Suicide Loss - Books

“Nothing, in fact, actually dies: everything goes on existing, always. No power on Earth can obligate that which has once had being. Every act, every word, every form, ever thing, falls into the universal ocean of things, and produces a ripple on its surface that goes on enlarging beyond the furthest bounds of eternity.” —History of a Suicide

Below is a quick list of books that have been of great help during my most recent grieving journey. Of these books, I was captivated by Stay because of the incredible depths reached by Jennifer Michael Hecht. As a Christian (with its own complex history around suicide for another post), I was searching for a way to see the topic of suicide from a historical, more secular perspective. Denying your future self. Leaving your post. Hecht covers such a wide array of concepts that it is almost dizzying—from literary examples, to philosophers, to real-world examples.

While perhaps not the easiest read, I was often times comforted and felt empowered by Hecht's passion and true desire for people to choose to STAY and for their loved ones to have the strength of historical reasons why they should.

In her review of Stay, Temma Ehrenfeld shares the way Hecht explains the emotions and history of author John Milton as most moving:

I was most moved by Hecht’s account of John Milton, who suffered in love and politics and went blind at age forty-four, wondering how he would continue to write. Interpreting his sonnet “On His Blindness,” Hecht writes: “When he thinks about how his eyesight is gone (how his days are spent) with half his life still to go, and when he thinks of his talent for writing buried in him because of his blindness, he wants to ask how he is supposed to do his work like this—it is day labor in the dark.” (In Milton’s language: “day-labour, light denied.”)

How eloquently the phrase captures the burden of getting through each day when you’d rather be dead. In the poem, “Patience” replies that we don’t get to choose our burden. Through Hecht’s lens, Milton is telling us that the “work of waiting through suicidal dark periods is heroic.” And she reminds us again that we don’t know what the future will bring. Indeed, Milton had yet to write Paradise Lost.

Early on in History of a Suicide: My Sister's Unfinished Life (page 31), author Jill Bialoski shares: "Nothing, in fact, actually dies: everything goes on existing, always. No power on Earth can obligate that which has once had being. Every act, every word, every form, ever thing, falls into the universal ocean of things, and produces a ripple on its surface that goes on enlarging beyond the furthest bounds of eternity." While it is hard as a survivor of loss to be comforted after the fact by this thought—the "What if I had shared..." thought—it is certainly an empowering thought to continue on and be a light, hope, strength, and love for others. One little act or word of support rippling and enlarging the greater community in hopes that no one has to feel the way we do as survivors of loss.

Books

• Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It, by historian Jennifer Michael Hecht
• Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, by Kay Redfield Jamison
• History of a Suicide: My Sister's Unfinished Life, by Jill Bialoski
• Finding Your Way After the Suicide of Someone You Love, by David B. Biebel and Suzanne L. Foster
• No Time to Say Goodbye: Surviving the Suicide of a Loved One, by Carla Fine
• Dying to Be Free: A Healing Guide for Families after a Suicide, by Beverly Cobain and Jean Larch

Please feel free to add your comments, suggestions, and other books/resources below. Thank you for listening!