The Pain of Love

Sometimes when people lose loved ones to suicide they have the question "WHY?" I've not really had that. I know why. He was tired of the battle, he didn't think he cold face the problems he had or the ones he knew would come. He wanted more from the person he was in love with than she could give. He saw no other way out, he needed to escape. She wanted to be "friends", but just being friends with her wasn't possible for him. I don't know the whole of WHY at that moment it happened but I know the jist of it and and I understand.
And of course the people outside of our family, are asking that question because Jonathan hid well his hurting heart. He was kind and funny to his friends and gave them good advice about their own lives, and so this has shocked some of them. But it never shocked me. Of course I never wanted it to happen and I had the thought locked in the deepest part of my soul and hoped I'd never have to experience what it would cause for us.
I think the first words I said when I was told was "Where was he?" "How"? and then I said something like, "This does not shock me" or something like "This is not something I wasn't expecting." And the very moment I was told, I felt a weight being lifted from me. I didn't think about it until much later but as crazy as it sounds, I did. And I think that was his own pain that I'd felt for so long. But HIS was gone and I knew that immediently. And in those first few moments of being told I felt relief and almost peace. Of course that didn't last as within the next moments as things sank in I felt like my heart had been ripped from me.
I didn't allow myself to think about those first feelings at first because they confused me and I thought how could I have felt Relief when I was told he was gone but now I understand. We feel every pain our child has, whether he has a skinned knee at six or he suffers every day of his life with depression. As mothers we FEEL it all from them and we carry it with us. Maternal Love is a complicated kind of love and one not something you can explain, you have to feel it.
And so that is how I know for sure he is no longer huring. When he took his own pain away, it lifted from me. But it was replaced with hurt that will be with me forever now, and it's my pain for myself. I know longer hurt for him. He is in peace now.