The Clef and The Hummingbird

At the foot of the Penglais Road hill in the Welsh town of Aberystwyth, there is a small, almost shack-looking, one-storey beige building that is the West Coast tattoo parlour. I passed it almost daily, during my commute to the lectures and seminars and Union Bar nights-out of my undergraduate-student days, each time tempted to investigate more. A friend of mine had had a large red rose with green splayed-out thorns and leaves printed into her lower back and I thought it was lovely, graceful. At the age of 19/20ish, though I never voiced the thought, I really wanted my own tattoo, something ‘little and pretty’ was my thinking. Then I heard a rumour story about another friend who’d fainted and fallen off a chair due to the pain whilst having one done – I never found out the truth basis of the tale, but nonetheless even the slightest idea that such a needle response could happen kind of put me off. I moved on to other desires.
Now, however, a little over six years on from my little brother and only sibling taking his own life, I have two tattoos.

My first tattoo is my ‘reminder of him’. I chose to have it done to tie in with my brother’s birthday, three days after my own in August. I decided on a treble clef design that incorporates a semi-colon, tattooed on the inside of my left wrist – the sign of music to symbolize my brother’s love and talents, and the semi-colon to signify his struggle and passing, and my nod to Project Semicolon, which focuses on the prevention of suicide through raising awareness and fighting the stigma that exists in talking about suicide. The inking experience was more emotional than I had thought it would be, despite how swiftly and efficiently it was carried out. I asked an already-tattooed friend to accompany me – just because I decided to have it done, does not mean I forgot the ‘friend-fainting-and-falling’ story. She held my hand and told me to wiggle my toes to give myself a different bodily area to concentrate on whilst the needle pierced my wrist. I was surprised at how much that tip worked, but it didn’t stop me from thinking about my brother. I welled up. And then it was all over, and I fell more in love with the image on my skin than I had expected I would.

My second tattoo is my ‘reminder to self’. The timing chosen for having it done, lunchtime in the middle of an average week, tied this one into daily, continuing life. The experience was a bit more surreal than the first – I went on my own, listened to the artists debate the merits of tinned peaches and carrots immediately prior to the inking, and it hurt much, much more. For this image, I chose an outline of a hummingbird positioned on the front of my right ankle, a very visible location for myself every day (especially in the morning). The image was not a random choice – having lived in Mexico for almost two years I’ve seen a few of these tiny, most beautiful of birds; my husband and I even visited a local café called El Colibri (The Hummingbird) every week. But these coincidences aside, it is what the hummingbird means that led me to choose the image –  this animal is about overcoming challenges, being mini yet full of strength and courage to handle the troubles and pains it encounters. The feathered-friend also symbolises love and looking for the nectar in life always, despite the traumas that present – even its wings adopt the ‘eternity’, figure-of-eight shape.

It is so easy after losing a sibling to suicide to get stuck. It can feel like you’re in some kind of existence-time-warp because no matter how many new things you do, experiences you have, that one day that changed everything can repeat in your mind at any moment of its choosing, pulling you backwards and demanding your attention over and over again. There is a want to remember and a want to move forward that live in tandem, that are experienced like the rise and fall of sea waves as ‘the days/months/years since’ accumulate. Bad intersects with the good, and sometimes things can feel so inter-tangled with one another that it is hard to suss out where and who exactly you are, especially on an emotional level.

Karen Leader writes about tattoos as being ‘Stories on the Skin’, that they can represent ‘layers of meaning’ and be empowering for the person who has them – far from the derogatory connotations they often have, tattoos can be used to creatively symbolise key events and moments in your life, as a means of helping you tell your story. Dickson et. al. adds to this by referencing Atkinson’s 2003 analysis that tattoos can be a means of self/identity expression, especially where there have been “role transitions, changes in life that have important impacts on identity.” (108). I relate to that very much, and I also take a lot from Leader’s comment that:

“Tattoo narratives…tell a story from the past, but have a unique presentness to them. They do not record a frozen moment in history, but a continual process of becoming” (Leader, 2016: 190)

