Processing world events through coffee and tears this morning.  Two high profile suicides have brought a myriad of emotions to surface in the faces around me and in the mirror.  It is a human frailty that I have touched upon before and in fact have written a novel about, suicide has touched my life before this week, as I imagine it has touched many of you.  It causes me deep sadness, on many levels, as often it was a solo act done in despair wrapped in an imagined eternal darkness.  I do not know to what place one goes prior to this act, I can only believe it is a place beyond understanding, it is the desire to release oneself of all consuming pain.  Those who have survived attempts often say “I just wanted to get away from the pain…”

BUT Suicide spreads the pain, we all feel it, it reminds us of our own fragile moments, when the dark night of the soul enveloped us and tried to convince us there was nothing more.  It spreads the sadness that we somehow failed each other, failed to recognize the need of another.  If nothing else we are here, together, on the wondrous Earth, in all its beauty and chaos.  We are here together for a reason; no man is an island.

There is never too much kindness or compassion in this world, and a simple act of either can change a person’s perspective of their darkness. A smile, an acknowledgement of acceptance, a hug, can build a bridge between despair and hope.  We are together for a reason.  If nothing else, to help each other in our journey back to the Light.  The Darkness is never total, The Darkness never wins, even after Suicide there is only Healing, and the return of Hope and Love in the Light.