If you filled a quart jar with small stones, then held it straight out in front of you, you would find that with each passing moment the jar would seem heavier. The weight of stones did not change, but your arm would hurt more and more until the pain spread to your shoulder, neck, and back and became unbearable. Suppose you wish the people around you to think you are strong enough to hold the jar forever, so when someone talks to you or offers help, you smile and refuse. You pretend everything is fine, even though by now you are in excruciating pain.
Why not allow your friends and family to support your arm or even remove some of the stones from the jar? Would you be ashamed that you could not bear the pain alone? Ashamed that you need help? Ashamed to ask for help?
This is how may suicidal people feel as they scream inwardly for help, but they will neither ask for it nor admit they are hurting. There are many people who would rush to take the jar from you if only they knew that you and your jar of stones were about to crash to earth.
When a suicide occurs, we survivors are astounded to learn that our loved ones had struggled with a jar of stones that caused them such enormous pain. Each of us is left with a shattered jar that cannot be put back together. We scurry to gather the scattered stones, frantically examining each in hopes of magically seeing what caused our loved one to suffer silently and alone. But the stones hold no answers, and the jar is forever broken. We survivors must work, even kicking and screaming, to heal the scars on our hearts, so that we may hold the beautiful memories of our loved ones there. We finally get back in touch with our own spirits, which, after all, is what we have always been…pure spirits dressed in human bodies. The spirits of our loved ones never leave us. They are here to comfort us anytime we stop to listen.
From: Dying to Be Free: A Healing guide for Families after a Suicide; Beverly Cobain and Jean Larch, 2006, Hazelden
