The day my husband died, my work for a newspaper had taken me out of the office to do interviews and take pictures. I hurried back to my computer because I wanted to finish early. The man I had loved for three decades had not been well for several years. He had attempted suicide several times before, and I had always been there to stop him, but today – on a most magnificent Tuesday, the kind of day only an Alabama sky can provide – I was worried. The weekend had given us new problems, and new problems usually brought with them reactions that could range from unusual behavior to a complete loss of hope.

I telephoned him as I drove from one interview to the next. We talked briefly about ordinary things and about my new idea: that he should try out a new program I had found. He had been diagnosed with bipolar depression in 2004, a behavioral disorder that decreases a person’s ability to handle stress. The toll this took on him in a few years far exceeded the ravages of major depression he had dealt with alone for a lifetime.

Those years had taken a toll on me, too. But I had no idea what lay just ahead. Suicide is not just a personal disaster. It happens to everyone in a family and devastates whatever life came before, changing forever those who are left behind.

After writing my column for the week, I left work early. I felt desperate to get home. On the way, I called him again. The day before had been his fifty-eighth birthday. Our plans had changed a couple of times recently, but the weekend had been eerily quiet. On Sunday afternoon, we sat on the deck in the sunshine. I grew tired watching him go through boxes of papers and discard this or that. At the time I thought he was just organizing. I left him to go inside and take a nap. When I returned he had finished, and the day ended with the sweetness I had known for so long: the satisfying closeness of just being with him.

But by this Tuesday, around four o’clock, the calls between our cell phones kept dropping – or perhaps he kept hanging up. I told him I was on the way home. As I did, I passed a grocery store and thought I should stop for a birthday cake. Yesterday had not gone well, and today I had a chance to do something special for him, but I was exhausted and felt driven to be with him. Something was wrong. I was sure of it. I didn’t stop, a fact I regret.

His voice, when we spoke again, was too calm. He told me he had broken into the gun safe, the one I bought after he had his first psychotic break. I realized later he could have done that at any time. My false sense of security had been nothing more than a thin veil.

“I’m not mad.” Inside, I panicked. What would I do now that I only had my voice with which to save his life? “Where are you?”

Carefully, as if speaking to a child, he told me. I asked him to put the pistol down and cross the road to our neighbor’s house. When the connection broke, I dialed 911, reported the situation, and heard the words that would change the course of my thinking.

“Don’t go in,” the operator said. “Sometimes they wait until they see you before they do it. Park on the side of the road where he can’t see you.”

That was something I had not thought of before. It terrified me. Woodenly, I obeyed. Now I had entered an alternate reality, shock creeping over me like a blanket. I stopped the car as close to the house as I could without being seen.

Eventually, a young deputy arrived, took my house key, and went inside, finding my husband’s body. He came back to my car, where I waited. Through the window, which was rolled down, he extended his hand, and I latched onto two of his fingers with my own. His expression was so pained that I couldn’t bear to make him tell me what he had found.  

“I know,” I told him, and he explained that the scene would first have to be treated like a homicide. I nodded and stayed where I was as he drove back to the house.

It took more time for neighbors to arrive and the call to go out to our church friends who gathered around the car and waited with me. I made calls to his family and to our children in three different states. I was deep in shock.

From there, the nightmare of the past few years changed into the hellish existence of a grief I had never known before. I was familiar with death. My mother had died. So had my father and my brother-in-law. Even in childhood, in my life as a preacher’s kid it was not uncommon for me to attend every funeral and visit every grieving household. I played the beautiful organ in our church sanctuary at the funeral of one of my best friends’ father when I was only nine or ten years old. I had read and written about death, but this was different.

Sometimes suicide comes without warning, but for several years before my husband’s suicide, his uncontrollable, rapid cycling moods and bizarre episodes left us both drained. He was at the mercy of his illness, and as I tried to help him and to get help for him in every way I could, I was at the mercy of his illness as well.

Physically, I had already used almost all of my strength. I had no reserves. My body was anemic; my mind was in a state of constant crisis. Even the moments between emergencies became crises because those were the waiting and worrying times. I never knew what would be coming next, but I knew it would be horrible.

Suddenly, as I sat in my car on the side of the road, he was gone, and I entered the aftermath of suicide. Since that day, I’ve worked alongside thousands of other survivors of suicide loss to try and understand what happened; and to mourn, heal, and rebuild. To help myself, I had to help others who were struggling through similar situations.

I discovered that grieving and hope can become entangled with regret and guilt and so many other emotions. During this confusing time, hope is a concept that is difficult to hold onto. Hold onto it we must, however, even if we have to borrow strength from each other.

