Letter

Letter to Shepherd Smith & Todd Bridges.

Suicide wreaks havoc. In any family. That kind of death destroys the sufferer and decimates those that are left. It obliterate lives. Stymies growth. Snuffs out the present. And the future. In the years after my brother's suicide,my family was stupefied with grief. Guilty. Debased by that action. Horrified. To die in a chair. By your own hand. Alone. It was probably not his first attempt. He was probably off his medication. 

My brother was schizophrenic. The ravages of his illness cannot be imagined. The voices. The screams. The terrifying visions. The day we cleared out his apartment will never leave me. The boxes of his belongings. The sum total of his life. The endless haunting narrative of - If only I wasn't away, I could have stopped him, Why didn't he say something? 

Useless. Mawkish. Arrogant even. The living have no right to the dead. Especially with that kind of pressure. I had no right to my brother. He had his peace. He got himself there. When it became too much. 

Years later the writer, Sarah Kane, committed suicide. A depressive. I was in her writing group at Paines Plough. A startling artist. Uncompromising. Prescient. Fused by bleak poetry. Culled by illness. And now Robin Williams. A comic master. Prolific. World famous but unravelled. By illness. By alcohol. By demons at his door. Terrorised. Driven to distraction. Battered. But with enough gall to create himself a noose. In his own home. And hang. 

All three not selfish. But unimaginably gifted. And brave. 

"Let's shut down the higher functions of my brain and perhaps I'll be a bit more fucking capable of living." 

Sarah Kane.

Comments

PAIN/SUFFERING

I'VE BEEN TO THE SAME HEART/MIND PLACE AS URE GRIEF. SHOULD U STILL BE CONSUMED WITH THIS , I HAVE A HAMMER&CHISEL TO RELEASE IT---TAIAN

Posted by taian

The photo for this post was taken by Elly Clarke

http://www.ellyclarkephotography.co.uk/home.html

Posted by rumchester

Wow, this is so powerful! Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. <3

Posted by Death Cafe St. Joe/ Megan Mooney

Thank you

I am sorry for your pain and grateful for your sharing what has come out of it.

Posted by Nancy Glidden