For me this is how my images work. Skin holds and shows its natural stories through things like aging-caused wrinkles, spots or scars; my tattoos are the special editions I’ve added to my library. Their permanency on my skin entirely reflects my relationship with my brother, the very marking nature of ‘the day the world changed’ and the continued learning-to-live-with my loss. I want to remember my brother, his person and life; I want to remember, as strange as it sounds, that his death was self-inflicted, as a reminder to talk and raise awareness about suicide (as my tattoos can be really helpful as conversation starters), to do my bit in combatting the stigma that it has; but I also want the loss to not take over my whole being and life, wishing to live with and despite it. My tattoos help me do all these things. And at a very basic level, sometimes it is simply useful to have externalities to prompt the self when there is a ‘rough day’ going on – my clef gives me something physical to run my finger over, to trace the line and and remember, something to grant permission to indulge and wallow a little; my hummingbird is something physical to help in giving myself comfort (as well as sometimes a good talking to) in terms of ‘this is just one bad day; remember all the rest and keep going’.

Getting my tattoos was not an impulsive act – they were carefully thought out and reasoned in relation to the events and emotions I have lived, and continue to live, through. I’m ever so glad I have them.

*This post will also appear in upcoming US book publication ‘Surviving Sibling Suicide’, being compiled by Lena Heilmann Ph.D.*

“He can’t have a birthday”: Motherhood after Sibling-Suicide Loss

My brother and my daughter – together.

Tomorrow is my brother’s birthday. Having mentioned this as a little reminder at the family dinner table, my four-year-old said “But Martin can’t have a birthday because he is died and lives in the sky”. Yes, but…. What followed was a discussion that connected her uncle ‘being died’ with Inky the nursery fish also going to ‘fishy Heaven’… Just the latest in a string of scenarios where my daughter has begun to show how she is making sense of death in general, but also a conversation that tells me she’s growing older and sooner or later questions about the nature of her uncle’s death will be asked. My daughter never met her uncle, but through me entered ‘suicide survivordom’ even before conception. And from my perspective this adds another facet to the suicide bereavement experience and process (as in many respects I must manage it for her AND me). Consequently, herein lies an issue that I believe is largely overlooked in bereavement by suicide considerations – how does losing a sibling to suicide in adult life, the time when many siblings branch out to head their own families, affect parenting relationships with their own children?

Given I’m primarily at this point interested in connecting my own experience with literature comments, my concern for this post is specifically exploring some ideas about mothering and motherhood after sibling suicide loss, particularly as there are, “specific issues for female survivors shaped by the sexual politics attached to women’s identity” (Cline, 1995: 246-7). This is obviously not to say fathering and fathers’ experiences after sibling loss are irrelevant, and I do think they also need close acknowledgement attention, but from here on my focus at this time is the female parenting experience.

Becoming a mother after a loss to suicide adds a very complicated facet to an already massively-life-altering experience. Both these life events necessitate a huge rethink in terms of identity. As Chidley et al. point out, “Motherhood alone is a challenging, paradoxical and poorly understood period of transition” (Chidley et. al., 2014: 19). Add to this the “excruciating experience” (Chidley et.al., 2014: 19) of a major (close) death and you are landed with a big question; ‘what on earth do I deal with first?’ It is interesting that Dyregrov and Dyregrov describe the experience of bereavement by suicide as leading “to increased insight and personal maturity, the changes required great energy expenditure…substantial social and relational adjustment” (2005: 720). This also entirely applies to the experience of becoming a mother for the first time. Thus, arguably, the loss of a sibling to suicide can be very much entangled with conceptions of self as ‘mother’ as well as ‘sibling’.

