Another friend has lost her child. I am sharing some of what I feel of her pain so that you will, perhaps, read this and take a chance on life.
Dear Suffering Person,
You are my Christmas wish. I want you – alive and well and warm, holding your children or standing in the embrace of your parents and smiling for the camera.
I want you to shift into my position and see your life as I see it. Because it’s different for me, I admit to the bias of looking for what is right and not understanding what is wrong. I think it is the opposite for you. And together we might gain perspective.
But if you are gone I will feel your pain to the marrow of my bones. I will sit, dazed and wondering what thoughts and feelings consumed you in that moment – that you would take your own life. I will shudder and cry and wail at the thought of you in such agony.
Do you know how much you matter? Do you realize how shattering it will be to lose you? Sometimes even now I see your shadowed eyes and your reticence to reach out. I sense your fear of being denied and misunderstood. So I open myself to you. I offer myself as your rock. There is nothing that we can’t go through together.
And so I wonder…why would you bear it alone when I am here?
I hope you understand, though, that I don’t want you to live with your pain. I don’t want you to bear the unbearable. But do you know that sharing anything lightens the load? Can you meet me head on, letting me share now so that your pain doesn’t spill over the generations to come?
Because I want to share your sorrow. I want to comprehend and be still with what you feel. I just don’t know how. Maybe we can help each other.
I know that I can’t be everything to you so I offer a piece of myself to carry with you, to hold on to, until you can find your next true connection. Take it and look beyond me for other help if that’s what you need.
Meanwhile, I hold your place. I stand for you. I root my feet in the ground and reach beseechingly to the sky, asking for peace for you on this earth. I touch you and transmit my strength – not all of it – but little frissons of light and love that will sustain you for another minute, another hour, another day, until we can come to resolutions.
Please grant my Christmas wish.
xxoo
A Letter to my Children 