Emerging Courageous Online Magazine

Emerging Courageous Online Magazine - Stories

The Reality of Suicide by Donna Wallace

The GOD has granted me this visit to your world. It once was mine. GOD wants me to deliver a message to everyone who lives here. Everyone. Even those who are too busy, too sad, or even too depressed to listen. Please...just listen.

I took my own life 20 long years ago. You know - suicide. I remember well - when, how, and why. I felt there was no choice - it was the only way to end my suffering, my pain. My life was filled with never ending crisis, hurting me, and those I loved. I wanted to spare my family from any more pain and heartache. But I continued hurting them, just as I was hurting, year, after year, after unending year.

I was warned not to take my own life - on many occasions. I had warned others. I never knew though, what I know now. I have returned - granted a temporary break from my personal Hell, in order to spare you from what has happened to me. My story is true, and it really happened. It happens every single day - repeatedly. All of the Heavenly Hosts beg you to listen, and hear, and please, above all - BELIEVE. You must believe . . . so you can know.

The past 20 years have been a constant, endless tortured "existence" for me. An eternity that has passed in a moment of time. See my face? None of you will recognize the vision it once held. Loveliness, peacefulness, a contented smile . . . that was me while I was alive. Even if you recognize my name, you will not be able to recognize even a memory of what I used to be. Misery has eaten my flesh. Tortured screams - etched lines of horror and fear on every inch of skin.

There is a special place for the weak of souls who take their lives before God decides it is their time. These poor souls who decided they could not stand the pain any longer, to face the future, and unable to handle troubles guaranteed to be in every lifetime. Those confused souls who believed that their death would spare their loved ones pain, and tears. The ones who were too weak to fight any longer, too afraid to battle their demons and to demand that they would win.

I returned a very short time ago, and this is what I found.

My mother: Grossly overweight. Morbidly obese. In denial, I tell myself it can't be my mom. She was never overweight, and she was always so perfect...Her hair is now different shades of gray, and falls in a tumbled, unkempt, oily, swirl around her face. A face, once beautiful, and laughing, now filled with agony and tears. I overhear her tell my aunt that since my sudden death, she felt so empty, isolated, pain filled. That she kept trying to fill void...with food, alcohol, every drug she could find. Nothing helped. Not even for a second - nothing even temporarily filled, the bottomless pit of agony and despair. She cried how the memories of her little "Angel" were all so very painful and heavy now. "Oh mom," I cry, "You still think of me as your little special angel." "Mom - mom," I reach out to her as I cry a sudden cry of a broken hearted, wounded child. "Oh my dear, sweet mom, is it the grievous memories of my death making you so heavy and misshapen now?" I watched as they held each other, and shared heart wrenching soul destroying sobs. Crying how she continually, and desperately tries, in vain, to fill the bottomless pit of misery. The good old days - because of me - forever gone.....

I thought the memories would be kinder by now. Gentler. I believed she would be better off with me gone. She would soon forget - her life would go on,and she would share her musical special gift of laughter with the world. I honestly believed that she would have happier memories to carry with her - laughter, and good times. I didn't understand that it was that one last, horrible, unforgivable memory of me - cheating myself of life and miracles, that would haunt her the rest of her days. And loss.... The unbearable loss of her child. Oh, how wrong I was. "Oh, mom.....I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. I just didn't know......Mom, how could I know?" "Mom, please? I love you so. Please don't let me destroy your life too. Your life used to be so perfect mom, just like you."

My father: A broken man. Unlike my mom, his stature has wasted away. He no longer stands tall, and erect - proudly greeting the world. He is weak, and bent and trembling. Almost unrecognizable to everyone who knew him before, this I am sure of, for I can't believe that he's my beloved dad. The dad I always turned to for silent, but sturdy support. The person I depended on for all his unspoken wisdom. The man of my dreams. The man I loved [ - and still love]. I watched him for a long time, but he never spoke. Sat alone with his thoughts, and memories, and sadness. All alone. Silent. His eyes no longer danced like when I lived. His hands trembled, and gone was the smile, the dimples, the excitement and anticipation which he used to greet the world. His eyes were masked in a dark, hollow stare of foreboding, and doom. He no longer drank though. I suppose his demons no longer needed alcohol to come alive. His demons dwelled within him - night and day, constantly interrupting any peace of mind he might have known before. Before. Before I sentenced him to death.

I never thought for a second his golden years would look like this. He used to be the life of the party. Always a joke at hand. His laughter echoing throughout the house like a symphony. Now the house was filled with just the screaming of the broken hearted, heavy, never interrupted silence. "I'm so sorry dad. Please forgive me. I didn't know. I love you, dad. Please - smile for me?" I scream, I sob, I reach for him again and again, but only grasp the emptiness of agony.

