The role of surreality
The disorientation and disillusionment of the suicides
It’s still jarring, though it is much less than it used to be.
But I still have many moments where I pause, sort of look around, taking it all in -
Momentarily unsure if this is real life - if I have lost touch with reality, lost my mind, is this a cruel joke? Am I living in some sort of alternate universe - ?
Is it indeed the case that my father blew his brains out? Then - less than five years later, that my only brother did?
Did that really happen?
Is this real life?
I mentioned that to both my cousin and aunt the other day. That I still feel that way at times.
My aunt replies that it still also feels pretty surreal to her as well.
I mean, it makes sense.
How can the brain fully process something like that?
I think we even grasp in our limited mental capacity as humans to fully process the totality of death - that we will never see our loved ones again in this earthly realm.
Perhaps that is why we create a version of a spiritual realm -
Even though I believe it exists. I’ve felt the spirits of my loved ones who have walked on.
I know that this is not all there is.
Still, I get that we would need to comfort ourselves in that way because otherwise, it’s all pretty damn scary.
Couple deaths of loved ones that are already jarring with the gruesome, the violence, the shocking and the tragic news of suicide -
And it suddenly seems like a complicated riddle that I just can’t get, or a bad joke that I am not in on —
Wait - What happened?!
I remember uttering those words after learning about my father’s death?
What—WHY?
I think our minds go into shutdown by way of trying to protect us from the news of some things in life when it feels especially horrific.
We power down to protect ourselves - much like a phone or computer from overheating -
It’s simply too much to absorb.
So we don’t.
I find myself wondering - will it never not be —
5 years is not an insignificant amount of time to have passed.
10 is even more extended.
But - will I — in thirty years, Lord willing if I am still here, if we’re still here —all of us on, on Earth school —
Will it all make more sense then?
Or, will it still seem like a bad dream? A horrific nightmare -
That perhaps in some parallel alternative universe my family members are still alive - finally having gotten some mental health help -
My father lives to be as old as my Grandma Donelson and my brother gets to see his daughter grow up, it present for it.
I was speaking to my cousin last night and he said -
I don’t leave anything unsaid anymore, because people keep dying.
I think that’s probably as good of a takeaway from all this horror as anything -
Life is fragile and unpredictable and even if/when it’s not suicide, our loved ones can be snatched from us in any number of ways, at any given time.
Hold them close and love them.
Because people die, easily.
Don’t leave the thing unsaid.
