28 Days

26.03.07

It is exactly 28 days since you died. One month on and nothing seems any easier than this time four weeks ago.

Having read up on the subjects of suicide, death, grief, loss and bereavement, I can tell you the following:-

• Some psychologists believe that intense grief can last for three years.
• The more accepted period for mourning is a year.
• Bereavement is the term used to identify the loss of a loved one.
• Grief is the physical and psychological response to that same loss.
• Most people who commit suicide do it on a Monday.
• Only one in six of those who kill themselves leave a note and only half of those notes refer to love and not blame.
• The highest incidence of suicide is amongst middle aged men.
• Men who take their own lives tend to choose the more aggressive forms of self death, whereas women ingest typically.
• Grief is a form of fear of the future.
• One way we often cope with sadness or fear is by focusing our attention on our anger.
• CS Lewis states that "Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives."
• The great man also said: "It is hard to have patience with people who say "There is no death" or "Death doesn't matter." There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter. "

So, in all of this I can tell you dear man, that one month on, very little has changed - apart from the very obvious and irrevocable fact that you are dead and gone and we, I have to move on in some shape of form or I too will in some way start to become dead.

We can conclude from the above that the fear we feel is normal, the sense of loss will be with us for a long long time and that your choices in how you ended your life were fairly typical of somebody in that mindset; you were unusual in that you left a note to us letting us know how much you loved us and for that we should be grateful, or comforted or something. I cannot bring myself to use the word happy in this circumstance.

As of tomorrow, we have either another 11 or 35 months to go depending on how you look at it.

Til tomorrow special man.