The Answers

One of my blog posts, The Questions,  gets a lot of traffic.  It’s about the questions that I live with as a result of the death of my daughter; I wrote it on February 18th if you are inclined to look it up.

Yes.  As the mother of a teenaged girl who died by suicide, I am definitely living with questions.

But I am living with some answers too.   Like, “I can handle the worst that life will send to me.”  Before Molly’s death, I would have thought that losing her would be the end of me, and in some ways I guess it was.   I am not the same person I was before Molly died. But I am here.  And I am living.   And I am moving on because I have to.  Life cannot hand me anything that will defeat me.

I also know that my friends and family are there for me.  No need to question that one for a second.   People are good.   We have been loved beyond our wildest imaginings through these last two years; we treasure that gift and seek to reciprocate it as well.

I am not alone.   Living through the death of a child – even the suicide of a child – does not put me in an exclusive club.  There are many of us – lots of good people -  who are living this experience.   I am grateful to every single person who has reached out to me with their story of pain and loss; every story has strengthened me.

God is real.  I don’t have a creed to pull out or a testimony to share.  I know that religion causes lots of problems.  But Molly’s death has brought me face to face with all of the uncertainties that exist beyond the very breath that we are taking at this moment. 

And having stared those uncertainties down I am left with a confidence that life is greater than what we can know, that death does not separate us – ever -  and that God lives within our attempts to love each other.

I know. I know.  It sounds like a Barney song or something.   But it’s enough for me.