Suicide Is a Family Affair

     I was thirteen years old when my grandfather committed suicide.   With all the publicity in recent days about Robin Williams final act, memories return about my grandfather, a morose Italian immigrantwho  never truly adjusted to life in a  Chicago neighborhood where family lived in and around him.

     He called me occu de bugia.  Eyes like a bug.  They were brown like  his.  Pressed quarters in my hand and pinched my cheek.  Who knew what demons rode his shoulders?  His suicide caused a buzz in our neighborhood.  It was messy, shooting hmself in the head with my father resting on the couch in the next room. Woke up screaming, relatives swarming down the stairs in the two flat grandpa owned. he lived alone, my grandmother had died a few years back. his 2 other sons overseas, in the army.

    I wrote a short story about him when I became a writer,  I called it Grandpa's Last Stand.  Hard to understand his deep depression.  No shrinks in those days to talk to, not much of a church goer, even though my grandmother went to mass daily.  For years, I avoided the stairwell where his apartment was, the bullet hole still in the wall.  Eerie.

     My father brooded a lot,  unable to overcome his gambling addiction.  I knew he had a gun somewhere in our house in a new neighborhood. Fearful that he, too, would do this drastic deed.  He never did.  Just lost himself in long shots, beating himself up for his weaknesses,  I loved him so much. Who knew his heart would do him in, a respectable way to go.

     I think about Robbin Williams family now.  I wonder if they worry about each other.  About themselves.

   Years ago,I suffered a deep depression.  Fortunately, resources were available to help me through it,Mentors, counsellors, church, faith, meds that worked,  And my unfailing sense of humor that crept back into my life.

    We never know what others are grapling with, when kindness and love is all we can offer.

     My guru visited me this week and had me write this sentence down and repeated it myself often.  I share it here with you.  "May I be forgiven for any harm I may have casused  conciously or unconsciously."   It resonates with me.  It works if you work it.

     So Says Sassy

The Finality of Loss

     This is the witching hour.  My eyes begin to smart around 5:30 p.m or 6 p.m. Vague sadness drifts over me.  Des has been gone well over a year but missing him comes over me in waves.  Grief, mourning whatever.  A rose by any other name would sting as much.

     Most of the time I go on with life in this new category of widow.  Go to church, meet friends, laugh, write, read   a ton of new books, visit one or another of the medical pros that keep me above the grass.  

    Manage to keep up with the onslaught of paper work, bills, ads,coupons, plea for money from a litany of charitable organizaions.  I am tempted to cross out the name of the ones addressed to my husband and write forward to local cemetery.  Haven't done it yet.  Still might.

     Tomato plants are growing in my back yard.  Des is shocked, mouth agape.  A play on words since he developed Agape Therapy, Greek work referencing  love--the unconditional kind.  Wrote books about it. gave them away, charging money was not his long suit.  Good at giving it away.

     I should have realized what I was getting into when he took away my credit cards during our brief dating days, paid off the balance of $700 - serious money in 1971- and declared over the years to everyone we knew that he bought me.

     A few years ago, I put seven crisp one hundred dollar bills in an envelope, put it under the Christmas Tree and declared myself free.  He just smirked and asked where the interest was.   Did I mention that I miss him?

     Just noticed that it is now past the witching hour and my weepy mood has passed.  Will turn on the TV, laugh with the Golden Girls, warm up with the Walton Family...my rerun entertainment to chase away the blues.   See you in the funny papers.

   So says Sassy

     

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