The question then becomes how to manage double the energy-spend needed for one of these events alone, how to navigate grief and the enormous learning curve that is parenthood at the same time. Some studies give weight to the idea that motherhood is a ‘distraction’ from grief, that the ‘mother-identity’ is stronger than anything, providing the ‘affectee’ with, “a sense of meaning and purpose in life. Motherhood seems to have helped them to be less susceptible to prolonged grief complications.” (Chidley et. al., 2014: 19). This may be the case for many experiences, however there is also acknowledgement that a family death during pregnancy leads to negative experiences and thought (Chidley et. al., 2014: 24). From experience, it would be my contention that there is an entire mix of these two ends of the spectrum following an adult-sibling suicide, the mother processing “the suicide of the sibling from a different vantage point when having a baby” (Petterson et.al., 2015: 329), whilst also being thrown into a self-conflict, with sensations akin to riding the waves up and down in a perfect storm, in a rubber dinghy, without a life-jacket, centred around whether to look back or move forward. One sister shows this most clearly through the following recollection of an experience after the suicide of her brother:

“‘So I have all these memories of walking through a cemetery, y’know picking out a good space for David, while I push my son in his stroller, or walking through the store of caskets and pushing a stroller through that store, or sitting in the funeral directors, nursing my son while I dictate David’s obituary to him'” (Four Sisters, 2012)

Chidley et al. describe this as mothers ‘oscillating’ “between their need to grieve and their responsibility to ‘be there’ for their children” (Chidley et.al., 2014: 25). Such is the pressure of the navigation of these peaks and troughs that actual grieving can get neglected. I know of myself that I tended to choose a focus, namely my immediate baby concern, to the detriment of the other elements that needed equal attention, simply because the energy expenditure of ‘managing it all’ was too much. Whilst some mothers affected by a death by suicide have spoken of how they did not “skip the grieving process, but were really mainly focused on the day to day needs of a small child” (Four Sisters, 2012), I recognise full-well that I did ‘jump over it’. Whilst I thought of my brother all the time, I did not engage in the actions of grieving throughout the whole of my pregnancy and the first year of my daughter’s life. Such suppression has implications. It is often spoken of in the tone of an old wives’ tale, but there appears to be much actual truth in the idea that grief always finds a way to show itself – as Dyregrov and Dyregrov describe one research respondent commenting that grief, “‘may come in different ways, for example, physically – I have been sick a lot, especially the last six months. So that’s the way it has manifested itself’.” (Dyregrov and Dyregrov, 2005: 718-9). Other examples of this also appear, such as the following: “Immune system response has been shown to be disrupted by the acute stresses of bereavement…The stress of repressing so much feeling had lowered my resistance and I was miserable with ‘flu.” (Gambotto-Burke, 2003). Mental health is a concern too – ‘is that postnatal depression/anxiety or are they mental health issues stemming from your bereavement?’ Women in the extraordinary situation of becoming/being mothers after losing a brother or sister to suicide should most certainly have access to support that would enable a clearer answer to this particular question.

When the flurry and overwhelmed-ness of the squirmy-blob baby-stage evolves into that of living with a little person of mega character, curiosity and voice, I would suggest that that is when the big regrets following suicide-loss can really begin to set in. It hurts me greatly that my brother will not know my daughter, and that she will only “have memories [I’ve] told [her] about” (Four Sisters, 2012). As other sisters in the same boat have said before me, “he would’ve been a great uncle to [her]” (Four Sisters, 2012). And further to this, the energy renewal that comes with nights slept through allows other thoughts to appear. A big concern for me, for instance, is ‘how do I tell her what happened?’ I am fortunate in that I do not feel shame or the need to hide my brother and his actions away as a secret; I want to talk about him and I want my daughter to know about him. And there are charities like Winston’s Wish to help…But the question still arises; ‘how do I explain his absence in such a way that does not cause harm?’ Others who have agonised over how to refer to the aunt or uncle’s death emphasise ‘illness’ as the cause: “She told her son that his uncle ‘had an illness in his brain’ and that was what caused him to die by suicide.” (Linn-Gust, 2010) And I found this particular explanation very moving:

“‘When Uncle Matt died he became all spirit. Our spirits are the parts of us that love and smile inside. Our spirits help us laugh and listen and care about each other. Living in his body was hard for Uncle Matt beacause he was sick. He wasn’t sick like with a cold or a stomach ache; he was sick in a way that the doctors were not able to make him well. That doesn’t happen very often but it happened to Matt. So he decided that to become a spirit would be a better way to live.’” (Four Sisters, 2012)

