A September Song
/September has long been one of my favorites months.
There was a time, when I was raising my five children when the trees were heavy with fruit waiting to be harvested and to be preserved.
September days were filled with making breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
picking fruit and canning it,
picking tomatoes and canning them, and
caring for five children born in a span of ten years.
September was a happy, busy time.
There was a time in September, when I would walk out onto the back deck of our home and I could smell the fall air rich with the smell of grapes ready to harvested.
The air had cooled, and the first light frost would have set the flavors in the grapes.
Now it was time to make grape juice and grape jelly.
Julie & Sally harvesting grapes.
Once heated, the grapes were crushed, and soon I would make sweet tasting grape juice and grape jelly.
Now, September bring reminders of crushing grief.September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month
September reminds this mom that she now has an awareness that she never could have imagined all those Septembers ago when days were filled with so much happy activity.
If September were a song ,
a verse has been added to my September song that I didn't see coming.
At the beginning of summer, on Memorial Day Weekend, eleven years ago, my beautiful Julie died by suicide.
The first night I returned home after my daughter's suicide, I wondered how I would make it.
I no longer understood anything about my life.
My past made no sense.
My future...well, I couldn't even foresee a future because I was trying to make sense of the present.
I no longer knew who I was.
““Catastrophic loss is like undergoing a loss of our identity.” ”
Nothing about my life,
nor any understanding of who I was,
made any sense to me in the days just after my daughter’s death.
The words in the song of my life had been altered.
The happy tune I’d always sung was now a dirge.
A new verse to my song of life had been written.
It was a lament.
The song, this verse I kept singing over and over was
discordant
and out of
rhythm
with all the rest of the songs of my past.
For nearly the full first week after my daughter’s death, I was surrounded by family. My children and grandchildren all cloistered together at the home of one of my daughters. Here, sheltered from the outside world, shell-shocked, stunned by the shock of losing our dearly loved sister, aunt, daughter, friend, in such an unexpected and devastating way, we somehow simultaneously held on to each other and held each other together. There were arrangements to be made, decisions to make, breakfast, lunch, and dinner to make for our large group. It was a time of togetherness when family love and devotion became the glue that truly kept us as individuals and as a group from shattering into a million little pieces. As mom, I found myself both being protected by my large tribe and acting as the protector for the tribe and for each member of it.
Then I had to go home and face the rest of my life.Climbing into my bed that first night after I returned home,
I was too numb to fathom how
I would get up and live the next morning.
A friend had given me a book at the service we held for my daughter. It was more a picture book than a story book. Pictures I could look at. Words I could not read. I picked up the book and began to glance at the back cover. On it I read these words:
“Thank you, Lord, for all that I learn from my brokenness, for the courage it takes to live with my pain, and for the strength it takes to remain on the shore.”
The story, the pictures, spoke to me. I had never felt so broken, and I did not know how one could find beauty in brokenness. Yet, somehow, my shattered soul, was comforted by this book, and this scripture from the Psalms.
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;
and those who are crushed in spirit He saves.”
Since those days when I first lost my daughter to suicide,
a new verse has been added to of my September song.
It has been added to the verses that speak of loss, remembrance, and broken hearts.
This verse in my song is sung every September when I am reminded that it is once again
Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month.
I am a suicide survivor.
In the beginning of my journey as the mother of one who has completed suicide, I did not know that I would have a new title: suicide survivor. This term is applied to family members or close friends of a person who has died by suicide.
Now, by sharing my story, I hope to bring hope to other survivors of suicide.
In time, the pain of brokenness became less devastating.
I began to hold both brokenness and beauty together.
Integration of loss and newness began to take place.
For me, this verse of my September song, does not end in hopelessness.
It ends in hope and healing.
Despite the verse in my song that I did not want included,
there is a refrain that is repeated throughout the song of my life.
This refrain speaks of
joy,
hope,
healing,
and of the faithfulness of God,
who now holds my sweet Julie in His arms
and comforts me with His presence.
He sends me
people,
so many wonderful people,
who have loved and supported me and my family.
This is my September song.
It is a beautiful song because it speaks of love.
A mother's song always begins and ends with love.
Julie & Mom celebrating Julie’s college graduation.
