Question: How do you grieve a suicide as a result of terminal illness and for no apparent reason?

But there is a reason and that reason is the terminal illness.

The suicidal thoughts and resulting end of life is about being afraid of what the coming months will hold, of actually being more afraid of the experience leading up to death than death itself. The thought is, “If I am going to be dying soon then let’s just skip over the dying part, that really scares me, and let me be dead.”

Sometimes it is just too hard to go on living. The future looks too bleak and scary so we end our life earlier than most expected of us. Look to the person’s personality, to how they have dealt with other challenges in their life. Have they run away from other life challenges? Suicide is the ultimate “runaway.” Although I think it takes a great deal of courage to kill yourself it often takes more courage to live until we die.

How do you grieve this sudden loss? Painfully, and with questions to which you will never find answers. All the ‘what if,’ ‘why didn’t I,’ and ‘I should haves’ will fill our grieving brain and make our grieving even more difficult than it normally would be.

In our grief we have to forgive ourselves for what might have been if only-----. Those self recriminations accomplish nothing but making us more miserable. They answer no questions, bring no peace.

There are no words that I can offer you to make you feel better in your grief. Time will ease the pain but even that knowledge is not comforting to hear. Be gentle with yourself, forgive what needs to be forgiven of yourself and others, release the questions that have no answers and let the life you live be your tribute to the loved one who is gone.