Importantly though, in reference to this issue, the broader discussion of mental illness as having parity with physical illness comes into play. Respect for mental health as being akin to physical illnesses, such as cancer, is unlikely (despite tremendous hope and effort) to be soon fully achieved (especially given unsupportive governmental policies and the lack of awareness in media reportage). Allowing a judgemental and stigmatised view of death by suicide to persist certainly makes telling my little one all about her uncle and how he died all the more difficult. An often overwhelming preoccupation with the need to protect is present, and this fosters in me a strong (perhaps even stronger than those not affected by suicide?) sense of duty and responsibility towards my daughter. In this I share affinity with Bialosky who describes how (after her sister’s suicide) “it wasn’t until just a few years ago, when my own son…reached the age at which Kim’s life began to falter, that I knew I had to try to understand what happened to my sister. My responsibility as a mother made it imperative.” (Bialosky, 2015). In effect, whilst I may never fully understand what a parent goes through in losing a child (at whatever age) to suicide, I have to approach my brother’s death as both a sibling and a parent. It is a complex notion to explain, but in effect my brother’s death could be seen as contributing to the formation and development of my parenting style. Bialosky similarly explains this, telling how she has approached mothering after her sister’s suicide by being wary of the question “What might go wrong if I [am] not paying close enough attention?”, describing herself as being “a vigilant mother, perhaps at times too overly conscious of the effects of the actions of my life and my husband’s life, the state of our marriage, on our child” (Bialosky, 2015). So, whilst motherhood following other forms of death is not as likely to be much defined by the loss (Chidley et.al., 2014: 22), for me (and others) it could be the opposite – my identity as a mother is inextricably linked to the suicide event, and therefore is (to quite a significant extent at least) defined by my sibling relationship.

Perhaps the principal element as to why this is the case relates to the idea of ‘legacy’. Many siblings bereaved by suicide suffer from “constant feelings of approaching disaster.” (Petterson et.al., 2015: 328). Such levels of concern, responsibility, anxiety have their roots in the ‘knowledge’ presented that seems to suggest “suicide runs in families”, and this “creates fear of another family suicide that complicates the grief process.” (Powell and Matthys, 2013: 322-3) In specific reference to new-motherhood, the mortality of both mother and child is thrown into the spotlight by a bereavement, meaning that “women…experience[d] specific anxiety related to future losses of their children and their own mortality.” (Chidley et.al., 2014: 26) Essentially what it comes down to is that there is an “unspoken fear” and anxiety “about which member of the [family] household will be the next to die.” (Cline, 1995: 267). One participant of a research study highlights this very clearly in their comment that,

“‘You worry so much about your children. Does depression run in families? What about suicide? Will this happen to my own children? You don’t even dare to talk about it but it is a constant question in the back of my mind.’” (in Petterson, 2015: 328).

Needless to say, this is a hideous thing to live with, especially as a new mother, when you are supposed to be revelling in the idea of new life, but the fact is a sudden and traumatic death throws the real insecurity of life into your face, highlighting the unfairness, torture and inescapable nature of loss as being an everyday reality.

This is certainly something that needs to be discussed with women affected in this way. Address the issue head on, quite frankly. Plenty of arguments relating to suicide and suicide bereavement state ‘post-vention is prevention for the next generation’; I have both read this (e.g. Schneidman, 1972), and heard it declared at academic conferences etc., but so far I fail to see concrete action when it comes to adult siblings, many of whom are or will be parents to the ‘next generation’. Following a suicide loss, adult siblings who became/are mothers in particular have demonstrated that they foster an “ongoing sense of responsibility for their children”, which Cline argues “gives ground for optimism.” (Cline, 1995: 277). Such women may “show our children how to celebrate existence in all its beauty, and how to get up after life has knocked us down, time and again.” (Gambotto-Burke, 2003), but they will need the support to do so. As Linn-Gust advocates, “By helping the bereaved through their losses, we support their efforts to find life sustaining hope again. By providing this support we are breaking the legacy of suicide in families.” (Linn-Gust, 2010). It seems to me there is a case to be made that such adult-sibling-young-family-mothers (parents) affected by a suicide loss should be given due attention and support in their bereavement, to aid both their own recovery and their ability to be positive in life in such a way as to enable a role as ‘preventors’ against future losses.

