Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
The event of a suicide encompasses, I believe, not one, but two separate griefs, each distinct from the other by cause and effect. The first of these, often too brusquely dismissed, caused the suicide.
I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
And the flood sweeps over me.
The second grief is that which is caused by the suicide. Moreover, this particular grief is distinct from our more general mournings because it resists--it undermines--our more general comfortings. How do we return to life again when the death seems to have been a willful act of our beloved?--as though the heart had chosen to cut itself out of the body. |