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Suicide is something no person should ever have to go through and yet more families are facing it today than ever before. The state of our economy, lack of employment and loss of life savings is pushing many people over the edge, unable to cope; they are opting out of life. For the family left behind, there are more questions than answer. They are caught in a whirlwind of emotions ranging from anguish and loneliness to rage, confusion and guilt. As the survivor of not one but two family members who committed suicide within a month of each other, I have been through those emotions and found that you can find peace with your loved one's decision.

Three years ago my baby brother, then 32, committed suicide. He hung himself in our parent's back yard - our father found him. It was surreal. I kept waiting on someone to wake me up and tell me it was all a bad dream, but of course that didn't happen. Some days I cried for hours, some days I was numb and lost in my own thoughts. I also spent many days enraged at him for leaving us. We spent countless hours going over all the reasons we thought pushed him over the edge. I needed to make sense of it, to understand his reasoning. Juvenile diabetes had wreaked havoc on his body for many, many years. His wife had left him yet again and he was addicted to the pain medicine he needed just to walk. Even though I knew in my heart why he was gone, I wasn't ready to accept his choice.

Barely a month later, my great uncle shot himself. He was elderly and in poor health. At my brother's funeral, he had commented on how brave my brother was to be able to commit suicide. My grandmother, his sister, found him dead when she went to take him lunch. Again, we had no answers and again we were left in a state of numbness.

When someone commits suicide the family instinctively tries to hide it. The person 'passed away suddenly' shows up in conversation. We are afraid people will talk behind our backs, that they will think mental illness was involved or that we might be suicidal as well. It's natural not to want to go into details about suicide. But, you don't have to feel ashamed or hide your feelings.

Along with the shame we feel comes the blame and guilt we place on ourselves. We think we should have been able to stop the person, should have seen the signs. This is not true. Even if you see the signs, you can't always stop a person. My brother had attempted suicide prior to his death on two occasions. He had been to doctors and psychiatrists. The bottom line is that if a person is set on dying they will find a way to make it happen. It is up to the survivors to find a way to cope with their decision.

For me, after the first year or so, I came to a point that I accepted that my brother decided he didn't want to hurt anymore. He had been to every specialist there was available and his marriage was a shamble that truthfully was not worth saving, it caused him more harm than it did good. I had to accept that for him, suicide was him taking control of his life. The doctors couldn't help him and to continue on this earth would have been a life filled with pain and despair on a daily basis.

I stopped thinking of him as a coward. Now, even though I do get angry at him for leaving us, for putting our parents through the pain they still haven't been able to handle. I get angry at not being able to say goodbye. For those who have to deal with suicide, time is the only healer. Try to understand that no matter what the reason, suicide is a choice that is made.

Learn more about this author, Sharon Chapman.
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