Loren's Goodbye, with love..

Eulogies for people I love are difficult.. but here is what I said tonight:

I just hate this place.  Not this place….. but *this* place.  This place of total disbelief, of profound and mind numbing sadness, of  anger and a million questions that we will never get answers to.  When I met Lisa and Loren I knew we’d be great friends, and we were. I fell in love with this whole family.  Lisa, Loren, Travis and Alec, even your crazy dogs.  I loved hanging out at your house because it was such a wonderful, chaotic loving home.  Not perfect, but wonderful nonetheless.    It breaks my heart to be here, and it hurts to know that someone who was so laid back, and fun loving, and awesome as Loren was would do such a thing. And I hate that I know exactly how you feel, because my Mom did the same thing a year ago. It’s a strange journey you have ahead of you, a roller coaster of emotion, and missing, and wondering what you, what any of us, could have done to change his mind. I can’t tell you that, I can’t tell you about his past, his pain, his secrets, his demons, or his fears because that’s not the kind of guy he was. His therapist was his Harley,  he’d just get on it and ride.  What I CAN tell you is that he adored you Lisa, he adored Travis and Alec, and his face would light up when he spoke of you. I hope you realize that he would never do this because of you, he simply lost his way and made a terrible, terrible choice..  And to be honest I hope my Mom in Heaven  punches him square in the throat and tells him so. 

  All of us bear scars from wounds we keep from others, fear and shame that we hide and feed on when we feel less. We’re all faulted, and sometimes people fall under a momentary spell that they don’t matter enough, that they’re not good enough, that they’re not strong enough to deal with the obstacles they face. Depression is a liar, and it tells them that the best way  to improve the situation is to remove themselves from it.  They don’t realize the deep and wide-reaching love that’s all around them.  I hope you never forget how important YOU are, how loved YOU are, how very much you matter.

He hugged me so tightly  when I was broken, he cared about the people in his life. He was kind, and genuine, and I miss him more than these words, as I know you do. Please don’t let what he did become more powerful in your memory than who he was.   This desperate horrible choice was not his legacy. YOU are. He loved you, and love is always louder. Always. 

The Fog That Follows

I remember in excruciating, vivid detail the day I was told my Mom had taken her own life. It began a strange and scary journey, of trying to make sense of something that simply never would make sense.   The weeks, that followed, however, I don't remember so much.  Actually, for a full year I felt like I was on auto pilot, laughing maniacally one minute, sobbing the next.  Some days I simply did not have the will, the energy, to leave my bed.  The one year anniversary of her death was a turning point for me, and I made a conscious decision that I did not want to live that way for one more minute, that I had to get out of "that place".  I didn't want how she died to be bigger than who she was, didn't want to injure myself with her memory. 

Maneuvering through difficult times is a lot like driving through dense fog. You can’t always see where you’re going, you feel a little lost, you want to turn back, and every mile feels like forever. Yet, scared or fatigued as you might be, there’s nothing you can do but breathe, focus on the road ahead, keep moving forward, and trust that a force with keener vision than yours is out there functioning as your guide. You learn to look for ways to help yourself, and for me that meant learning about depression, raising awareness, and reaching out to others who find themselves in that horrible place as they begin their journey. There are resources out there, there are others who are also trying to find their way.  I'll never give up, and I'll never give in, and I'll never stop trying to prevent it from happening to you, my friends.  Peace.