DTH-XI-0031
“Someone I love took their own life and I can't make sense of it.”
This grief comes braided with questions that have no answers and a guilt that isn't yours to carry. You will replay every sign and every missed call. Grieve fully, the rage, the love, the bewilderment, all of it. But the verdict of why is not yours to render, and the blame is not yours to hold.
Your Practice
- Let the unanswerable questions exist without forcing an answer.
- Say plainly: their choice was theirs. The guilt you feel is not a fact.
- Find the people or the room where this specific grief can be spoken.
- Honor them by living. Carry the love forward, not the blame.
The Architects
“The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer and holier sort than you have known before.”
Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Fanny McCullough, December 23, 1862 (Collected Works, vol. 6)