In Loving Memory... reflections on suicide, part one

The doorbell rang and I answered. Outside stood two very proper policemen, asking if I was Lotta Larsson. I said yes, that is me.

I knew.

I knew without any doubt that my friend, whom I had not been able to reach for the last few days, was dead… and I knew he had made a conscious choice to leave. 

… and I was furious!

How dare you leave without allowing me to say goodbye!

I wasn’t angry that he had killed himself. I was angry that he had not let Me, say goodbye.

In an all-knowing instance, I saw it all... right there and then, with the policemen still standing outside my apartment door. It was not a linear knowing, one thing after the other. It was more like a hologram, where everything is known in an instance, one moment of time. 

I saw all our intimate conversations over the last year... the choices and the stories. All of a sudden it was obvious that he had been planning this for well over a year. All the signs had been there. We had even “talked” about it… he had of course been aware… I had “known” without wanting to know… oh my God, how obvious it was now.

I was so angry with him. No, wait… I was angry with me. 

How could I not have seen this?

I let the policemen in and they gently told me that my friend had driven into the woods, found a secluded place and gassed himself in his car, the car that he bought from my pappa (dad). For some reason they found it important to inform me, that this is one of the most painful ways to die. Maybe I asked. I don’t remember. I probably did… had he suffered? 

My friend had left a note saying I was his closest “next of kin”. Yes, that was how close we were. I loved him deeply… a unique human being, so gifted, so troubled. 

He was my best friend, like a brother or a soul partner, without the compulsions of the flesh. My friend was gay… or bi as he would say, even though I never saw the bi aspect of him. I would gladly have married him anyway… well, maybe not… but I did love him like no one else.

The policemen shared that the body had been taken to a specific hospital for all the routine procedures to be performed in cases like this. I needed to pick up the car at such and such location, before such and such a date. And off they went.

Silence. Emptiness. Anger. Confusion…. Peace & Love. Peace? Love ? 

Yes… Peace & Love. How strange.

My friend and I had lived together and we shared custody of a our cat, Monstret (the monster… I know, I know… sounds horrible, but it was a name filled with love). 

Monstret was with me that day. I had noticed him looking around the last couple of days… but this night it was different, so clear – he was perceiving something in my living room.

And then it was clear to me as well!

My friend was right there. I could feel him, “see” him and definitively hear him.

We spent the next few hours reminiscing together. It was more real than my communication with you, here and now. He was there, in my living room, with me, having a conversation like we had done so many times before… laughing, crying, remembering, loving… even making plans and agreements.

I shared my frustration with him having left without letting me say goodbye. I respected his choices always; I knew, he knew I would never have tried to stop him… so why would he not tell me. Oh, how self absorbed we can be! 

His choice of not sharing had nothing to do with me… of course. He could not share, because he knew, that even if I would always respect his decisions, I would still be saddened by his choice. And he knew that he would not be able to stand seeing me sad… then he would change his mind…and he did not want to change his mind. My heart flooded with love, compassion - and gratitude. 

Yes, I was sad to loose my friend in physical form. But I knew his struggles; I knew his pains – physical as well as emotional. I knew his tremendous spiritual awareness and ability to make his own choices. Who was I to judge?

Little did I know that my friends suicide would eventually reveal my own deep desire to “go home’, and along with that, also the other side of the coin… an even deeper desire to live fully. A new journey was bout to begin for me.. one that would eventually take me around the world. 

I know my friend had his own reasons for the choice he made. But his choice was also an instrumental part in my own awakening… in a way, his choice set me free, catapulted me into making new choices and decisions, I most likely would not have done otherwise. As painful as it was, his suicide turned out to be a tremendous gift for me. But then, I’ve always chosen to see everything as an opportunity for growth. 

Thank you my dear friend for the gift of having shared this journey with you. 

But even more so, for your gift of death, and the insights, growth and awareness’ offered to all of us who loved you deeply. 

You are always in my heart and I love you dearly.

Lotta

Eva Charlotte

www.evacharlotte.com