The brutal truth of losing somebody to suicide is that there really is no way to gauge how you are doing with it. You’ll lose yourself into something for a couple minutes, maybe a couple hours, and, if you’re lucky, a whole day. You’ll say to yourself, “I’m getting through this.” Then you’ll feel guilty for doing so, or maybe you won’t, but a lot of times I do. People around you will tell you are doing so well and commend you on your strength, and you’ll believe them. Then right when you think you are making some headway, you take the training wheels off and you “Crash and Burn.” It’s always the littlest thing, too, that will trip you off… so unassuming and innocent. Like a little pebble that catches in your skateboard wheel while you are just cruising along, and the forward momentum you are carrying just throws you headfirst into the pavement. If you’re lucky, you’ll put your hands out to soften the blow, but the palms of your hands absorb the entire impact. And when you look at your hands, you’ll realize this one little pebble just embedded a thousand little pebbles under the palms of your skin. And the complexity of the pain had nothing to do with the one little pebble that jammed your wheel, but it’s the thousand little things that you never really considered that create both the joy and the pain.
You get back up, and you blame that one little pebble for the time being, your hands are stinging and throbbing with each heartbeat. And then you step back on your board, throw a couple kicks in and carry the little pebbles in the palms of your hands for the next couple days, always more aware now of the pebble that will throw you again.
