Mother's Day

Today is Mother’s Day—my Mom’s first Mother’s Day without Mike.

Losing Mike has been the worst thing that has happened in my life so far—the most difficult death, the most intense grief.  Losing a sibling, however, could not be anything like losing a child.  I think of what my Mom must be feeling—my grief times a thousand.  Not that one can quantify or compare these things. 

As a mother myself, the idea of losing my daughter is the most frightening thing I could imagine.  I’ve said that I would give anything to have my brother back, but of course that’s not completely accurate.  If anything happened to my daughter, it would completely destroy me.  And yet, here are my parents, walking through their worst nightmare.  Since I was adopted, Mike was their only biological child.  I wonder if that makes the loss even harder.  I think that would be hard for me.  You create this beautiful baby who is always a part of you, and then he’s gone.  You give him life, and then he takes that life away.

I don’t think Mike thought through what his death would do to our parents.  He loved Mom and Dad very much—“more than you will ever know,” as he put it in his suicide note.)  Occasionally I feel anger toward him about how selfish he was for doing this to our parents, but those thoughts never make it very far.  He could not see past his own pain, and I really don’t blame him for that.  If anything, I get angry at him for not taking his meds, but that was likely a symptom of the depression as well.  The whole situation was just tragic and sad.

Through this grief journey I have been meeting other survivors of suicide along the way.  Some have lost their children to suicide, while others have lost their siblings, their partners, their friends, or their parents.

Tonight I am sending love to all of the mothers who have lost their children, and to all of the children who have lost their mothers.