One father’s reflection on finding resilience, purpose, and connection after tragedy
Trigger warning — This article mentions suicide, although it focuses on my reaction and how my life has changed since the event.
My daughter Holly took her own life six years ago. What felt like staring into or being consumed by a black hole has become quite different.
A black hole is only known to exist because of the presence of light around it. Or, as NASA put it:
A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying. Because no light can get out, people can’t see black holes.
The moment my wife put down the phone, and I heard the words Holly and suicide in the same sentence, I felt that pull of gravity sucking all the light out of my world. Six years after the event, I can still feel that pull of gravity towards dark despair, but I can take a step back and notice how the black hole allowed me to appreciate the light around me more than I ever have before.
My Birthday Story
It was a joyous day. We awoke in our campervan in South Cornwall in brilliant sunshine and below-zero temperatures. After a glorious walk along the coast, we settle into a pub next to a log fire. What was billed as the best Sunday lunch in Cornwall is just that. We review the details of previous birthday and anniversary meals as always.
Top of the list is always the one Holly instigated at Ronnie Scotts on my 60th. We can now reminisce and think fondly of this and other events where Holly’s big personality features strongly. Arriving home midafternoon, my whole mood seems to change.
I am cold and exhausted. I warm up in the shower and then crawl under the duvet with a hot water bottle. Experiencing the light for a few hours has drawn my attention to the black hole that is constantly there. No one else can see it, and I know by now that it will not consume me or suck all the light out of my world. I am keenly aware of the light because of the black hole. If the black hole were not there, I would not be aware of the glorious light surrounding it.
Becoming self-aware became a necessity.
I have been on a self-awareness journey for 40 years from when I first went into therapy as a requirement for my job. It is never complete. It has stalled and faltered but went into overdrive the moment Holly left us.
Now, it seems like the only way I can hold myself together, and at the same time, it has become my passion and purpose. I was drowning in the strong currents of the ocean. Holly’s death has become the raft I cling to for riding the currents safely and steering my way into the future and the unknown.
On her birthday
This is when we come together as an extended family—focused on a meal together, visiting the burial ground and standing high in the wind watching the river far below.
Our two children grew up in a little extended family group with an auntie and two cousins living a few doors away. Some of my strongest memories are of all seven of us around a meal table. Whether it was Sunday Lunch or a celebration, it was a precious time for me.
With children leaving home and leading their own lives, these gatherings became reduced to maybe once a year, with all seven of us plus occasional partners. In addition, we would occasionally get our two girls to join us for an anniversary or birthday.
Holly was always a strong force in uniting us for a celebration, and she still is. She draws us in to celebrate her birthday, and I, for one, revel in this excuse for this celebration of her glorious life.
Her death has not diminished my life
I am grateful to Holly for coming into this world and spending 28 years with us. Her birth and her death were both traumatic but a necessary part of her existence.
The wound is the place where light enters you — Rumi
The first morning after she died, I felt the light entering but found it difficult to let it in. I stepped out of her flat into brilliant sunshine. I asked myself, “How can I feel joy in the sunshine after what happened?”
This was my first lesson in holding joy and sadness in the palm of one hand. Of course, the nature of her death will permanently devastate me. I will always have questions and doubts about my actions as a father. However, I cannot allow her leaving us to overshadow the amazing experience of living with her for 28 years.
Holly’s memory remains a guiding beacon, like the flash from a lighthouse reflecting on the surface of the ocean, simultaneously guiding the way and warning of danger.
When I sit with clients in my counselling room I can be a guide because I have experienced what it is like to crash upon the rocks or become overwhelmed by the waves. I have also experienced what it is like to take the helm of my craft and to purposefully and intentionally steer it into safer waters.
I am filled with gratitude to Holly for sharing her brief life with us, to family and friends for their support in navigating the treacherous waters of grief and to everyone in the Counselling Community who has swum alongside me whispering or shouting encouragement.
Also in the early years connecting up with groups such as The Compassionate Friends and Survivors Of Bereavement by Suicide was vital. I am also grateful to the charities Clarity and Cruse for giving me free or low cost counselling. (Links Below)
Thanks for reading to the end. Do get in touch if you are affected in any way by my writing and artwork. The links below my website are organisations that helped me in the early stages of grief.
The Compassionate Friends
www.tcf.org.uk
Home | Clarity Counselling Services
The Cruse site was down while I wrote this so I accessed it through Counselling Directory
Cruse Bereavement Support
www.counselling-directory.org.uk
Samaritans – Here to listen
If addiction is an issue for you after bereavement.
https://www.rehab4addiction.co.uk,
The SOBS UK site also appeared to be down.