Suicide changes us, but together, we can turn mourning into joy. For me, healing became a three-step process. I first found that co-support fortifies survivors so that obstacles like secondary wounding do not halt progress toward a successful return to life. Then, there is the essential but difficult step that enables survivors to let go of their past lives and turn toward new ones. No one wants to go on without a dear loved one, but a healthy recovery from grief depends on finding the strength to let go. Without this interim step, a survivor may not realize there are other ways to carry forward the memory of the lost one, other kinds of relationships that can be built with the departed. Lastly, there is an internal drive that emerges in most survivors that motivates them to go beyond just surviving to making meaning out of loss. This can manifest first as an instinctive need to do something. This guiding force inspires survivors to find or to create ways to carry a message forward, to turn their own personal tragedies into victories by helping others. They may write books, found organizations, set up foundations, or contribute in other ways. Many of these are artistic or creative in nature and come straight from the heart.

Suicide touches all kinds of people from every background and belief system. It can create a barrier between those closest to the person who died and those around them. Historically, suicide has been viewed by many societies as a social taboo, but the underserved stigma, shame, and shunning that surround suicide is being dispelled by the efforts of loved ones who are banding together to share both pain and healing. One such group – the Alliance of Hope for suicide loss survivors (www.allianceofhope.com) – is attempting to change the culture surrounding suicide worldwide. With the guiding slogan “Kindness Matters,” members share the simple but powerful knowledge that one can not only survive the loss of a loved one or friend to suicide but also can go beyond just surviving to rebuild happy, productive lives.

“You are not alone.”

“This was not your fault.”

“Healing is possible.”

“There are specific things you can do to build a new life that honors the one you lost.”

When I reach out in this way to comfort a mom or dad, a partner or child who is in more pain than they ever knew existed, it is because of the many times I saw my husband’s gentleness, his respect for all living things, his brilliant mind at work. His life is not defined by how he died. Neither is mine. He made such an impact on my life and on the lives of anyone who knew him that even his illness – even suicide – could not change the good he did in the world.

I can only hand survivors a little hope, but in that moment, hope is enough.

***

Receive Love’s letters and let go of the pigeons
And your heart will fly higher with Love.
Wherever you look,
You will see the Face of the Beloved
For He is with you wherever you are
And is never absent!
You will always live in love with the Truly Real (al-Haqq)!
And you will never lose Love when the pigeons fly away!
O Soul, do not then lose sight of the Beloved

***

Everything reminds the lover of his Beloved
And for that he loves everything
There is no loss in that Love
There is always a new letter;
For the Beloved is swift in sending
And is always Creative!
Thus, the lover cannot think but in the Beloved
His actions are to please the Beloved
He worries to displease the Beloved
He cannot eat or drink but with the Beloved
Every chanting reminds Him of the Beloved
He sleeps with his lips praising the Beloved
And wakes with his lips glorifying the Beloved

***

He calls the Beloved
And attentively awaits the answer
And the Beloved keeps writing
For even if all the trees were pens
And all oceans were ink
They would cease
but the words of the Beloved will forever continue

***

The amazing reality of Love
Is that no matter how the lover is brought near to the Beloved
He wishes to draw even nearer
For the Beloved’s expressions are eternal
So, O soul: Read!

While general nearness, meaning God’s nearness to creation, encompasses everything and every person, particular nearness depends on belief and can be acquired by doing whatever God has decreed as good and right. This nearness to the Almighty is possessed by those who have discovered the way of nearness and, having entered the corridor leading to eternity, reach every morning and evening with a new, deep dimension of belief. Such people are included in the verse: “God is with those who keep from evil in reverence for God, and are doers of good” (16:128). Those who have obtained this rank recite: “Surely my Lord accompanies me and will guide me” (26:62) while inhaling, and: “Surely God is with us” (9:40) while exhaling.

In particular nearness, consciousness of belief and perfect goodness have the same worth and significance as light to seeing and soul to body. Performing obligatory and supererogatory religious duties with this consciousness are like wings of light that carry one toward the “skies” of infinitude. The safest, most acceptable, and direct way of nearness to God is performing obligatory religious duties; however, performing supererogatory religious duties, which have no limit and show loyalty and devotion to God, results in true nearness and the rank of being loved by God Almighty.

A traveler to God enters new corridors leading to eternity on the wings of supererogatory duties, and feels rewarded with new Divine gifts, which engender an even greater desire to perform obligatory and supererogatory duties. One awakened to this truth feels in his or her conscience the love of God in direct proportion to his or her love of God. As stated in the hadith qudsi¹:

“My servant cannot get near to Me through anything else more lovable to Me than doing the obligatory religious duties. However, by doing supererogatory duties he gets nearer to Me, and when he becomes near to Me, I shall be his eyes to see with, his ears to hear with, his hands to grasp with, and his legs to walk on.”

