PS - I Love You

I just watched that movie.... a few of the women I work with have seen it recently and kept telling me what a good movie it is... a real tear jerker, so have a box of kleenex handy... oh, how I did not need to watch that movie....

In 1992, the man that I loved and was married to killed himself. It is bad enough when someone you love dies of a disease, or in an accident. It is hard enough to deal with the loss under those circumstances, but it was not their choice.

But how do you deal with it when it IS their choice? When he decided that life was not worth living, and that the people who cared about him were not enough to keep him with us, how do you deal with that? How do you cope when you find a note, that leads to a tape recording, that leads to a search with the police and family and friends and eventually the RCMP to find him?

I never had any say in it... he would not let me help him. He would not let anyone help him. He once told me that he had never been happy before, so why should he be happy now. This was in the first year of our marriage. I was so devastated. I was in college, studying nursing, taking psychology, learning the signs and symptoms of depression. I was living with all of them. The most resistant kind. But I had no idea he was suicidal. He gave no indication. No call for help. No failed attempts so that he could get help. Because he didn't want to be helped.

He felt he was beyond help, I suppose. And that the only way out was to end his life. Those are the ones who don't let you know they are going to kill themselves. Because there is no doubt in their minds that this is what has to be done - that this is the only thing that will banish their pain and anguish forever.

So he went fishing in the mountains, which was a favourite pastime of his. Something he did often, so I thought nothing of it. He stayed overnight, which he did often, so I thought nothing of it. He told me he would. So I thought nothing of it.... until I found the note... that lead me to the tape recording.... of his sobbing and breaking voice, telling me he would be dead when I found this, that it was for the best... that he would be happy when it was done....

But what about me???? What about my happiness??? How could he do this to me, and to his family, and his friends? HOW????

I have a span of time where there is no memory... just snippets of events... like my mum, come from Winnipeg, sitting with me at my mother-in-law's house.... like carrying his urn of ashes down the aisle in the big Catholic church.... like being at the place in the mountains where they found him and burying his ashes there.

They say time heals all wounds. But that isn't true. When you lose someone you love, no matter how, when they die, that wound never heals. Over time it is no longer fresh, but the scab is fragile and easily torn away. I have several of those wounds, from losing him, losing both my parents, and losing my sister.

There are things that freshen those wounds - songs that make me cry because they stir up emotions that I tend to keep under wraps most of the time. This movie tore that one scab right off.... ripped it from my heart, so that the wound is fresh again and bleeding freely... and my heart is broken again... and I am alone.... again.

PS, Ron - I love you still.....