Someone is too Bruised to be Touched by Suicide
by Fr Ron Rolheiser
2002-07-07
A few days ago, I was asked to visit a family
who had, just that day, lost their 19 year-old son to suicide. There isn't much
one can offer by way of consolation, even faith consolation, at a moment like
this, when everyone is in shock and the pain is so raw. Few things can so
devastate us as the suicide of a loved one, especially of one's own child. There
is the horrific shock of losing a loved one so suddenly which, just of itself,
can bring us to our knees; but, with suicide, there are other soul-wrenching
feelings too, confusion, guilt, second-guessing, religious anxiety. Where did we
fail this person? What might we still have done? What should we have noticed?
What is this person's state with God?
What needs to be said about all of this: First of all, that suicide is
a disease and the most misunderstood of all sicknesses. It takes a person out of
life against his or her will, the emotional equivalent of cancer, a stroke, or a
heart attack. Second, we, those left behind, need not spend undue energy
second-guessing as to how we might have failed that person, what we should have
noticed, and what we might still have done to prevent the suicide. Suicide is an
illness and, as with any sickness, we can love someone and still not be able to
save that person from death. God loved this person too and, like us, could not,
this side of eternity, do anything either. Finally, we shouldn't worry
too much about how God meets this person on the other side. God's love, unlike
ours, can go through locked doors and touch what will not allow itself to be
touched by us.
Is this making light of suicide? Hardly. Anyone who has ever dealt with either
the victim of a suicide before his or her death or with those grieving that
death afterwards knows that it is impossible to make light of it. There is no
hell and there is no pain like the one suicide inflicts. Nobody who is healthy
wants to die and nobody who is healthy wants to burden his or her loved ones
with this kind of pain. And that's the point: This is only done when someone
isn't healthy. The fact that medication can often prevent suicide should tell us
something.
Suicide is an illness not a sin. Nobody just calmly decides to commit suicide
and burden his or her loved ones with that death any more than anyone calmly
decides to die of cancer and cause pain. The victim of suicide (in all but rare
cases) is a trapped person, caught up in a fiery, private chaos that has its
roots both in his or her emotions and in his or her bio-chemistry. Suicide is a
desperate attempt to end unendurable pain, akin to one throwing oneself through
a window because one's clothing is on fire.
Many of us have known victims of suicide and we know too that in almost every
case that person was not full of ego, pride, haughtiness, and the desire to hurt
someone. Generally it's the opposite. The victim has cancerous problems
precisely because he or she is wounded, raw, and too-bruised to have the
necessary resiliency needed to deal with life. Those of us who have lost loved
ones to suicide know that the problem is not one of strength but of weakness,
the person is too-bruised to be touched.
I remember a comment I overheard at a funeral for a suicide victim. The priest
had preached badly, hinting that this suicide was somehow the man's own fault
and that suicide was always the ultimate act of despair. At the reception
afterwards a neighbour of the victim expressed his displeasure at the priest's
homily: "There are a lot of people in this world who should kill themselves," he
lamented bitterly, "but those kind never do! This man is the last person who
should have killed himself because he was one of the most sensitive people I've
ever met!" A book could be written on that statement. Too often it is precisely
the meek who seem to lose the battle, at least in this world.
Finally, I submit that we shouldn't worry too much about how God meets our
loved ones who have fallen victim to suicide. God, as Jesus assures us, has a
special affection for those of us who are too-bruised and wounded to be touched.
Jesus assures us too that God's love can go through locked doors and into broken
places and free up what's paralysed and help that which can no longer help
itself. God is not blocked when we are. God can reach through.
And so our loved ones who have fallen victim to suicide are now inside of
God's embrace, enjoying a freedom they could never quite enjoy here and being
healed through a touch that they could never quite accept from us.