In short, such a believer is directed to act by the Divine Will.

Nearness acquired through performing obligatory duties is another title of the rank of one’s being loved by God, and is included among those loved by God. As for nearness acquired through performing supererogatory duties, this is the rank of all one’s acts being ascribed to God. It is a particular Divine bestowal and honoring, as pronounced in: “You (Believers) slew them not, but God slew them. And you (Muhammad) did not throw when you threw, but God threw” (8:17).

Nearness, a particular gift of God, cannot be credited to one’s actions without considering its Divine origin. Nearness to Him originates in His Greatness and Mercy, and remoteness from Him is one of the weaknesses and “dark pits” of our character or nature. The writer of Gülistan (The Rose Garden) aptly expresses the origin of nearness and remoteness:

The Friend is nearer to me than myself;
How strange it is that I am remote from Him.
What can I say and what can I do, that
While He is with me, I am distant from Him.

Remoteness means being distant from God and perishing. According to Sufis, the first indication of remoteness is the cessation of Divine gifts, and the final indication is that if a particular Divine help does not come, the person seeking it is completely lost and perishes. Just as degrees of nearness are based on whether one is an ordinary believer, a saint, a good and righteous person, or one brought near to God, remoteness also has its degrees in a line descending to Satan, who occupies the lowest point of perishing.

Nearness to God is a Divine favor, and remoteness from him is a deprivation. However, one cannot always feel his or her personal nearness to or remoteness from Him. The greatest favor of God is that He does not allow one to feel His (special) favor (e.g., being a saint or near to Him), lest the believer so honored should feel pride and thus lose such favor. As a result, those nearest to God are usually unaware of their nearness. However, one’s unawareness of his or her personal remoteness from God is a Divine reprisal. There are still others who, intoxicated with the love of God and making no distinction between nearness and remoteness, neither show desire for nearness nor worry over remoteness. The following couplet expresses the thoughts of such intoxicated souls:

Jami, worry yourself about neither nearness nor remoteness;
There is neither nearness nor remoteness, nor union nor parting.

It is an acknowledged fact that remoteness denotes horror and deprivation. However, some shiver because of the winds of awe blowing from nearness and feel themselves caught in the clutches of Divine wrath and destruction. Nearness to the King is a burning fire may express this mood. Nevertheless, if nearness may be likened to the slopes of Paradise that open to breezes of Divine familiarity and friendship, remoteness should be regarded as the pits of deprivation and loss.

¹ A Prophetic Tradition whose meaning belongs directly to God and the wording to the Prophet.

Man and the universe was created because of love and it can only be understood through love…

Love is a part of every being and a power which can resist and overcome every force…

Love is what elevates the souls which absorb it and prepares it for the journey to eternity…

of the dramatically fuelled experiences and emotions that Shakespeare had portrayed to his readers, of two youths trying to embrace their love for each other. A love that was never fulfilled, nonetheless, the story has touched so many that it is always made reference to when two individuals hold deep admiration for each other. Similar stories can be seen in many other cultures. It is said that Majnun’s love for Layla had moved mountains. Like Romeo, he too was never able to unite with his beloved. However, Romeo ended his life because he could not bear separation, whereas Majnun was fortunate in realising the “Source” of his love.

I guess it’s not the ending but the journey that one experiences with love that makes it worthwhile. There is an adage which states that “it is better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all.” But is it really worth enduring all the challenges, despair and turmoil if at the end there is no union but only separation? Even if we don’t experience all the heartache and pain that the romantic pairs above had endured, is it not painful enough knowing that there will, one day, be an end to the union? Separated from the one for whom you have sacrificed so much for to be with, the one whom you have shared so much with. Separated from your hopes, your dreams, and the one that is your “true” love. Can a love that is finite be regarded as true?

I am finite, but I do not desire that which is finite
I am deficient, but I do not desire that which is insufficient
What I desire is an infinite Love…
(Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. The Words, 17th Word – Second Station)

For love to be regarded as true, we need to identify, acknowledge and accept the “Source” of love and direct that love back to this “Source.” For that Source is eternal, and just as important—and so is the unification. Love from the Source is planted like a seed into the heart of every human. Waiting to be watered with the drops of belief, it yearns to blossom into a flower manifesting itself through our actions and perceptions. For once the Source is known, we acknowledge that the love bestowed on us is an eternal reflection of His love for all.

