Oh Susan, Stay

Oh, Susan, how did it come to this? Do you feel too much love, too much pain, too much of everything? Who told you it isn’t a God-given talent to write words like notes from a symphony? That making everyone feel seen isn’t something special? That your flowers and quilts won’t warm a single heart? That the medicine, mindfulness, and meditation won’t work?

Oh Susan, it was a trick. I found the darkness that told you those lies. I sat with him, and he promised to make the not-being-enough feelings stop. He promised to make everything stop. He said it wouldn’t matter if any of us stayed.

Oh Susan, stay. Catch your breath amidst the shipwreck. Rest your head on the driftwood for a while. Hold your face to the sun. Resist the pull of the dark sea; the one that will devour your beauty and disguise itself as truth.

Oh Susan, I wish I could keep you afloat. But this disease never cared about you, me, or anyone else. Know this. You’ll always be a child of God. An ancestor. A teacher. A memory.

Oh Susan, there you’ll stay.

Note from Laura:

Written in memory of my first cousin once removed, Susan, who died by suicide in March. She was only a year older than my Dad, who died the same way. Their deaths were 20 years apart. Both after a battle with clinical depression.

I never knew Susan, but after my grandparents died, I inherited letters she wrote to them about my dad’s death. When I read them for the first time, I felt truly understood. She saw him, loved him, and forgave him. She also gave me new ways to process grief. She wrote that my Dad was an innocent child of God, and I felt wrapped in light.

Susan’s death also brought the awareness that her mother (my Great Aunt) also suffered from depression and, in an effort to get better, underwent shock therapy at a time when side effects were common and mental illness was severely stigmatized. What a brave woman.

Depression runs in my family. I am grateful for that knowledge.

Susan is a child of God. My ancestor. My teacher. There she’ll stay.