Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

 The other day I didn't feel grief. It was so strange. It wasn't all day-- it was just for a few minutes, but it happened. I felt, for a moment, whole.  It has been five and half years since Matt's suicide. That's how long it has taken for time to soften this grief. So yes, it's true that time heals all wounds. But, hah. Think of geologic time, pals.  I am happy-- I have amazing things in my life. Cool smart talented kids, kind and loving friends-- I have plenty of rice and plenty of books and plenty of herbs and plenty of beet greens and a rattly old piano that's only missing one string but it's in the lowest octave so it's not too much of a nuisance.  I am happy and I have been breathing grief-oxygen for five years. I am happy and I have been wearing grief skin. The other day, I was briefly free and clear of it. The sun shone through the clouds and I looked around at my life with pleased surprise. Oh! I'm okay! Wow!  Today the normal pain of grief ...

The year is kareening around, we're hurtling through space on our tiny blue rocket ship called earth, and the one year mark to Matt's suicide is coming at my face. We're doing amazing. I love my kids, they love me, I take care of grandma, she takes care of me, I've started a garden, we've got new little chicks, I've written half a novel, made new friends, the girls have learned to read and write English, and I'm learning to crochet. And it's been bloody brutal. Since the middle of the night when I got the call from the police, my heart has had an ice-metal stake through it. It was a nuclear detonation and although we survived there are hugely echoing after-affects, radiation poisoning that will poison us for years and generations. But there have been things that have helped. And I think they would help anyone, in any kind of trauma or pain. And I'm going to make a note of them in case I'm floudering, for me to come back to, and add to. And ...

"How do people keep themselves safe?"asks a reporter to Inspector Lestrade in BBC Sherlock's first episode, "A Study in Pink." "Well, don't commit suicide," he quips. Then he takes a softer tack: "Obviously, this is a frightening time for people, but all anyone has to do is exercise reasonable precautions. We are all as safe as we want to be." Sherlock Holmes then texts everyone in the press conference with the single, emphatic word, "WRONG!" What can we do to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe? Parents are terrified of the specter of teen suicide. In Utah, my new and old homestate,  the teen suicide rate has tripled since 2007 . It has the  15th highest  suicide rate in the country. The response to alarming statistics about suicide is to bulk up prevention programs and access to mental health. The school where I did my initial student teaching 13 years ago, Lone Peak High School in Alpine UT, responded to a contagion ...

Today is six months since Matt​'s death. I am relieved to feel time passing, getting us further and further from that moment of horror and pain. But it also means that the finality of it is starting to sink in-- all his chances and options were suddenly closed off and there will never be any explanations or answers or happy endings for him. I've found unfinished screenplays in his work notebooks. I've found journals with just one or two entries. And that's it. When someone dies by suicide, they don't get rid of their unbearable, impossible pain. They give it to their families-- to their children. Right now we are still struggling to breathe under the weight of that sudden horrifying tsunami of pain, and trying to find ways to understand it, forgive it, be gentle with it, move through it and with it, transform it from jagged spikes into rolling waves. It's already been six months. It's only been six months. Time expands and contracts weirdly with death-- ...