Suicide Has More Than One Victim

Suicide Has More Than One Victim

In any suicide there is always more than one victim to discern

But only one is in the casket or ashes in the urn

The person who could no longer cope with problems imagined or real

Pain too great, solutions or escape plans not being revealed

The living may suffer from disease or accidents then die only but one time

For the victim it’s like Groundhog Day each and every day with the problem mountains more impossible to climb

But the living may have no escape from the grief or possible sense of guilt

Of missing the visible hindsight signs as a person’s desire to live began to wilt

If only I had said something or sent her for professional help or her problems did not ignore

I would not today be staring at a casket resting on a church floor

Listening to the sobs and seeing the tears flow

Baffled friends and family in shock wondering why did she have to go

The answer is that at that moment of her decision even with a note we may never learn

While the eyes moist, tears form and clouds of black grief return

The living are a brother’s or sister’s keeper but guilt over her act

Is something that the living in grief must relentless push back

Use the act among the living as a lesson perhaps of the consequences of one’s choices

Always ready to stop, empathize and to listen to loved one’s troubled voices

If there is a silver lining in this moment of grief, it perhaps is this

Staring down into the endless black grief abyss

Time may not heal the emotional wounds but time enables the mind like the body to form scars

And slowly ever so slowly cover the wound and deepening guilt and pain slowly bar

© September 6 2017, Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet                           

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