It’ll soon be the anniversary of my grandmothers suicide. She was the bravest woman I’ve ever known. She was the only person who loved me unconditionally. It takes bravery to love someone. She hung herself.
The danish people were never christianized. It didn't take. They are still to this day pagan cannibals. At the wake, we were eating the leftover buns she had baked and put in the freezer, her own special recipe. It was a thing, she was known for it. That was the highest point of religiosity during the whole ordeal. Eating her leftovers.
It took me weeks to feel anything other than rage. I was so angry.
A suicide is a condemnation of a family. It’s a judgment. She was in terrible physical pain. She was ill. She had a one in a billion rare genetic disorder. But she didn't overdose on painkillers. She hung herself in the garage.
It’s a condemnation. Not by her. By God. She didn't kill herself because of the pain. She killed herself because she was lonely. If I had just picked up the phone one single day and called her, she wouldn't have done it. If I had done one single thing, made one single bit of effort. But I never did, because I was ashamed of myself. I was scared of letting her see who I am. Which is narcissism, egoism. I was protecting myself from feeling ashamed, and it killed her. I killed her with my pride. Because I didn't want to talk to her and admit what my life was. Because I couldn’t take the idea of being seen and known. Because I didnt feel like I deserved to be loved. And that I would be letting her down. So I killed her. We all did.
I don’t buy the contemporary thoughts about this stuff. Everyone also says “don’t blame yourself for your parents divorce”, and it remains a fact that my parents relationship was ruined by me turning into a vegetable for a couple of years, and them being unable to deal with it. That’s not blaming myself, that’s just establishing a timeline. I blame Steve Jobs for that one. They wouldn't have pulled the trigger on it if they hadn't been using facebook.
I couldn't talk to my mother for a long time. I felt like I was the only one taking it seriously. And I resented her for not sharing my feelings of shame and guilt.
No one ever says “suicide” any more. After the first few days, after the news broke. No one in my family acknowledges it. Because a suicide is a judgment. They just talk about her “death” - they treat it entirely as if she had just died by natural causes – drifted off in her sleep. But she hung herself. That’s what I mean by paganism. She died a warriors death, she’s in Valhalla, what are you complaining about. Perfectly normal. Nothing to see here. She went out like she lived, by her own hand. She was always in control.
When she died, I did not consider myself a Christian. But I was ravaged by thoughts, that in Christianity, suicides go to hell.
The way I conceptualize death and heaven and hell and reincarnation and resurrection, now, is something vaguely like this:
When you die, your spirit has a chance at escaping this realm to a transcendent state, but it requires you to be cantered and chill, and it’s like, you shoot out of the top of your head and towards the heavens, but you have to hit through a tiny little hole to get there, and there are demons and shit trying to fuck with you and drag you off course, back into the material realm. And this is basically what the eastern religions call reincarnation, it’s when you don’t make it and a demon gets you. You return back into your flesh, and you decompose and your spirit remains in this world, and you do another go-around, maybe as an ant, or maybe your being is split into atoms and divided out across a billion new entities. Doesnt really matter. Point is, “you” remain. And this is what Christians call hell. Like the dog-mouth I met that chewed me to pieces and devoured me in my near death experience. Cerberus, whatever. The big dog that guards the underworld. He got me.
And then, something like, what heaven is, and what transcendence is, and what resurrection is, is making it through that little opening, without getting caught or drifting off course. And that's a difficult thing to do, and requires you to be fucking cool and prepared, and not weighed down by guilt and sin and shame. So something like, it’s what the Buddhists are trying to do by meditating and disconnecting themselves from their emotions, to retain focus. And it’s what Christians are trying to do, by being morally good. And having the ultimate Generative Principle guide you, both in life as preparation, and perhaps even literally taking you by the hand in that crucial moment.
Again not literally that. But something like that. It’s trying to project some kind of “mechanics” to it. It’s beyond language, and all signifiers will fall short of expressing the fullness of it. But anyways, I think that’s why in Christianity suicides go to hell. You are not really in a cool place and a good frame of mind to do that final journey, if you kill yourself. you are not really emotionally centered and in a state of grace. Then you are full of weakness and pain and suffering. And then the Dog fucking gets you.
And now years later, one day, something clicked for me, and I started crying at work.
“She stayed behind for my sake”.
She couldn't pass on, because I was a fuck-up. I had made her a ghost, while she was still living. She couldn’t pass on, because she loved me, and I was a fuck-up. I held her back. She gave up her chance at passing on through that tiny little opening in the split second when you die, because she couldn’t leave me behind, because I wasn’t a human being yet. Because I was an overgrown child, living my life ruled by childish feelings of shame. If I wasn't, if I had been a decent person, a moral person, a respectable adult, not completely enamoured with my own feelings, if I hadn’t neglected everyone to focus on my own petty, childish shame – then, I would have spent more time with her. I wouldn’t have avoided her. And she wouldn't have killed herself.
And I’m never going to let that happen again. I will die before I let anyone kill themselves. I will die before I let my mother feel that lonely. And it doesn't matter that we don’t see eye to eye on this stuff. It doesn’t matter that no one except me can even say the word “suicide”. I don’t care. It doesn't matter. I’m never going to let that happen again. And when the time comes, I am going to save her. I don’t know what that means yet.
Man I fucken get that feeling, though people around me only failed at it it still feels like shit and you're probably stronger than me I just kept trucking cause I don't know what to do
Sorry about your grandmother, but have you considered that she made her own choice as an adult? In the before paragraph I notice you sort of taking things out on yourself, or using the suicide to measure your value as a family and a son, and then after the realization, the solution also involves referencing yourself. It's more likely your grandmother was a lovely woman who decided of her own volition to end her own pain, and that you were a rather small factor in this decision.