Bialosky, J. (2011). History of a Suicide: my sister’s unfinished life. Croydon: Granta.

Chidley, B., Khademi, M., Pilar Meany, K. and Doucett, M. (2014). ‘Bereavement during motherhood: a mixed method pilot study exploring bereavement while parenting’ in Bereavement Care, Vol.33., No.1, pp.19-27.

Cline, S. (1995). Lifting the Taboo: Women, Death and Dying. Little, Brown and Company.

Dyregrov, K. and Dyregrov, A. (2005). ‘Siblings after Suicide – the “Forgotten Bereaved’ in Suicide and Life-Threatening Behaviour, Vol.35.,No.6, pp.714-723.

Four Sisters, 2012. Available at https://vimeo.com/93890459 [accessed 5th November 2015]

Gambotto-Burke, A. (2003). The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide. [Kindle Edition]

Linn-Gust, M. (2010). Rocky Roads: The Journeys of Families through Suicide Grief. Albuquerque NM: Chellehead Works.

Pettersen, R., Omerov, P., Steinbeck, G., Dyregrov, A., Titelman, D., Dyregrov, K. and Nyberg., U. (2015) ‘Suicide-Bereaved Siblings’ Perception of Health Services’ in Death Studies, Vol.39., pp.323-331.

Powell, K.A. and Matthys, A. (2013). ‘Effects of Suicide on Siblings: Uncertainty and the Grief Process’ in Journal of Family Communication Vol.13., No.4., pp.321-339.

Three Years, Three Days: reconnecting with PhD origins.

 A couple of months back, I connected with a woman organising an event for CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably). She asked if I would write some words that could be spoken at a fundraising event (which is happening next week (15th July 2017), and I said yes.

The following is what came out.

Have to say that writing the words was also good opportunity to also remind myself of where my research came from and why I’ve taken it on (especially as general PhD stress and deadline-meeting can be things that take a hold, pushing your focus perhaps a little way from where you initially started)….Never a bad thing to reconnect with your own reality generally, but that is perhaps especially the case for researchers…

“On the 8th April 2011, my little brother, Martin, wrote the following to me:

“I haven’t moved a step forward in seven years. TIME for a CHANGE. What do you think?”

I replied saying that was a brilliant idea, and I would support him however needed. But later the same year, on 24th November, unbeknown to me at the time, he wrote this one and only blog post:

‘I don’t think I can live any longer in a vacuum; nor can I live with the unwavering paradox of desperately craving company and isolation at one and the same time. …

I have come to the point now whereby incessant commentary, self-criticism and constant fear have effectively annihilated whatever prior persona there may have been. I would renounce everything – everything – just to ‘be myself’ for 5 seconds. Just ‘to do’, not ‘think to do’.

I go to meet people as if they were the gallows. I have tried everything I can think of but cannot conceive of it being otherwise.

My only passions were music and history. But this whatever-it-is has jumped spheres and now infects my inner world: I am absolutely, distressingly indifferent.

Everything is subordinate to the problem, disease, whatever it’s called. Life, passion can only have meaning if you share it. I can’t talk to people. And from such little seeds do fuck-off massive weeds grow.’

Three weeks later, on 15th December 2011, he took his own life. He was 27.

Subsequent to the date of my brother’s passing, the fact of his death and the means by which it occurred have been omnipresent in my daily life. Amongst other aspects, I have experienced loss-of-limb nightmares, mirages on airplanes and in town-centres, immense guilt and situation re-livings all induced by the events of that winter. It is difficult to explain the sensation of carrying around such knowledge to someone, but I hope the following clarifies it a little. There is a scene in the 1992 film ‘Death Becomes Her’ in which Meryl Streep (her character, obviously) shoots a hole through (again, no recollection of character names) Goldie Hawn. The hole is big, round and airy, completely see-through with a black rim. And that is how I conceived of my physicality as I walked back into the classroom in Mexico where I worked at the time, about two months after Martin’s death. A huge gap of nothingness in my middle, like part of me had been shot out. That sense remains, though the hole-size is, 5.5 years on, much reduced.

