((((((Lily)))))),



I know what it's like to lose a Brother to suicide. My Brother committed suicide in 1966. He was 11 months younger than me. He was the other half of my soul. We completed each other's sentences. We looked alike. We were like twins.

He was in the Navy. He took an overdose of pills. I KNOW in my heart that his "best friend" got him the pills. My Brother was a hospital corpsman and his friend was studying pharmacy.

His friend didn't want to tell me ANYTHING. I just found out that the friend is working in Florida as a nurse. He saved someone's life and was published in a local newspaper. I've only recently gotten a real urge to talk to this **** and found out WHY. I've lived for close to 40 years without knowing why -- other than there was something wrong with him (which I felt internally).

Lily, please don't do anything that you'll regret or that we'll regret. Suicide doesn't solve any problems -- it just puts the problems off onto someone else -- family, friends, co-workers, forum-mates.

I just went back and read all of your messages. You've been struggling for quite awhile to find out what's wrong with your body -- haven't you. Struggling with your health on top of trying to figure out how to deal with your Brother's suicide. I *KNOW* in here that you haven't gotten your balance back from losing your Brother. I *KNOW* because it took me over 13 years to start getting my balance.

When you lose someone to death because of an illness -- there's a reason. When you lose someone to suicide -- when there's no real explanation, it's harder -- beyond hard, damn near impossible to get your balance back. It takes a lot of help and a lot of soul-searching and a lot of looking inward to get your balance back.

In 1990, I shampooed my hallway carpet and got some of the spray on the kitchen floor. I stepped onto the kitchen and hydroplaned right across the whole room and sat on my thumb They thought it was broken. It wasn't but it hurt like heck and it was black. I started getting pain in BOTH wrists. The neurologist could tell by touching my hands and my wrists (he was Chinese) that there was something wrong on both sides. The nerve and muscle conduction tests indicated that there was something wrong on both sides.

I did an exercise recommended to me by someone (I can't remember who) -- sat down on the floor with big paper and big crayons and drew my pain. The picture was of a girl standing next to a cemetery plot with a knife in her hand. She was trying to cut off her hands to prevent the person (my Brother) from pulling her into the grave. I had tried over and over to commit suicide -- the last attempt was in 1979. But, I was living in a way that was going to kill me. I wasn't visualizing a future for myself.

That's when I realized that my pain was being caused by my Brother telling me that I COULD NOT join him -- I HAD TO let him go.

Lily, this is only based on my own personal experience. I am no kind of professional. My gut instincts are telling me that you have some major work to do regarding your Brother and this is why you're so sick now.

I've gone through several periods in my life where The Universe demanded that I look again at my life and my Brother. Times where there are big changes in your life: when you turn 21, when you have your first child, when you start losing your parents, when you start getting "older" and start experiencing menopause, when you retire. These are only some of the situations that The Universe will communicate to you in a BIG WAY that you need to look at yourself and your life and make sure you're living the BEST THAT YOU CAN.

Lily, please don't do anything that we'll regret and that you'll regret. Try to get any books that you can that are written by Rabbi Earl A. Grollman. He's spent his whole life trying to help people cope with all sorts of losses. Try to find a caring priest or rabbi that you can talk with about your Brother and about the fear and the pain that's still inside of you.

Get yourself some blank books and carry them with you 24/7. Write every feeling -- good feeling, bad feeling, good memories, bad memories -- this helps you organize and sort your thoughts so that you don't have to have them running around inside your head. It'll also show you that you're stronger than you think you are. You WILL get stronger too.

That's how we heal. We get out the "needle and thread" and we stitch like crazy until all the torn broken places are fixed. Eventually our SELF looks like a huge patchwork quilt -- stitches all over the place -- but, much stronger because of all the stitches. And more able to help others that we meet along the way that are just starting out on the journey through hell.

Lily, I wish more than anything that you weren't having to suffer through this. If there were a way for me to go there right now and take every single bit of pain away from you -- I would in a heartbeat. The only way to get through the pain is to go through it. When you go through it, you understand it and it can't hurt you anymore.

Rabbi Grollman was "my Rabbi". He helped me through my divorce. He helped me explain the divorce to my son. He helped me when my Mother got sick out of state. He helped get her transferred here to a hospice. He's a wonderful, caring, sensitive man. He said in a sermon once that you study that which you fear the most. He said that's why he became a thanatologist (that's someone who studies death).

I studied suicide because it was sitting there waiting to take me. And because I wanted to know why my Brother chose that option.

Hang on tight, Lily to all of us. We understand the pain that you're in and we can help. Bless you.

BIG HUGS.

Barb