A letter to Lou on her anniversary

Dear Lou,

It’s been a long time.  So long, I’m not sure you’d recognise the girl - almost too young to be working a suicide hotline, but already so very weary - you took under your wing.

But then again, maybe you would – because in that short time our lives intersected, you played a huge part in the woman I became.

It’s hard to know where to start, you know? There’s so much I want to say, so much I understand now that I didn’t then, so many questions I want to ask that I didn’t then. But most of all, I want to give you the chance to shelter under my wings – the adult wings that can now hold as much space as you need – needed – for as long as it takes.

I can’t give you – nor do you need – the shelter I can offer now that I couldn’t then, because I had to grow into it. But I can sit with you, on this day of your anniversary - much as Will and Lyra did in their different worlds – and talk to you.  I hope that’s ok.

First of all, thank you. Thank you for being you – for being there. For being able to see past the rage and for daring to stick your arm through it to the hurting girl beneath. Thank you for listening, so often and so completely – and without judgment. Your faith in me, in my ability to face situations – both small and large – meant the world and made a universe of difference to my life.  Things got better in small ways: I remember hearing your Carolina drawl behind me on that December day, a little over a month after you died, after my biochem exam, saying, “Good job. I’m so proud of you.” I got the highest grade in the class.

And because you trusted me to handle the small things, you made it possible for me to go for the big ones: 3 months and 4 days after your death, I moved out of my parents’ house, leaving them a note on the fridge.

Despite the struggle; the immense pressure from my parents to move back home; the overwhelming depression that roared to the surface when I was no longer constantly fighting my family and led me to put my leg over the 8^th floor balcony railing one December night; my father ringing me on my birthday and asking, ‘So, how are you paying your rent? Are you sleeping with your male friends?’ – despite all that, it was the best decision I ever made. My life truly became my own that day.

There are no words to thank you for being one of the incredible, loving people who made it possible for me to make that choice.

But that’s not all there is to say – some things are darker, more painful. Yet they need to be spoken aloud.

Never will I forget that Saturday morning, having arrived on shift and hearing that one of the Child Protection line workers had committed suicide; looking up in horrified curiosity asking, ‘Who?’ and hearing your name.  Even now, I can feel the full physical agony, as if someone was ripping out the inside of my solar plexus, and I want to scream all over again.

Yes, even now, the memory feels like this morning's.

The fury was like a wildfire through a forest that hadn’t seen rain in years – rage at you for making the choice you did, then telling the police officers who knocked at your door that you were fine, only to die hours later; rage at myself for being someone who worked a suicide hotline but hadn’t seen it in you; rage at G-d for letting you do this.  I hated you so much. SO much.

I was absolutely functional within minutes:  I did a full hotline shift;  in the evening, it was off to  parental friends for dinner – my parents had no clue anything was wrong, and to this day they have no idea that I had a friend who committed suicide.  The price was dear, but there was no way I was going to become the paralysed, incapable of functioning, manipulative energy-sucker my mother became whenever a painful situation arose.

I did it by being angry, as I still do occasionally when I need emotional reserves I simply don’t have; I stoked my rage at you: I didn’t go to your memorial service; I refused to grieve you; I imagined shouting, ‘WHY???? WHY????????? HOW FUCKING DARE YOU???????? SCREW YOU, BITCH!’ at you so many times. Then I just wanted to pretend you never existed, had never found a way into my heart, had never been, for far too brief a time, the mother I needed. I wanted to gut your room in my heart and redecorate so I could pretend I’d never been touched. After all, YOU took yourself out of my life, so *I* would make it so you had never been in it.

But love wouldn’t have it: it was your voice I heard that December day…and so many days after.  Even now, sometimes.

Even now, echoes remain. I freak out during sustained arguments: what if something happens before we resolve this? ‘Are you ok?’ litters my vocabulary like kebabs on the pavement on a Saturday morning. Good friends *have* to say goodbye before extended absences, or the panic squeezes my heart till I can’t breathe, because I can’t forget the day I poked my head into your room across the hall and didn’t hug you because you had your back to me, cutting out a pattern – it didn’t matter because I was supposed to see you again. I didn’t.  My parents made me exquisitely aware of subtext and emotional resonances, you honed my edge for catching the leading edge of depression, of the slip into the suicidal. It was from you I learned that depressed to suddenly light of heart was not something to be relieved at; it was something to be terrified of, something to interrogate.

Every last one of these is a scar, but every last one of these is a gift: even if I'm absolutely certain I’m right, I’ll put my  hand out to reconcile; my friends know I want to know how they really are; the people I love know I love them; and that therapeutic awareness means I’ve asked the right questions more than once.

Out of darkness, light.

And what if you were here now, and we could just talk; or if you’d been here all these years? Would we have stayed in touch, or would there have been a natural letting go? Would we have become women who genuinely liked each other and shared confidences, rather than a surrogate mother sheltering a wayward chick?

I don’t know. But I know where I’ve been – and I can talk to you about that.

Thirteen months after you died, I was where you were – and made a different decision when the question ‘What right have you to take yourself out of other people’s lives?’ came to/was asked of me. In that moment, I remembered what it felt like when you took yourself out of mine, and knew I couldn’t do it to anyone else, and pulled my leg back over that railing. So, a second time, you made me own my life.