It is perhaps classically the case that a ‘suicide story’ begins before the date of the actual death. Those left behind pick over the deceased’s life and try to fit together all the pieces in the hope that some sense can be made, some explanation can be found. The ‘why’ that bothers me is ‘why did he not talk to me?’ He had done so before; why not this time? I would be lying if I said I didn’t sense the depth of his problems. It sounds very cheesy but I just had a sense of the ‘wrongness’ of the situation in the months immediately prior to that December. I got more than upset hugging him goodbye in his dark and fairly cigarette-stinky pit of a bedroom, with the dog at his feet, as I again left for Mexico after a brief trip home in the summer of 2011. I even (don’t laugh) toyed with the idea of contacting Stephen Fry, just to ask if he had any thoughts on where I could find my brother help, because I simply couldn’t think of anywhere else to go or anyone else to ask; we had exhausted all options, and I had given all personal-experience advice I could give. It is so easy to obsess over this pre-death sense, to question ‘why didn’t I do something?’; ‘why did I carry on regardless?’ But that is utterly pointless. I’m not saying I haven’t questioned myself and my behaviours at various (numerous) points since, but the fact is it happened. I lost my baby brother in a manner I did not foresee, and which hurt(s) greatly.

It is unpleasant, but nonetheless true, to say that I spent a good part of the ensuing two and half years in a state of fury, specifically directed at my departed brother. I am not proud of this, but nonetheless my involuntary reaction to Martin’s death was pure ire at almost its most fire-in-the-belly severe. And because of this I lost Martin multiple times – everything became ‘my brother’, ‘depression’ and ‘suicide’ as inextricably linked entities. I eventually came to a realisation that I wanted Martin back. So I began “sifting my memories, the way men pan the dirt under a barroom floor for the bits of gold dust that fall between the cracks”(John Steinbeck, East of Eden, Ch24; p.296). And I began to rediscover ‘Martin’, and also my role of ‘sister’.

To begin the process of rediscovering my brother, I sat down and wrote the first things to come to mind: Books; Music (Guitar, Glasto, Radiohead, The Manics); Film; History; Football (Blackburn Rovers); Humour (Satire, Sarcasm); Smoking; Dog; Forgetfulness; Loyalty; The Great Outdoors; Impatient; Perfectionist; Often Infuriatingly Clever.

I then moved to prose, prompted by a writing course I took to ‘help get stuff out’:

You can see Martin through his bag. A navy-blue rucksack, not a new one. One that has been up and down a lot of hills and is starting to show signs of wear and tear. It has the beginnings of a hole in the base, and fraying on the straps. Inside is a book – something deep, academic, thought-provoking, philosophical, truly analytical (with words you’ve never seen before) or a classic fiction piece (a Brontë, or Steinbeck, or literature of purpose/social commentary). This book is dog-eared and the spine is broken as a result of multiple readings. The pages most likely show signs of having had coffee spilled on them, and there are loose tobacco strands in the page/spine creases. It follows that inside the bag there is his tobacco tin, a lighter and papers for roll ups. There are also to be found apparatus for cleaning up after the dog, because it is unlikely he would go walking or travelling anywhere without him (wherever doggily possible). A guitar plectrum. His laptop (on sleep), scratched and without a protective case – not for any writing, reading or internet surfing purposes, but for his music composition software, or perhaps for film viewing, having masses of downloads stored on it. There are his (latest set of) keys, which will likely fall out of the growing hole in the base of the bag for the upteenth time…and his passport, for entering a pub (i.e. spiritual home) often necessitates proof of age, due to his baby face. This passport will likely (subsequently) be left in said pub, and the process to replace it will begin yet again. He definitely isn’t carrying a camera – loathed the things – ‘you should be using your eyes properly to create memories, not experiencing the world through a tiny lens’….

