A day soon to come will mark nineteen years since my first book, Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling, was published. As I reflect on this journey, what I instantly see– my thoughts also prodded by watching Jerry Seinfeld’s “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” discussion with Dana Carvey about how a comedian can’t just get up and make people laugh anymore, it’s about who the comedian is now, too– I’m thinking about the nineteen years I’ve spent sharing much of my life story. And this has also changed with the addition of social media.
While it might see like I have shared all of my life, I haven’t. There are aspects that remain not under wraps, but perhaps their time to be shared isn’t yet. Some of that is because other people are involved and there is too much pain for them to share. But there also is a portion of my life that I don’t share because I don’t quite understand it. Instead, some of it I work out to some extent in my fiction writing that I work on five days a week. The rest I leave alone, trusting that one day I will share when I do understand it. Or maybe not.
Growing up with my need to be a writer, I never saw that I would be sharing my story in such a close personal way. However, Denise’s suicide changed everything for my family and it was Mom, whose words echo in my mind, said, “Tell everyone and anyone. Maybe we can help someone with her story.” I always joked that I’m sure she didn’t think I’d write a book about it, but it did give us all (I believe) some meaning to our loss as we did help others through it.
But as life has continued to forge forward, I continue to share what I believe is helpful for others, while leaving the rest of it until I understand it. I sometimes feel like I need to see it in the rearview mirror, when I have past it, to understand it in a way that I can share with others. For some people, I know they might think that I should share as I’m going through it as it might make me more relatable, but something tells me that I need to understand it before I share it. That’s the message I’ve continued to recieve particularly in recent years as it’s become less about sharing the story of my sisters suicide and more about what I have done with my life and how she remains in my life now.
I don’t believe that everyone has to tell their story. When it comes to grief, loss, and life, we must all travel our own journeys. While I’ve always been a person who wanted to know what motivated people, I understand that sometimes people are protective of their stories. After all, it’s all we really have. For that reason, we should respect those who choose not to share.
However, in my life, which I realize isn’t the same as everyone else’s, there is an intersection of my life journey and what happens to me and how I can share that to inspire others.