No matter how one envisions hell, no concrete proof of its experience can be known. Some may use the imagery in Dante’s Inferno, or the description in the Bible, or use a scene from one of the many movies depicting it. While one yet lives, the most applicable idea of hell comes from within one’s own mind.
I think most would conjure ideas of those things that are most horrific to that person and use them as a foundation for their idea of what hell might be like. Over two years ago I wrote Hurts Like Hell, and it contained a vague description of my current hell.
“A deep-seated fire, a seething hatred of absence, burns within me. It rolls and boils, exuding its vile putridness all over my life. The fire consumes the landscape of my life, leaving even the beautiful remnants charred, marred by its fuel, grief.”
What does this mean? Most people have no clue, and I am so glad because ignorance here truly is bliss! On the other hand, without some idea of what it is like, they do not know how to support a friend who grieves a suicide loss.
Certainly, my hatred of absence starts with missing my son. Even this fundamental statement has a complicated beginning. Even after we lost two babies, I recall trying to understand what it would be like if Caleb died. A friend had just lost their son about his age and my mind could not grasp the enormity of the concept, nor the tiniest morsel of it. People often say they cannot imagine it. I used to believe this was unknowable. Now I believe the mind refuses to go there. Before the first eternally long second is half over, in the same instant you know your child is dead, your brain suddenly reveals all the horror it knew was possible. It must shield this information from people or they might never allow most of life to occur.
His absence created huge gashes in my life, mortal wounds that will never heal. The wounds inflicted on his mother and sister are just as large, and I hate that our lives have been forever altered. None of the three of us are remotely the same persons. I used to be surprised so many people left us but now am shocked anyone stayed.
Once my initial shock started wearing off after a few months, I began hating his absence from others. I would see others his age and hate he was not with them. He was not in his graduating class. People my age show up to events with their kids his age and he is not there. Those kids are now in their profession, getting married, having children, etc. Their parents are grandparents and enjoy all that entails. I hate that the one who should have been my daughter-in-law remains forever absent.
All of the above remain, rolling and boiling, but lately it is a daily consuming fire. However, it is more than just hating his absence, but also that my other children are also absent. I see them in others and miss their presence in many of the same ways. I miss Emily around kids who turned 15 this summer and when Madi is hanging around another girl in that age range. I long for Alex in the many early-thirty crowd I so often am around.
The very specific absence of the others has not occurred before. It very much like being Haunted. An additional level of hell has opened up because now one of the three is almost everywhere.
“I cannot do anything lately without him in my face, trying to grab my attention, haunting me where ever I go. One minute I am wishing for a moment of peace, and the next I want to see his face.”
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