I Lost My Father to Suicide: Al’s Story
Written by Al Hsu, USA
This piece is adapted from Al Hsu’s 6-part series When Suicide Strikes, produced by our parent ministry, Our Daily Bread Ministries.
I lost my father to suicide.
My father, Terry, was an engineer, with a PhD in electrical engineering. He was a brilliant man, designing satellite-imaging technology that could map things from outer space. But one November he experienced a stroke. While he survived, the stroke left him partly debilitated on the left side of his body.
He started rehab and recovery, but one of the long-term effects of the stroke was that he wasn’t able to work, and he fell into a deep despair that spiralled into clinical depression. He thought his medical bills were bankrupting the family (which wasn’t the case). He lost all sense of hope.
Three months after the stroke, he felt that he could no longer go on living. He went into his room, closed the door, and killed himself. He was 58 years old.
When my mother called me with the awful news, she wailed in grief and pain. I was in shock. Numb. It didn’t seem real. How could this have happened to our family? And how could we go on?
A Loss Like No Other
Losing a loved one or friend to suicide is one of the most devastating losses anyone can experience. Never again can we be the same. It’s the kind of event that divides our lives into “before” and “after” as we find ourselves experiencing a whirlwind of physiological changes, confusing emotions, and haunting questions.
Counselors describe suicide loss as a “complicated grief” or “complicated bereavement” because two things take place simultaneously. On one level we experience the grief that naturally arises from losing a loved one in any circumstances. But on top of that, we also experience trauma. Trauma is an additional blow that can overwhelm our nervous systems and psyches. It’s similar to the experience of soldiers in combat or survivors of a school shooting.
The toll of trauma lingers long after our loved one’s suicide, compromising our capacity to rest, heal, and adapt. After the initial shock wears off, some survivors relive the moments they first learned the horrible news. This may occur in their waking hours or in their dreams at night. Anxiety, panic, anger, and difficulty concentrating are also common responses. Some experience chronic pain or digestive problems. Most of us feel stuck in a state of fear and readiness, sensing that something awful is about to happen again, while at the same time feeling utterly helpless to do anything about it.
The effects of utter helplessness in the face of grave danger can become so embedded in the brain and body’s instinctive reactions to perceived threat that some suicide survivors slip back and forth between states of high alert and shutdown or even experience both at the same time.
So suicide survivors experience two devastating realities. We grieve over the death of our loved one, but we also have the additional trauma of the suicide itself. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) complicates the grieving process, intensifying our grief experience to traumatic levels of pain, distress, and helplessness. It’s a one-two punch. The grief itself is difficult enough; trauma can make it seem unbearable.
We may find ourselves battered by other strong emotions. Anger is common after a suicide, as survivors feel betrayed and abandoned. If our loved one had been murdered, we could grieve the victim and rage against the murderer. But in this case, the victim was also an agent in their own death. And so we cry out, “How could you do this to yourself? How could you leave us in this way?” We rage against them even as we grieve their absence.
A relentless guilt gnaws at us. We think, “Why didn’t I see this coming? Why didn’t I do something to prevent it? I should have stopped this from happening.” My mother is a nurse, and she was acting as my father’s caregiver after his stroke. She saw the warning signs of depression, and she did all the right things in response; she removed weapons from the house, and she took him to the hospital for observation. Even so, she wasn’t able to prevent the suicide. And yet she experienced profound guilt. She felt like she had failed as a spouse and caregiver.
Ultimately, you need to know that you are not alone. Losing a loved one to suicide can feel isolating, as if nobody else can ever understand what you have gone through. It’s true that suicide is a loss unlike more “ordinary” deaths like old age, cancer, or car accidents. But many others have also experienced the trauma of suicide. You are not alone.
For me, attending a suicide survivors support group was vital to my healing. These are local gatherings where people who have lost someone to suicide can share their stories with each other. It can feel odd at first to talk with strangers about such painful, personal experiences, but I learned to appreciate how these groups are safe spaces where fellow survivors get each other in ways that our other friends might not. I needed to know that I wasn’t the only person who had experienced this devastating kind of loss. Others had gone through the trauma and survived, and I could too. So can you.
How Grief Changes Us
How do we go on after a loved one’s suicide?
