We lost our son Aaron to suicide in April of 2015. The initial shock and trauma were mitigated by the endless phone calls and the preparations for his memorial service. We held his memorial service in June. It was beautiful. We got to see many people whose lives intersected with his and hear many memories about how wonderful and talented and beautiful our child was
After the service was over, the phone calls and visits declined. However, we weren’t done grieving or talking about Aaron. He lived a wonderful life and it seemed to us that most of our friends and family were choosing to focus only on his death. Perhaps suicide is too shocking a death because it still carries so much stigma and shame in our society. Maybe it became uncomfortable for them to insert his name into conversations. Maybe we were expected to “move on” and stop reliving all the memories we had of our child. It’s possible that our friends and family members thought that they would make us sadder if they brought up Aaron’s name. Whatever the reasons, we noticed a decline in hearing Aaron’s name. Those who have not experienced a loss like ours cannot be expected to understand what it’s like to grieve our child.
We weren’t ashamed of our child. We wanted to continue processing our grief in a safe environment. We understand that a conversation about the aftermath of suicide can make many people squirm in their seats and search for a change of topic. We wanted others to continue to hear about Aaron’s life and to see him the way we see him – as a gifted and lovable soul who had an eventful and valuable existence.
We had been given a folder packed with helpful information by the TIP (Trauma Intervention Programs) https://www.tipsandiego.org/ volunteer on the day we lost Aaron. Inside was a brochure for SOSL https://www.soslsd.org/. In June my husband and I decided to go to one of SOSL’s support groups. I didn’t know what to expect. I had been to very few support groups in the past and the ones that I did attend seemed to have the ulterior motive of pushing religion onto the participants. That may be fine for many, but this aspect made me very wary of support groups in general. I also didn’t want to be in a space where everybody was sad and crying because I thought that this would just make me feel worse. I agreed to try one meeting and if it didn’t help, we would not go to any others.
I was pleasantly surprised during my first meeting. There was no hidden agenda. Yes, some of us cried. We also laughed and shared and openly spoke the names of our loved ones. We ended on a high note, and we decided to come back again. Needless to say, we have been regularly attending SOSL meetings since then. We participate in the annual walk, attend most of the events, and have become fierce advocates of suicide prevention and postvention.
