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0 By Frances Beck
Yesterday was the anniversary of the day we said our final goodbyes to my boy, but I was really keen to not let this be another significant date, so I tried to not let it be a big deal. Unfortunately, that memo didn’t reach my emotions. Oh how naive I am. It’s been a much harder week than I thought it would be. Even with the kindness shown to me at the start of the week. You really can’t plan for the intensity of feelings at times, but I knew that, so I shouldn’t be surprised.
It didn’t help that the week started with the news of the suicide of Keith Flint, and the untimely death of Luke Perry (A big crush back in the day). Two people who still had potentially many years to live, and one whose death could have been prevented.
Hearing about any death saddens me, particularly when it’s a person you would think has many years of their lives yet to live. When I hear of yet another death by suicide, it strikes me cold. It paralyses me; because I know the devastation and utter shock that the family and friends are going through. All their unanswerable questions, what-ifs, if onlys, that they are going to have to carry with them. The guilt of not having been able to save their loved one. All the, surely there must have been something that they could have dones. All this on top of the realisation that their loved one has really left this world, and that they are going to have to cope with missing them every day of the rest of their lives.
I have to try really hard to not focus on those things, although they are always there. I also have to try very hard to not be overprotective of my other two ‘babies’. I’m not sure how successfully they think I’m managing, but I am absolutely terrified of losing them too. Another thing I manage fairly well, until I can’t get in touch with them momentarily. The usual benign reasons why get bypassed to be replaced with catastrophic thinking. And it knocks the wind right out of me. Thankfully it doesn’t happen too often, it’s far too exhausting to live a life like that.
112 Every Week
A point I do want to make though, is that Keith Flint’s suicide was only one of 112 in the UK this week. It only made news because he was famous, but it’s good that it’s bringing the issue of suicide to the forefront of people’s minds again. I hope that number shocked you. I ask you to remember that these statistics are actually real people, and their death affects so many others. Suicide, despite the complexity of reasons for it, is seen as the most preventable cause of death, but there is still much to be done to make that goal achievable.
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