Realise that grief is a journey, and we don’t really ever “get over” the loss. Our grief may change over the years, and it may no longer feel as immediately present or painful. But we are forever changed by the loss, and it will stay with us. One woman told me that she lost her father to suicide twenty-five years ago, and she still grieves him every day, in different ways.
When I lost my father, I was in my twenties. And I grieved him as my father, and I felt his loss and absence especially as I was making my way into the world and seeking encouragement and direction. While I sought out other father figures and mentors, I wished I could have talked with my dad about how to sort through things.
Now that I am older and in midlife, I find that I grieve my dad in different ways. Now, I grieve him as the grandfather that my sons have never known. I lament the years of him not being present at birthdays and holidays. I wish I could talk with him about what it’s like to get older, what to be thinking about and feeling at this stage of life. I grieve that those kinds of conversations now can never take place.
It has been said that grief turns some people hard while it turns other people soft. Fellow survivor, watch out that loss doesn’t harden your heart or embitter you toward the world. Instead, let grief mould you into a more sensitive, caring person, more attuned to the needs of others.
While God is not the author of our pain, he can redeem it. It may take a lot of time, but allow him to use your grief to shape and transform you in ways that heal you and others. In our grief, we now have a heightened awareness of the enormous pain out there in the world, and of how deeply people struggle. Let this grow our sense of compassion for others who suffer greatly.
In our mourning, we come to realise that we are part of a larger community, a fellowship of fellow sufferers who likewise need each other to carry on. And our own suffering gives us greater empathy for a suffering world.
Here are a few practical things to keep in mind as you continue your grief journey:
Find friends and community. You are not alone, and you are not meant to go through this alone. Surround yourself with trusted friends that you can share honestly with, those you feel safe enough to cry or scream with, to voice the tough questions. And, if possible, seek out the support of a pastor or counsellor.
Take care of yourself physically. Eat a balanced diet. Get enough sleep. Rest. Exercise. The physical activity of exercise can help our bodies and minds navigate grief and ward off sickness.
Be gentle with yourself. Have self-compassion. If you find yourself blaming yourself or saying hurtful things, remind yourself to be as gentle with yourself as you would be toward others in pain. And actually do something specifically kind for you. Take a few minutes to slow down and enjoy sipping a cup of coffee or tea at your favourite coffee house. Treat yourself to popcorn and a movie. Go for a walk with your pet and enjoy the solitude of the woods.
Beware of self-medicating your pain with food, alcohol or drug use. Ask friends and family to keep an eye on you. Give them permission to share their concerns. If you find yourself falling into unhealthy patterns, get help, go to a doctor or counsellor, and seek a support group.
Don’t make rash decisions. Don’t make any big life changes for at least one year after your loss. Don’t move across the country, don’t get remarried quickly, don’t try to conceive another child to “replace” the one you lost. Tell yourself, “I am in my time of grieving, and I will not make any major changes now.”
Spend time in nature and beauty. Go on walks outdoors. Listen to music. Go to art museums or whatever feeds your soul. Rediscover the good, hopeful parts of the world.
Give back to the community. Service to others can become a powerful way of channelling our grief in positive directions. When the time is right for you, volunteer with local organisations or your church to help other people in need. You may be pleasantly surprised to find that helping others is healing for your own soul as well.
Conclusion
Despite our grief, we can carry on. But we do so as changed people. Grief walks with us not as our defining master but as a companion that permits us to be fully human. Dark times do occasionally return, but we can know God’s presence and care even in the deepest of our valleys. We can experience his healing as he restores hope and life to our souls.
God knows our grief. He shares it with us and walks with us through it and beyond it. He is making all things new through the power of Jesus’s resurrection. The final pages of the story of the Bible affirm there will come a day when the grief of this broken world is behind us, death will be defeated, and every tear will be wiped away (see Revelation 21:4–5). Knowing this, we can live our lives in honour of those we have lost too soon. We can live in hope.
This blog post has been adapted from Al Hsu’s 6-part series When Suicide Strikes, produced by our parent ministry, Our Daily Bread Ministries. To read the full version of the series click here, and to read more about the Al’s journey of grief, check out his book Grieving a Suicide: A Loved One’s Search for Comfort, Answers, and Hope.
You can also listen to our recent podcast episode with Al or watch the full video interview on YouTube.
For more information on suicide, including where we see it in the Bible and stories of people who’ve been affected by suicide–whether through their own mental illness struggle or the loss of a loved one–head to our Suicide Resources page.