These are such details insignificant to most, but part of Martin’s mid-20s essence to me.

Thinking about my brother meant that what often came first were not detailed thoughts about him as an individual. A memory of a person often starts with the thoughts of what was shared in the relationship, how the connection manifested itself. Thinking about the stories and situations that had us both as characters has largely been the route by which I have retrieved some of my strongest memories. So I recount to you the instance of my brother jumping headlong into a pond filled with frogspawn because he mistook it for grass – he was not best pleased and oh the laughter I fought to conceal as I ran to recruit parental assistance. The time when an unplanned fire alarm went off in our primary school, resulting in the infant school classes being pushed together with the juniors – I went around the playground with my brother, a protective arm around his shoulders, introducing him to everyone, which he seemed remarkably pleased about. Meandering and chatting through the Lancaster suburbs to our tennis club, and engaging in ‘matches’ that often ended in competitions to see who could lob the ball highest whilst still landing it in an ‘in’ location. Arrangements to meet and open our Christmas stockings together at 5am. Parascending in tandem over the Greek island of Skopelos. His staying with me, aged 15, in Aberystwyth during my first year at university, watching The Exorcist (!) and impressing my new friends with his ‘roll-up skills’ (I didn’t even know he smoked). Spending a summer’s day in Regent’s Park, culminating in a Seth Lakeman concert at the Open Air Theatre and a Chorizo burger at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen. His face when I handed him the Natasha Kaplinksy autograph I’d got for him the day after she won the first Strictly Come Dancing; he was a BIG FAN. Our ‘debates’ on smoking during the discussions pertaining to the introduction of the UK Smoking Ban – I, for; he, angrily against. Rising at 4am and travelling to our ‘local hill’ Clougha Pike (accompanied by our father) to climb it in time to see the sunrise from the summit on Midsummer’s day, before nodding off in the heather, followed by a descent that would include an obligatory stop (and dip) at a natural ‘plunge pool’, the location at which we were to later scatter some of his ashes.

Yet this is a brother we speak of, so I must state that Martin also loved to wind me up something chronic. Whether it was pinching the back of my neck, making me walk around with shoulders hoiked up and head tilted for his own amusement, or his pointing out of all examples of my ‘up-talking’ when home from university, or the changing of the ‘H’ in my name to an ‘F’, calling me ‘Feather’ much of the time, which I hated. One of Martin’s amusements was certainly getting a rise out of me. Exam revision times were ‘fun’ – I don’t care how well instruments are played, or what kind of wonderful creations are being constructed, you try learning the facts of some Tudor revolt whilst drum-machine thumping or multiple repetitions of Deep Purples’ Smoke on the Water‘s guitar-riff come pounding through the wall of your bedroom. ‘Shut ups’ were frequently exchanged. And I simply do not know anyone else who took longer to have a bath. Accompanied by a coffee and a book, Martin would enter the bathroom and we would know not to expect him to leave for near on two hours, even then necessitating ‘get a move on’ banging on the bathroom door. My brother could be demanding, often the grumpiest of human beings, seriously impatient, and I have no qualms in admitting I was more than a little jealous of his cleverness, his ability to exit an exam with the highest grades going without having done the slightest grain of revision. He could just do stuff.

When I think about it, we did fight a lot. Well, bickered. More niggly, nit-picking rather than outright arguments. But what siblings don’t do that? But to me, the arguments we had never meant we disliked one another. I was allowed to fight with him, but should anyone else have a go they would have me to answer to. I felt entirely loyal to Martin, and I believe he to me too, despite our squabbles. In my later teen years, after leaving for university whilst my brother remained, finishing school, this bond solidified. I really looked forward to heading back home for Christmas and catching up with him, and the common ground we had that led to the great experiences and conversations of an adult sibling relationship. A love of lounging in jacuzzis; a deep interest in Latin America and the Spanish language; simply going for a drink in the pub; a love of together taking the dog for his walkies; meandering around the local antiques centre at Lancaster Leisure Park (where he had been known to pick up random items, such as a useless gramophone just because ‘I found it interesting’). I believe we became even closer after he left for university himself, where and when it was that his illness really first took hold and then started to be visible to ‘outsiders’. He would call me in the early hours of the morn at times to vent. And I went along with that; it was standard practice for me to leave my mobile on in case of his needing a chat in the middle of the night, usually around 3am. Indeed, one of the toughest realisations after his death has been that my phone need not be on during the night; there is no call to receive.