I have fallen in love with all of creation, because of my love for the Creator.
(Yunus Emre)

When we have found our True Love, then no more pain or suffering is felt other than a deep desire to unite with the Source. Then the journey we experience and the affection we feel towards our loved ones (be it our partner, child, sibling, friend, etc.) becomes worthwhile and meaningful because we know that every separation is only temporary. We still feel the sorrow of separation; however, it draws us nearer to the True Source of love, which has been given to us as a blessing. The famous quote by Romeo, “Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow,” transcends beyond corporal boundaries. We then come to realize and acknowledge the blessing of love as a Divine gift, thus, patiently seek and ask for reunification from the Source, to the Source.

For why would He have given us the need to want, if He did not want to give?
(Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. The Letters, 24th Letter – Fifth Point)

All lovers of the Source see the manifestations of His attributes throughout the universe and see the beauty in everything. Every petal on a flower, every drop in the ocean, every sparkle in the night sky and every tone of colour in a rainbow is contemplated and read as a letter from the Beloved. Just as the sunlight penetrates our flesh and gives warmth to our bodies, these eternal messages caress our souls and give us comfort. The unconditional love a mother has for her child; the support and console that one’s partner selflessly offers; the companionship of a dear friend or a sibling that is cherished are all Divinely instilled faculties and attributes which He has provisioned us with—and when viewed in this way, we are able to see His insignia throughout all of creation.

Those that see beauty in everything only think of beauty;
Those that only think of beauty taste the true pleasures of life.
(Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. The Letters, Seeds of Reality)

Despair transforms into hope, anguish into content, deceit into truth and honesty. We are all separated with our loved ones at one stage or another, but this is only temporary. This temporary separation awakens the senses to focus their attention on the Source and appreciate where the love originated from. Only the true Source of Love, God Almighty, Who is eternal and has bestowed the universe with dominical attraction, can answer our call for reunion. Just like the merciful drops of rain meeting with our parched lips or scorching sand, we will one day celebrate the joys of reunion.

All the roads have been barricaded; the travellers only see a mirage
Even if the travellers deny their journey, all paths lead to God.
(Anonymous)

When love is comprehended and experienced in this way, we then come to the realization that we (and everything else in the universe) have an association and connection with all of creation. We begin to recognize that this association or connection is gelled together by means of attraction; the attraction of celestial bodies within space, the attraction of rain drops to drought stricken land, the attraction of the genders—from the microcosm to the macrocosm. This perspective allows us to witness and comprehend the Creator’s Dominical Love over all things.

Now and then like the winds I blow
Now and then like the roads I go
Now and then like the floods I flow
Come, see what love has done to me.
(Yunus Emre)

How beautiful it is to stop somewhere every day!

How nice it is to flow without freezing and getting muddy!

What word that belongs to yesterday,

Is gone, my loved one, with yesterday,

Now is the time to say new things.

Upon their death, the victims found themselves in another world. Now, they tried to understand what had happened to them. First, they realized that they had been terribly deceived by the murderer. As a lesson from this unfortunate experience, they also realized that their inherent love for eternity had been abused by the murderer. Days passed, but they did not receive any word from their Lord. The burden of being away from the abode where they were in touch with Him became unbearable. They understood that where they came from was actually the land of eternity.

In later times, they would recall those past days, and they would feel an expansion and serenity in their hearts, feeling apart from the passage of time. So, they started to associate the things of this world with things from their homeland. Thus, they cherished their memories of when they were in the eternal land. Most of all, they each recognized the other as a mirror to remind them of the Eternal Beloved. So, everything they loved in this new place gained a sort of eternity with their longing for the eternal homeland and the Eternal Beloved.

Sometime later, they had children. As the children grew up, the parents related their stories to them, and talked about the homeland with their voices longing for return. The children also took on this behavior from their parents. Just like when their parents expressed their yearning for the homeland, whenever the children talked about loved things or whenever they were with people they loved, time would pass like lightning, and they would wish that those moments would not finish. As new generations followed, the expectation of eternity from the transient beloveds of this world evolved into a subconscious associating of eternity with them.

We do not know exactly how many years have passed since the time of Adam and Eve. Today, in spite of diversity in the definitions of love and the literature about it, there is a certain aspect of it which is the same for everybody who loves. Love changes our experience of time because we subconsciously associate it with eternity. Through this association, love motivates our actions. The limited time spent with the beloved seems very small compared to the human heart’s hunger for eternity. So, we strive to extend those moments-the lengthy phone calls and the long eye-to-eye gazes stretch out between lovers.

