned out to be a decent day. It was nice to see everyone laughing and smiling as many of them take mourning so seriously and as I've noted previously, they feel as though it's a disgrace on a persons memory to laugh during sad times. I myself, I feel as though the disgrace is not remembering.

Hope everyone else had a good Thanksgiving.
 
Good grief!

I'm utterly humbled by your strength to deal with this and your ability to forgive. You are an incredible man and I take my hat off to you and can only hope that I have a fraction of your qualities.

My sincere condolences to you but my congratulations too, for your stamina and for the food fight!! It was right for so many reasons and brought a lot of good... though I hope your mother made you clean it up :p

*hugs* mate ;)
In awe,
KK
 
Just a big long hug Mindfawk from your buddy BF2K. Never sure what to say in situations like this but you know I care and am there for you if you need me.
 

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