It\u2019s an interesting phenomenon really\u2014how it just so happens that you bump into people whose story-lines you share, people who aren\u2019t new to you, yet somehow you never really knew that part of their story, the part of it that mirrors your own, the part that they\u2019ve tried to keep hidden deep down inside of themselves.\u00a0 Yes, after finally choosing to step out and openly share my own personal history with suicide, I\u2019ve begun to bump into its fallout far too frequently to be called \u201ccoincidental.\u201d<\/p>\n
One such encounter occurred at a local retailer when I ran into a woman whom I\u2019ve been bumping into there for years, a woman whom I\u2019m quite fond of and whom I thought I knew a lot about.\u00a0 I learned more about her, though, when I decided to mention what I\u2019d been up to\/why she had not seen as much of me recently.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve been working on another book,\u201d I told her.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s about suicide in the Church-the story of my father.\u00a0 I really hope you\u2019ll check it out.\u201d\u00a0 Her response wasn\u2019t what I expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, my husband used to say that it felt like he had a snake in his pocket, and it kept sticking its head out and telling him to just do it; and then one day he did.\u00a0 He died from suicide, Angela.\u00a0 Yep, he sure did\u2014he just couldn\u2019t fight it anymore.\u201d\u00a0 I was silenced almost completely by what she shared in the middle of the store; and I felt as if time stood still for us for just a few quiet moments, as people continued to scurry by us both as if nothing tragically big had ever happened to any of us at all. \u00a0Her words hung heavy in the air between us and from them an image was painted in my head that I have been unable to erase since that day\u2014a snake in his pocket<\/em>.<\/p>\n He was desperate for change she would go on to tell me, struggling for many years with the challenges of addiction; and he needed relief, a change, and that serpent in his pocket told him repeatedly that the only way he was ever going to get it was to leave this world.\u00a0 I so wish, wish with everything I\u2019ve got in me, that the voice he heard in that one pivotal moment had whispered something far different to him\u2014You\u2019re so loved and valued, you are seen, it doesn\u2019t have to end this way, there will be a better day down here.\u00a0 <\/em>But that wasn\u2019t what he heard.<\/p>\n Yes, I can be quite the romantic, and I can have those moments when I believe that the perfect words at the perfect time really can rewrite the whole story-line\u2014and I do believe that this is a real possibility.\u00a0 But I also believe, because I\u2019ve lived through it too, that mere words, even the most wonderful ones, cannot and do not always mend us.\u00a0 Nonetheless, we can choose to say to those around us the types of things we so wish our loved ones had somehow been able to hear in their last moments here; and that can be the change we carry in our own pockets.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s an interesting phenomenon really\u2014how it just so happens that you bump into people whose story-lines you share, people who aren\u2019t new to you, yet somehow you never really knew that part of their story, the part of it that mirrors your own, the part that they\u2019ve tried to keep hidden deep down inside of […] <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6VlK3-92","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":561,"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions\/561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}