Grace Over Guilt

Dear Parent,

There are no words to tell you how sorry I am for your loss. The greatest gift you were ever given has left this earth and you don't know why. Your child died by suicide and the questions you are left with are hard ones. They are questions with no easy answers.

But here's the hardest part of your story.....

Many times, those are questions with no answers. But you still lay awake at night trying to find some. In fact, many of you have probably not had a good night's sleep since your son or daughter took their own life. I get that. I really do.

So you lay awake staring at the ceiling and trying to find the answers. Like a complicated puzzle with a thousand pieces. The one piece you need to finish the puzzle will always be missing. So you leave the puzzle on the table with that piece missing as a reminder that you missed something. You walk by it every day and sometimes several times a day trying to figure out what happened to that piece. If you could just find that missing piece then everything else would make sense and you could move on with your life.....

What did you miss? What could you have done differently to save their life? If only you had come home earlier or asked the questions that you were afraid to ask. If only you had driven by their apartment to check on them or texted them one more time. If only.....If only...

The "Woulda Coulda Shoulda's" are a bottomless pit. I speak from so much hard earned experience. They can rob us of our energy and put us in place of guilt and shame. They can make us feel like we're not worthy of ever feeling joy or happiness again.

But here's a few things that I've learned from my own experience that I want to share with you. As a gift waiting to be opened. I hope these words are comforting and and make some sense to even just a few of you who might happen to stumble upon this article.

Your son or daughter did not take their own life because you were a bad parent. It's just not that simple. You don't get to take credit for every good thing that happened in their life and you also didn't create every hardship. You are also not responsible for the fact that in a moment of despair, they made a choice that ended their life. The truth is that most parents are doing the best they can with the resources they have available to them. Your kids did not come with an instruction manual that says....."Be prepared for addiction by the age of 14 years old and when you see these signs then please be sure to admit him to a treatment program" or what about this one..... "She will be dealing with an eating disorder by age 12 and you will need to contact Dr. Smith for therapy by age 10." It just doesn't work that way.

As parents, we are thrown curveballs and we do our best to navigate through these with the least amount of damage to the entire family. Sometimes we make mistakes and look back and realize that we should have recognized the pain our child was going through. But repeat after me. Your child did not die by suicide because you intentionally missed a warning sign or wanted them to suffer. They died by suicide because their brain was overwhelmed by circumstances and in that split second moment, all they wanted to do was stop their pain.

Here's the part where I want to honor your story. I realize everyone has different circumstances surrounding the death of their child. I've sat with dozens of families over the past five years. I've heard hundreds of stories and no two are alike. Some involve addiction, others life long mental illness, then there are others that hit you out of the blue and you never saw it coming. It doesn't matter. You loved your son or daughter and if you could go back in time and change anything to keep them here, then you would do that in a heartbeat. We all would. But that missing puzzle piece keeps gnawing away at your heart and your mind. That's the part, you have to make peace with.

Over the past few months, so many of you have reached out to me and shared the details of your story. I truly wish I could sit beside each of you and just be there to listen. Here's what I would say after I gave you a huge hug. You will never get over losing your son or daughter to suicide, but you can move forward with time and space and most of all forgiveness. Let yourself begin to understand that your son or daughter didn't try to end their pain so you could live in it forever. You are allowed to give yourself the grace to say, "I did the best I could with what I had available at that time."

Then maybe you can find peace with that missing piece.

Wishing you grace and strength in the days to come.....

Leslie Weirich