During the month of February, we celebrate Valentine’s Day. For Hallmark, this is a very significant day because so many people send cards to their “Valentines.” The major symbol for this day is the heart, which has become the symbol of love. People often speak of their hearts being broken when a romance or marriage ends, often through no fault of their own. Sometimes, people die from broken hearts after the death of a spouse or loved one. The heart is one of the major organs of the human body; it keeps people alive, and individuals strive to ensure their hearts stay healthy through proper eating and sufficient exercise.
Over the years, many survivors of suicide loss have questioned why their profound love for the person who took their life wasn’t enough to save them. … I tell them their loved ones didn’t die due to a lack of love. They died because the pain from their illness became more than they could bear. I mean this in a very literal sense. … For these tormented souls, death appeared to be a welcoming solution because they believed it offered a release from persistent pain.
This is a very difficult concept for survivors to comprehend. One way to look at it would be if their loved one were suffering from terminal cancer. … I don’t think many people would think their love is so powerful that it could cure cancer. Yet, the illness that causes people to take their lives is as fatal an illness as the type of cancer that causes so many deaths. …
It would be nice if all of life’s pain could be handled through love. Unfortunately, our love has limitations. It is finite in what it can do regarding taking away some of life’s pain. Survivors do express their love for their hurting loved ones, but their words of comfort cannot penetrate the depths of the soul of the hurting person. The illness has taken over … These suffering souls could find no relief, except in the welcoming and soothing arms of death. Death became their refuge and their balm. …
Such concepts may sound foreign except to those people who have been in similar straits. Sometimes, loss survivors say they would welcome death because then they would be relieved of the pain from grief. This is but an inkling of the type of pain of someone who is suffering from an extreme form of mental illness. …
Our world would look a lot different if love could heal all the ills that plague it. There’s a lot of love out there. Granted, there is also a lot of hate out there, but the efforts of those who give of their love and try to make the world better are not in vain.
Unfortunately, our love does have limitations, and one of those limitations is the inability to keep suffering loved ones from completing suicide. Does that mean that loved ones should stop expressing their love to those who are suffering from mental illness? Absolutely not. All people need to feel loved. What it does mean, however, is that if a loved one does succumb to suicide, it is not because of the lack of love on the part of family and friends. It is because of the illness.
As Valentine’s Day is commemorated this year … you may feel a resurgence of pain because there is not a card or note from your loved one who saw suicide as the only way out. Keep in mind that your loved one did not take their life because they wanted to or because they did not love you; they took their life because, in their estimation, there was no other means available to counter the flood of pain that engulfed their soul.
As always, I want to assure each and every member of our loss family of my thoughts and prayers on a daily basis, and I encourage each of you to remember each other, especially those who have recently joined our family.