It wasn’t the only time – I’ve been there a number of times since, though not so often in recent years.  I’ve always made the same decision, though I don’t know if I always will, because sometimes bringing an end to that pain is so desperately tempting  – we never know, do we? The moment I realised that uncertainty about each time that – or any other – decision looms, I understood.

And I let go – the one time, perhaps, I’ve truly forgiven (both of us and G-d) but not forgotten.

The years since you’ve been gone haven’t always been easy, though there have been many blessings, much laughter and incredibly wonderful friends alongside the darker times spent struggling with inner demons that created outer heartache and pain. So many things I’d loved to have discussed with you: men, religion, life, some of my absolute clangers of decisions, growing up…but above all, your life. Your experience. I’d have wanted to get to know your heart, as you’d begun to know mine. And I think you’d have loved visiting Oxford…so much older than antebellum Carolina ;-).

Oh Lou, you’ve been gone so much longer than the length of time we knew each other, but I miss you so much. You taught me that 30 minutes or 30 years doesn’t matter – love does.

I love you.

And I hope I’ve done you proud. 

Fried chicken and pecan pie,

Me

GC, Day 27 - for having been suicidal

Yes, you read that right. I am, years later, grateful for having been so deeply in the darkness that I put my leg over the railing of my 8th floor balcony one cold December night. More than once.

As I stood there, sobbing, lost in the icy hell of isolation, fragmentation and pain born of a difficult year that I thought I would never see the end of, a thought - one that felt like another's voice - went through my head: "What right do you have to take yourself out of anyone else's life? How do you know where you will be in 10 years?" A bit hard, perhaps, but exactly what was needed to end the crisis.

This entry, like several others, was shifted by current events: today, the apparent suicide of Gary Speed. My heart broke as I read the news stories, having a sense of where he must have been to take such a decision and thinking of those left behind in a shock and grief that will have its own unique shards of glass working their way through one's heart at unexpected times for the longest time.

What struck me was the pictures. So many photographers had caught the pain on his face, the sense of being lost, but no one had seen it - and why would one? He was young, talented, successful, respected, famous - he had seemed happy only the afternoon before. And we hide it so very well. No one had the remotest idea how bad I was then, or the odd time since.

So why am I grateful for having been in this place of unremitting darkness, as hostile as the Antarctic winter, with ferocious winds and no shelter in sight?

Because it changed me profoundly. Once one has been to that place, one is never the same again: either one chooses to exit the world above and enter Hades' kingdom, or one turns back from the gates and returns, blinking in the light, transformed - and like Talamir after the loss of his first Companion, Taver, never quite belonging to the world above ever again.

Some of the gifts emerge from that no longer quite belonging above - the ability to see past what is expected: I can look at pictures of supposedly happy events, pictures on which others type 'Great photo! You must be so happy!', and, if it is present, see the sadness, the pain, the anger, the sense of being trapped. It is easier to see what is real, because one knows what so often lies beneath...

...and what lies ahead: death - my own - is no longer frightening, though I'm still terrified of those I love dying. That it will come, I know, and that is absolutely fine. I don't need to resist the knowledge or the process, and that allows me to live a fuller life.

Part of living that life to the full, and one of the greatest gifts, is being able to keep company with others through their Antarctic storms - to trudge with them, to sit through the blizzard, to hold them through it - without fear, because it is a familiar landscape, a home away from home. Someone who has been there can be trusted with that, can hold the space, can be believed when they say that the storm will end, even at the time of its greatest fury.

To be there, to be trusted to sit with another in the time of their greatest darkness, is a privilege beyond words.

To be unafraid to enter the deepest pain fully and freely, without getting lost, knowing that one can make the trek and return, both for oneself and as a witness for others, is the most precious of gifts:

And a woman spoke, saying, "Tell us of Pain."
And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

Being able to enter pain fully brings gifts we cannot even begin to imagine - and so that first Antarctic storm that brought such gifts in its wake keeps bringing more through its first gift.

To Gary Speed, Lou de Misa, and so many others who chose to open those gates and walk through them, requiescite in pace and blessed be, and these words of Kahlil Gibran are ours to you:

Sons of my ancient mother, you riders of the tides,
How often have you sailed in my dreams. And now you come in my awakening, which is my deeper dream.
Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind.
Only another breath will I breathe in this still air, only another loving look cast backward,
Then I shall stand among you, a seafarer among seafarers.

To those who also turned away from the gates - and we always know eachother, don't we, by the look - welcome back, blessed be, and there is much work to be done, and so many to be with. Let us begin.

To those now in their Antarctic storm, feeling alone, unable to see, with the ferocious wind in your face - know that we are here. Even across the world, we reach for you, we sit with you, even if you do not know us or cannot see us. Whatever choice you make, we will witness for you and bless you on your way, walking with you as far as we can.

If you choose to turn your back at the gates and come back, I can tell you this:

We will be here, and the day will dawn - at first the faintest blush on the horizon, and it will emerge differently for each one of you, but the light will come.

That's a promise.