life and death

Viewing one of my guilty pleasures, in this case a Danish tale of the Nordic Noir genre, I was struck by the scene of small, hand-held hot air balloons being set aloft during a memorial service/New Years Eve celebration for the family matriarch.  I found this beautifully emotional.

That segued into the importance of long time family and friends that know all the phases of  my life.  Or at least the phases that matter.  I'm pretty sure my purple Annie Lennox length hair phase, my steamy, pushing boundaries relationship with an American Airlines pilot phase, and early mid-life crisis tattoo and body piercing phase really don't matter in the grand scheme of things.

I mean the pivotal moments in life:  marriage, professional and personal accomplishments, birth, death.  The people that have been through all these things with me, and while some may not have been 100% understanding of my motives, they are still there, they still matter in my life, they still love me.  As I love them.

My time in Minneapolis was important on so many levels.  These people have seen me at my worst and my best.  They love my late son, Jason, just about as much as I do.  And they are not afraid to say his name out loud.  That means the world to me.

I have used various coping mechanisms over the years in dealing with Jason's suicide:  therapy, (legal) drugs, reading everything I could find on suicide and mental illness, mindless sex with men and women, music, and art (pretty much in that order, too.)  But none of these can really compare to a few days spent with the oldest and dearest people in my life.  Because dealing with the suicide of someone I love beyond life is not something I will ever get over.  It's become a part of me.  I have learned to live with it; to embrace it.  To never forget the incredible person I had the brief honour of calling my son, and to let this push me to never give up, to be braver than I feel, even when in the downward turn of one of life's undulations.  And to be surrounded by people that feel this as well, was better than the best of my coping techniques.  

electric ladyland
©Trish Korous