Anyone close to Josh can probably think back and remember exactly where they were, what they were doing and what they felt upon hearing the tragic news.
Death, grief, sorrow, pain, heartache, memories, living with loss, living in spite of loss are very difficult to navigate early on and even six years later. Emotions are unpredictable as I do not know how I will feel or react today. I know there is numbness as last night, I heard of another teenage suicide in our area which could've put me in a tailspin but instead, I felt nothing except sorrow for the grieving family.
I want to share another "blessing" from John O'Donohue's book, To Bless The Space Between Us which has been a recent source of comfort to me.
For The Family and Friends of a Suicide
by John O'Donohue
As you huddle around the torn silence,
Each by this lonely deed exiled,
To a solitary confinement of soul,
May some small glow from what has been lost
Return like the kindness of candlelight.
As your eyes strain to sift
This sudden wall of dark
And no one can say why
In such a forsaken, secret way,
This death was sent for...
May one of the lovely hours
Of memory return
Like a field of ease
Among these graveled days.
May the Angel of Wisdom
Enter this ruin of absence
And guide your minds
To receive this bitter chalice
So that you do not damage yourselves
By attending only at the hungry alter
Of regret and anger and guilt.
May you be given some inkling
That there could be something else at work
And that what to you now seems
Dark, destructive, and forlorn,
Might be a destiny that looks different
From inside the eternal script.
May vision be granted to you
To see this with the eyes of providence.
May your loss become a sanctuary
Where new presence will dwell
To refine and enrich
The rest of your life
With courage and compassion.
And may your lost loved one
Enter into the beauty of eternal tranquility,
In that place where there is no more sorrow
Or separation or mourning or tears.
RIP Josh
January 16, 1992 - March 18, 2009
