Some memories, though painful, but must be remembered

Facebook is good at their reminders and “look back when” memories.

Today, the above photo popped up on my feed, reminding me that seven years ago today my niece, Julia, was born. The picture is of my brother, Jeremie, holding his newborn daughter, with the biggest smile I had ever seen him make.

It is the happiest I had ever seen my brother.

It’s gut-wrenching and bitterly sweet, because the photo doesn’t tell the rest of the story, the next part, where 3 and a half years later, he will end his life.

He will choose to end his life, exiting this world, and with it—foregoing the opportunity to watch his daughter grow up and to be a part of it, as her father.

I set with this as I reflect on how fortunate I am to have had my mother’s support and perspective/life experience that whatever happens and however bad it gets, that suicide is never an option, as she told me. She made this commitment after the suicide of her sister in the early 70’s.

And she also told me that, even when it’s hell, remember that it won’t always be this bad. You won’t always feel this way, even at your worst moments—

Sometimes when we are in those desperate moments of mental health crises or in the throes of depression, when you desperately need something to hold onto, to grasp for hope, whether it comes in the form of sleep or a type of therapy, or medications to produce more neurochemicals like serotonin and dopamine, or even just a conversation or a voice from an elder or another who reassures you—

You need to hang on.

You need to trust me.

You won’t always feel this way.

It won’t always be this bad.

I know you can’t see it or feel that right now or ever imagine that to be the case—

But you’ve got to hold out, to the hope that life is long and that “this too shall pass.”

To take it day by day, hour by hour, or even minute by minute.

My mother did that for me, at various points, and helped me to hold on, to grasp at vague hope, from her love and perspective and life experience, that things will change in ways that I could not imagine at that precise moment.

I have used this as well to encourage students who are crawling out of their skin, crumbling, quaking, barely holding on.

Those ‘lifelines’ are huge for those in major depressive crises and mental health episodes and, even more, in that stage of life and with limited life experience.

As I wrote about the other day: what people do not understand and fail to remember about depression is this—

It’s not a mood or frame of mind that makes it so bad; it’s the way in which it robs you of perspective or context to ever see matters differently.

Stolen from you is remembrance of better times past and hope/realistic imaging of a more stable and happier future.

That is why it is despair, a hole, a living Hell.

That is why people want to die, choose to, then attempt, and complete suicide.

I sometimes wonder, if I could talk to Jeremie now, and ask him, what would he say?

In life, my brother was always impulsive, quick, too quick, to act. A byproduct of his ADD or ADHD, perhaps, but I think there was more to it, issues related to undiagnosed and treated trauma and/or other mental illnesses.

But I wonder—Now, is he glad he exited?

I hope, I pray, and I believe, that he is now at peace, enshrouded in light and love and ease, with no more pain.

But I do wonder—does he, can he from his realm, ever wish he stuck around for Julia in this life, to watch her grow? To be there for her? Or are those only the concerns of the living?

Would he do it over again if he had the choice?

I use these moments of reflection to take stock, to have perspective, and to realize that I am so very thankful that I didn’t make similar choices—

Not just of exiting this life, but also in just giving up, relinquishing, slipping into patterns of self-dysfunction, downward spirals, to further exacerbate my poor mental health, as he did.

I stuck it out. Why? I don’t know. It’s not a simple answer.

Perhaps because my mother told me to. I listened to her. I got mental health help. So, I got better.

I learned and still [have to and re-] learn this at points, when I’m imbalanced [for lack of a better word, I truly do not have another] and not sleeping, to hold onto her words.

But why? I don’t believe myself inherently strongly? Is it because I was a girl so she shared her struggles with me? Because she was gentler with me? I could come apart at the seams a bit because of my gender? Because I was closer to her so I listened? Did Jeremie not hear them, or did he not listen because he was a boy? Closer to my dad? Six years older than me? We were raised very differently, had a very different relationship with our mother, though we both loved her.

I wonder if Jeremie ever heard her stories of struggling with mental health and a commitment to not leave this earth because her sister did and she bore the aftermath?

Today I also remember my brother’s rage, his red hot anger to mask the devastation I believe he felt towards our father, because of his own manner of exit from this earth.

Because after my dad died, Jeremie took his gun and blew the liquor bottles, shattering them in our backyard, so angry was he at my father, the alcohol, the alcoholism, and his suicide.

Ironically, in its haunting foreshadowing, he would later use a gun, the same tool, five years later, to end his own life?

But all that was seemingly forgotten…when, in 2020, he emulated that demise, also a gunshot wound to the head.

Such is part of the tragic, cyclical, generational part of my family’s story.

And one I remember, poignantly, vividly, a few times a year.

Like today…