by Yvonne Mccormack

Created on: February 01, 2009   Last Updated: February 04, 2009

Suicide, I even hate writing the word. My husband took his own life one day and left me a young widow of thirty five, with four children three of them still in school. He shot himself in our bedroom one morning while I was at work, my two daughters were at home at the time it was horrendous for them, my sixteen year old found him and she protected the younger one from the horror inside the room. When the phone rang at work and I got the news time just seemed to be going in slow motion i just couldn't react I didn't know how i was numb.

The next few days are a blur, I can't remember much about the funeral even today, eighteen years later, but really I think its the brains way of protecting us from somethings.

The first few months were difficult trying to come to terms with such a loss, my husband was my whole life, we had been together since I was sixteen and he eighteen. I found it hard to function even normal every day things seemed an effort I just wanted to hide away from the world. I would stay in bed as much as possible, I had no family close by to help, my inlaws were so wrapped up in their own grief that they stayed away so I was totally alone. Then one morning I heard my daughter crying in her room, it shook me to my core, I felt so guilty, here was I hiding away and my children were hurting so much and they needed me, that was my turning point, for the first time in months I dressed myself, I went to my kitchen opened the cuboards and started writing a shopping list, for the last few months my neighbours had been looking after my kids now it was time for me to take back the responsibilty and get our lives back on track.

Im not going to say that was that, we all lived happy ever after, because we were still greiving, but now we would grieve together, and help each other. Some times it was hard but i did find great comfort in my children, I knew they needed me, and they knew i needed them.

The hardest thing I think for me was the fear, it overwhelmed me. I went through the normal stages of grief, the anger at him for doing what he did, the days and nights crying, then the guilt thinking did I do something, was it my fault, why didn't I notice he was feeling like that. But after all those feelings I still had this awful fear, it took over every waking moment. The fear was, what if one of my children do the same, and I couldn't shake it, it was so strong.

I kept my kids close all the time when they was not in school, I didn't want them out of my sight, I was afraid to discipline in case I upset them, so of course I let them do what they liked, just as long as they were happy,[ I thought ] but I was doing things wrong they needed the discipline in their lives and stabilty. They had been through a terrible time and I was making things worse.

So as a family we sat down and talked, and talked, and talked, it was great, we opened up flood gates that had been closed for so long, and listened to each others feelings and hurts, we talked about what happened, and how we felt about it, it was a real breakthrough, it helped us all cope much better, and made us all very close to each other, and very strong.

Over the years it wasn't all easy but we have suffered a loss through suicide and survived, I look at my children today all grown up three of them married with families of their own and my heart bursts with pride at how well they turned out.

For those of you who are unfortunate to find yourselves in a similar situation, please try and talk to someone, it does help.

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