The Loss of a Life (disclaimer: tough read)
A pint of Crown Royal sitting on the floor with music playing in the background. Curtains drawn and paper strewn around the floor. Attempted writing and drawings to feel something again lay scattered in front of him as he grasped desperately to feel anything other than emptiness and pain.
It was midday and his head pounded from the night before. Tears and various fluids took residence on his unrecognizable, face. A pounding headache from 72 hours of crying on and off continually plagued his ability to think clearly. It seemed as though a lifetime of strength had just broken and the little boy within him was just hit with everything he had fought so desperately to protect him from. Like a piercing javelin, it shot through the dark and hit the very child within his soul. As he sat there, he held that little boy in his arms and looked down at the floor laden with savage words and broken dreams.
In his mind, he heard the words spoken over him, all the lies that he had believed. He felt each blow like a cannonball in his soul. He sat and listened as they catapult into his mind over and over. Not one was on replay, instead a lifetime of words cascading like a waterfall over his head. Years of evil that others had spoken over him playing itself all at once. Then came the rush of memories, the unspeakable things that his mind had spent so long repressing. Those memories he had kept filed away so secretly, they crept in like a fog in the early morning hours before the sun illuminates and the moisture becomes dew on the grass. As the memories like old movie films played forth, he began to numb and plea with the devil to let him fall asleep. It was during this moment he picked up that lonely bottle. Maybe it would let him fall asleep? But then the worst came. Then he felt every beautiful moment slip away. He saw all his failures flash before his eyes. How would he ever be enough for his children? How could he ever do them justice? How could he ever be anything but heartache to the ones he loved most? Wasn’t it time? How long did He intend for him to suffer before it was his time to be loved? This must be the moment that He was calling him home because he just couldn’t see a positive in the future. Everyone he had ever loved, everyone he had ever served with all he had, was gone or going.
Then he felt his soul break. His body didn’t tremble or feel weak. Instead, he felt a sense of strength. Almost as though a cheer began behind him in the hallway and his body responded with a robotic sense of purpose. He lifted himself off the ground and walked, suddenly completely numb. He walked to the bathroom and turned on the shower. He stared numbly and suddenly, almost like an instruction just popping into his consciousness, he walked to the bedroom and removed the strand of plug-in lights from behind the bed. As he climbed into the bathtub he removed his clothes and somehow just numbly prepared himself and as he leaned against the tied lights he counted down pleading to “go home” while the lights began to fade. It wasn’t until later that he realized how the enemy had slowly spent years creeping into his consciousness covering him with lies and slowly manipulating each move he made. Each of these choices, a demonic coaching slowly leading him to his grasp. The devil thought he won that afternoon.
He woke up to a black void just hearing a voice yelling “how long have you been here?!” Then like a flash he remembers lying on the bed feeling panic. He was alive! Now what? If anyone were to find out, he might as well just walk back into the bathroom and finish it, again! How is he still alive? Why? It’s worse now and he had been so sure that was as bad as it could get! “Please don’t let this be real...” he whispered to himself as he prayed silently that he would see His face and go home to Jesus. Instead, his mother appeared in his vision screaming. Instantly he felt his mother’s pain. He remembered this was why he couldn’t wake up. He couldn’t feel for everyone anymore. He couldn’t take the pain around him, no matter what he did if it was his fault or not he just couldn’t feel all the hurt. No matter how hard he tried to shelter everyone from it, he would never be enough or worthy of love.
Then, like a flash, he saw the EMTs begin to attach leads onto his body. He knew this with a sudden embarrassed familiarity. He was another one of their hard days, He was causing them more pain. He offered to walk himself to the ambulance to try and somehow make up for the difficulty he was causing them. He knew there was nothing he could do to recover from this. It was done. He was still here, still alive, and there was nothing, no pride, no fight… nothing he could do about it.
Over the next 24 hours, he realized he was stuck. He had given up, but he had not been relieved from his own wreckage. What did that mean? He couldn’t go on this way, he wasn’t able to carry that weight. Why was he still stuck here? What did He want from him? More pain? More martyrdom? What could he do to be enough? Was there happiness he was supposed to know? He knew he couldn’t keep going this way. He literally couldn’t survive any longer. His body was weak and he couldn’t see very well. When she finally saw into a reflective surface, her body showed her its pain. He saw the bruising wrapped around his neck and the blood vessels broken all through his left eye. He looked frightening. He was looking at the very body image of how that little boy inside her felt. There they were, for once, looking and feeling the same. Was this a new start? His body, starved, beaten, ill, exploited, and now once dead was finally the same kind of broken his soul was.
At that moment the Spirit whispered gently into his ear. “I have loved you. I was with you. Now, we rebuild you as the masterpiece you were always meant to be.” Beauty was to come from the ashes and triumph from the tribulation. Shameless and free, he stepped into a new life filled with gratitude and serenity.
National Suicide Prevention Hotline 1-800-273-8255
I tell this story as awareness of the truth and importance of mental health, community, love, compassion, and the importance of life.
You are never alone. You are worthy of love, created as a masterpiece, and loved infinitely more than you are capable of understanding right now. Reach out, be shamelessly and rigorously honest, allowing others who know the same kind of pain, to walk through it with you. Your life is important.