Eternity in the realm of the heart reflects itself in the form of continuity with the material world. Similar to the desire for the eternity of the beloved, we would like the continued existence of our loved ones. For example, the first experience of love each one of us feels in this world is the affection of our mothers. The initial manifestation of this love is breast milk. It not only provides the nourishment we need, but also contains the materials and the live cells that supplement our immune system. Thus, breast milk serves the continuity of our life in this world. Later on, our mothers provide intense protection and give us our first education. Both of these form the basis of our continuity in this life. And similar to our mother’s care, when we grow up, we too try to meet the needs of our loved ones in order to ensure their continuity.

In effect, we humans try to bestow continuity and eternity as a manifestation of love in accordance with the powers we are given. The love we feel is a projection of the infinite love that God has for His creation. Just as we strive for the continuity of our loved ones, God endows continuity on His creation by feeding and protecting us in this world, and granting us eternity by opening the hereafter to us. Since our existence is a temporary and dependent one, the continuity we ourselves give is also transient. However, God’s existence is eternal and He is the Self-Subsistent; therefore, the eternity He gives will be an actual one.

In this life, we realize that love bears a seed of continuity in it. We feel the beauty of eternity hidden in the lovely memories of our very first ancestors. Our visions fill with the fruits of the tree of love that fosters such long-lasting relations. However, the conditions we live in today are not coherent with those delightful sensations. When we look around, we see love affairs that last only a very short time. Many people conduct their love life by changing their partners periodically instead of remaining faithful to their spouses for all their lives. The meaning of contemporary love is being reduced to “temporary mutual interest,” obliterating the important notion of a “fellowship on the way to the Eternal Beloved.” This drastic change points to the fact that, along with the passage of time, we have forgotten the heavenly stories told by our common parents.

What is it that we need in order to re-discover the seed of eternity in our hearts? It may be that we all need to retreat to our childhood to find the pure love depicted by the naivety of children. Maybe we need to forget the turmoil of daily life, and focus on the lesson that comes at the end of virtually every one of the bedtime stories told by our beloved mothers, “And they lived happily ever after…”

Seth Mette has a PhD in Aerospace Engineering and is currently working as a postdoctoral fellow at West Virginia University. He has a special interest in psychological fiction.

Notes

1. Based on the story of Adam and Eve according to the Qur’an (2:35–37, 7:19–24)
2. The reason for the choice of the word “murderer” for Satan is as follows: Death is in essence a change of residence (Nursi, S., Letters, First Letter, Second Question). One who dies in this world goes to the heavens. Similarly, one who dies in the heavens comes to this world. According to the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), death will be brought in the form of a sheep on the Day of Judgment, and will be slaughtered, which will mean that death is dead (Bukhari, Tafsir, 1, 19). This will render the people of hell totally hopeless; because until then, they will be crying for another chance in this world. The death of death will imply that return to this world is no longer possible. This explanation supports the idea that death in the heavens may be understood as coming to this world. Accordingly, since Satan is the one who is the apparent cause of the death of Adam and Eve in the heavens, hence the start of their story in this world, he is their murderer.
3. Nursi, Bediuzzaman Said, The Gleams, Third Gleam.
4. Karabuga, Veli, “How Are Babies Protected?” The Fountain, Vol. 50, Apr–June, 2005.

I only care about myself. Whether the rest of the world collapses or not does not concern me, is the idea reflected by such events. This attitude of indifferent haughtiness leads to the following result: A world in which I have no welfare must be destroyed or If I am not loved, no one else can be loved. Our welfare level today has been unable to stop other peoples suffering, for we have not noticed what they experienced in the past. Such people were as glad at this tragedy as if they had taken revenge themselves, in the true sense of the word, while watching the tears and shock of the rich. We have just realized that the world is small, and that violence impacts everyone.

Terrorism is an absolute threat to all civilizations. As there is still no commonly accepted definition of terrorism, any state’s reaction to it will not lessen the threat it poses; on the contrary, it actually might strengthen it. The future of the world rests upon reaching a just response to this horrible tragedy and discussing the matter comprehensively. The fact that politics has gone clerical and that religion has become politicized makes some global events of the modern world more global.

The September 11th tragedy shows that terrorism is able to span regional and continental borders. This obliges the entire world to unify itself in order to face this challenge. To this end, we need to deal primarily with social problems and poverty, close the economic gap, and prevent strong countries from oppressing weaker ones. In the face of our world’s real contradictions, there is no second alternative to stopping terrorism, which constantly produces the most cruel incidents. In order to benefit from Earth’s riches, we must channel human consciousness, science, and technology properly so that they may serve good instead of evil; so that they may serve humanity’s collective development instead of destruction. Globalization can absolve itself only if it solves our world’s global problems.