One Year Later…
One year ago today was the worst day of my life. At 1:30am several Wendell Police officers came to my home to tell me my brother died by suicide. I took a few moments and sat with that information - allowed myself to fall apart in Kevin’s arm, thankful to be supported by his love. With the help of his strength, I pulled myself back together and called my sister - thankfully she wasn’t up and I asked her to call me right away. I took a deep breath and called my mom. She did answer and I told her what no mother should ever have to hear. Shortly after, my sister called back and I had to repeat the little details I knew. I held it together long enough to call the responding officer that found my brother and got all of the details he was allowed to share with me at that point. After that call, I fell back into Kevin’s arms for a few hours until I made my way up to a sleeping Ben and laid in bed with him, holding him, grateful to be surrounded by so much love and soaking in as much as I could in hopes that it would help me get through this day.
I won’t rehash all the details since we all know what the rest of the day entailed (if you don’t, I encourage you to go read my first few blog posts to get caught up).
But I do want to fast forward to one year later; I know how lucky I am to be so loved and supported by the absolutely best village. This past year has shown me how truly critical it is to allow your village to take care of you when you need them to.
You always assume (or hope) that your village will come together to help you if you get cancer, lose a partner, your child has a critical illness, or some major, life altering event. Losing your brother to suicide is not one of the scenarios that pops into your head. Of course any loss is life altering, but I never recognized the depth of how grief can impact your entire being. And when you add suicide in addition to all the little nuances that came along with my brother’s situation, it adds a lot of messy layers to your already unstable grief tower.
But if you’re lucky, and you allow yourself to, you can lean into your village and you can make it through with their love and support. Not every day will be a good day, but eventually, there will be way more good days than not so good days. And then there will be great days along with the good days and a few not so good days sprinkled here and there.
I still miss my brother. He made a bad decision, and that really sucks. I wish I could have had the opportunity to help him navigate his mental health struggles. BUT he did teach me the importance of maintaining and nourishing my own mental health, which is something I have never put much thought into. I don’t struggle with my mental health so it is easy to fall into the “I’ll get through it” mindset. And I probably would have gotten through the last year on my own if I had really wanted to. But what impact would that have had on my mental and physical health? What would that have taught my son? This is a reminder to nourish and feed your mental health, whether you think you need to or not. And a bigger reminder to build, connect and cherish your village. The size of your village doesn’t matter, but the quality of it sure as heck does. You need to pour yourself into your village and hope that you will never need it but will be at peace knowing that you have them.
I also want to give a sincere thank you to my village. Every message, thought, prayer, etc. means so much. Some did a lot, some did a little and I appreciate every single one of you more than you’ll ever know. You mean the world to me and you make life way more fun - thank you 💙 Shannan