My brother: Life to him had become like a parade. A parade of different women. Night after night, a new face. A new body blessing his bed. So determined never to be alone with his thoughts and feelings, and memories - Reality.... His goal in life; personal happiness, and endless parties. He shows his pain in a different way. He laughs, he smiles, he jokes - and alas, his life has become exactly that - a joke. A facade. He is so determined to be happy - and to live - that he denies that any unhappiness is a certainty in this life. He denies his life, because he is so afraid to die. Because I wasn't strong enough to live, he is too afraid to die - and yet, I am sure he knows, none of us escapes our final death - when it is time..... Again I weep endlessly at all the needless misery that I have ignorantly caused the ones I loved the most. "I'm sorry, Jeff. If I only knew - If I had only listened. If.... If.... If....."

My sister: She's all grown up now. A professional workaholic. Alone. Afraid to share her life with another. Afraid of the heartbreak she saw my endless parade of men bless upon me. She, too, has been affected by my passing. She too suffers, in her own unique, and futile way. There are no children in her future. She visits my mom regularly, trying to cheer her, get through to her, somehow make her have the will to live again. My sister won't even consider having a child, for she sees the pain that losing a child can bring. The misery. The endless tears, and wasted years of grieving for what never had to be. When I took my own life, just how many others did I recklessly claim, because of my selfish ignorance? Sobbing uncontrollably, blinded by my own tears, the truth of just exactly what I did so long ago, slowly seeps inside me.

My suicide harmed many more loved ones than just my immediate family. It darkened so many bright lives, shadowed so many golden days. I realize now that memories don't disappear, or fade away into the night like a thief. They live within our hearts and souls - forever. I understand that I may always have brought this world some heartache and shame, but I also brought laughter, and joy, and love. I shared a hug, I blew a kiss, I danced, I sang. Yes, in my dark times I cried and grieved, but it's the loving memories I remember when I see this world, and how it once was home to me. I know that now my happy memories will grow less and less, because of the destruction I have witnessed during my brief stay here. I know that I have single-handedly deprived my entire family of the life that they were all so deserving of, and anticipating. In one brief moment, their world, I destroyed.

How do you say you are sorry when you've deprived the world of your very existence? No more laughter, no more hugs? And the only gruesome memory that still lives on is the realization that you decided that life just wasn't worth it. Just wasn't worth the pain - how do you ever get a second chance, to take your suicide away??

As for me? How do I describe this place where I have been "dwelling" since my exit from this world? I can not tell you I have gone to Hell, for I have never once heard the word "Hell" mentioned. No words are mentioned. There is no talking, nor singing, nor laughing - not even a smile to warm a wind chilled day.

Every day for me is the same. It is for all of us. I remember the moment of my death. I remember vividly panicking, realizing my mistake, and that there really was no turning back. No second chance. The blood curdling scream that lasted until forever. I say this because the screams have never ceased. The fear has never decreased. The terror of my decision has never softened. The agony, the misery, they are mine to keep forever. Eternally.

I will not tell you that I dwell in Hell. Only what I hear, and what I see. I see forever. Endless bodies, writhing in their own brand of agony. I watch forever trembling as the faces change, from soft to hard, to hollow - to forever frightening, to monstrous beyond visions that words could ever describe. We all watch each other. Day and night. For there is no darkness, to ease our blurry eyes. Their is no dusk to soften the creatures features as the years go by. Yes, we are close enough to see the ravages of our misery, and yet too far to hug, or hold, or touch another hurting soul in need. We are devoid of speech - no words. None. As if it is at last too late to speak, or comfort one another. And so, we all wait, and watch, and listen. For eternity.

We listen to the endless screams, that only multiply through the long months and years of eternity. Each new suicide promises us another horrifying screeching soul, and more contortions of what were once beautiful, peaceful faces - innocent and loving eyes. More misery. Misery far beyond the likes of what earth has ever known. I know we all pray that our abused ears will soon grow deaf - but everyone still hears - very well....too well....they listen, and hear, and see, and know, and realize -- too late -- that they are just beginning to understand the meaning of pain, and what it means to really not be able to take it anymore. We also realize that we will withstand all the pain, and agony, and ceaseless cries forever - for these are the gifts of suicide. A suicide is never fast, nor easy, nor the best way out - a suicide victim forever dies.........

There are no winners in suicide. Only losers. Only nightmares. Only endless torment, and never ending questions. Wondering? Blaming?

My intent is not to scare you into living - but to scare you out of dying. You never die. You Cannot. The pain dwells within you - the screams curdle the days cruelly, and deafening forever. You are never free. Never! You never have a second chance to live again, but you forever, slowly die. But cannot die! We don't decide when we will be born into this world - and it is never our decision when we'll leave it. The day we die should always be left to our maker - never ourselves. Our candle must glow until the last flicker is softly brushed by the wind, and then we shall be forever free......

The next time you consider taking your own life, please remember me. Perhaps then my life wouldn't have completely been in vain. Maybe then I would have detoured a sentence filled with only pain for one poor soul....one poor family. This is my story. It's true. But there are others waiting to be heard. We all have just a different variation of the same story. A story started long ago, and one, I'm sure, that will never have an end. Suicide. Please, please, never underestimate the horrific, and never ending legacy of Suicide.

The End...[there is no end]

Love and Light,

Donna Wallace

a.k.a. Gentle-Daydreamer

[email protected]

***

******

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws