It is my wish, as a Survivor myself, to attempt to help initiate a change in the way suicide is handled, not only for those who have lost someone, but also for those who are contemplating the act.  And contemplation sometimes can be unpredictable at best.  It is my hope that the field of Art Therapy will one day have a specialized program for those wanting to focus on reaching out to the suicidal and those devastated by its wake.  One of the more recognized authors in the field of Art and its critical relevance to healing of the soul is Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, in which she says "it is one of the world's best kept secrets that art makes people sane and happy.  When asked about how the creativity exercises in her book could be viewed as a form of therapy ( Full interview with Samuel Bercholz, Shambhala Sun, May 1998 ) she responded:

My books are taught by a myriad of therapists.  What they have found is that if they can heal their clients' creativity, neurosis disappears.  This is why they all love this approach, and why therapists facilitate artists' circles all the time.

In my eyes, art therapy can be any activity that is freeing to the soul.  It doesn't have a limit of media, and there are no specific rules.  It is something that can be done to remember the lost loved one, to remember our own self, to express anger, to express the terror within.  For me, it was difficult to even think of taking up a ball of clay and sculpting, or to pull Michaels' and my wheel out and throw some pottery.  That feeling is passing, although in some ways I feel that I've been able to sculpt out of desperation, as if my soul is crying out for something to hold onto.  What I am trying to say is that it may not feel right at all, for a long time after the suicide, to even tap into a lost creativity.  That is okay.  I am at just over a year since Michaels' passing, and the urge to find something to express what is within has just recently come about, dormant for an entire year filled with numbness.  I have felt like this is the only thing that will keep me alive at times.  This purpose.  For myself and for others.

I have climbed my way up my therapists' stairs many, many times in the last year, and although I think she is a great person, a huge and kind soul, there was a point where I felt the talk was not leading to anything more but me trying to find answers where there were none.  And so I stopped going.  I felt like I was trying to find the reasons that left with Michael, have them fleshed out and proven to me, explained like an illogical algorithm.  I wanted so much to have that talk bring him back, that dialogue that just may raise him to his feet again, as before.  I was totally unrealistic deep down, and my expectations placed upon my good therapist were inhuman.  I guess now I see it is something that I must raise within myself.

Another excerpt from the Cameron interview:
 

My feeling is that we are exhausted with talk therapy.  Because The Artist's Way is experiential, it brings people back into their bodies and their hearts...when we are creative we become happier, more stable, more user-friendly.  We have this image of writers as grumpy curmudgeons.  Well, when they're blocked they are, but a writer who's writing is usually festive, even if it's secretly festive, person.  A lot of what I teach is playing.  I think that as we become more light, we take our ideas more seriously.
 

After my mother died, my father was mired in his own pain and numbed it with drinking.  I drew him in a stupor in front of the television with a venom I didn't recognize at the time.  At home on a school vacation, I recorded on paper what we all denied, that loss overshadowed our lives.  How long ago did I lose my father?  The drawing allows me to see feelings but is not at all sufficient to resolve them.

I begin to build up the features, and a face takes shape, his face.  I am crying as I work, tears beading up on the oily surface of the plasticene.  Suddenly I am a baby, exploring his face with tiny fingers, he is dancing me around the kitchen and singing a silly, bouncy tune to make me laugh.  It is a body memory of complete trust.  I see him though infants' eyes and feel overwhelming love.  Was he conscious of that?  Did he ever know how unconditional, how total my love for him had been?  I didn't know until I rediscovered it in that moment with my hands on the clay mask of his face.

Working in the clay absorbs me.  I enter my feelings so intensely that past and present merge.  I feel aching loss.
 
 

I do not know how I am going to be able to be a part of art therapy for suicide survivors, since my "education" is baccalaureated in a "different" field.  I am low on energy but this is the one thing that I feel will help me to help others and myself, to help Michael and our memory, in the past and in the future, because I feel us moving onwards together.

I would encourage anyone who is interested in this to email me.  I have noticed that our world needs art therapy specifically for this area: surviving suicide.  I tried to find some resources on the Web pertaining exactly to the latter, but I've had no luck as of yet.  Maybe I should start something.  But I'm going to need help.