Martin was not just my brother, he was my finest of friends. We could talk for ages about nothing in particular. He supported me, putting himself into situations to help me out, even though I now know they were so very difficult for him. He tried for me, did not judge, and whilst he may not have been a bruiser-type protector, he was brilliant at backing me up with quick fire wit. His understanding and use of words was enviable, and I admired his incredible intelligence and sharpness more than that of any other acquaintance. He was simply a wonderful, authentic human being that I am so very proud to have known.

I scattered my brothers ashes at Sycamore Gap on Hadrian’s Wall on 1st November 2015. I felt awkward after the scattering. I did not know what to do or what to say. I took some pictures of the tree, and walked around its base for a bit. My husband and I sat on the remains of Hadrian’s Wall at the base of the tree, eating cheese sandwiches, satsumas and cinnamon biscuits, saying very little of any consequence. We did not discuss what had taken place; we did not talk about Martin. We merely existed and focused attention on the landscape around us, particularly on a lone barn on the horizon ahead of us. I thought to myself how very much I missed my brother, and how much I wished he were there, as a living, breathing, talking being. He would have had something to say.

As with all other aspects of the grieving process, time is needed, as is personal, individual reflection. Scattering the ashes did not have all the effect I had hoped for – there was no immediate sense of release; there was no sense of setting him or myself free; there was no weight lifted or shoulders relaxing; and sadly, there was no sense of that much needed word, ‘goodbye’, being uttered or fulfilled. The world has not changed, things have not resolved and the existing multitude of mixed emotions persists. Given the nature of Martin’s death, I have realised this is what bereavement by suicide means – living, continuing, with the insolvable, unresolved. However, the ashes scattering was, for me, an important symbolic event to illustrate Martin and I as siblings, and what that connection meant – I am glad to have an idea of ‘knowing where he is’ so I can visit and remember on my own if I wish, glad to have spent moments in thinking about being brother and sister. That day reflected what I wanted to say about losing Martin in the way I did, as his sister – it allowed me to say ‘I am a sister; I have a brother’, and therein I am happy.

Why write this piece? Why lay essentially personal/private memories open? Because it is harder to remain silent on the subject, than it is to speak. I am not ashamed of Martin, of how he died, of having him as my brother. Martin knew all his faults and illness-induced problems himself, and eloquently explained himself in writings we have found since he died. He could, and managed to, help others with their conditions, (they have said so); he just couldn’t sort his own self out. I write also because I am not ashamed of myself – I know now I did all I possibly could to help my brother. Nor am I ashamed of my reaction to his death – it was and still is a trauma that has defined me and aspects of my future. Suicide is not a comfortable subject, and I have felt unease in talking about it with people, making judgments as to whether or not I should include my brother in a conversation. I never wish to put people on the spot, which sometimes makes conversing naturally difficult. But I do not wish to hide what happened, or indeed my relationship with Martin, which played such a role in defining who I am. And I also wish to make the point that behind facts, figures and fear of suicide deaths, there are people. People who had intricate lives and interests and specific, special relationships as individual characters. These people highlight issues that should be discussed in a public capacity, to aid others wherever that may be possible. Eradication of suicide may not be entirely achievable right now, but certainly a massive reduction in fatalities and the ensuing trauma of the loss experience could be.

I’d like to finish with two quotations:

‘I do not love my brother less for having killed himself. I was his sister, you understand; suicide makes no difference’ (Gambotto-Burke, 2003, 2013)

‘I had thought that your death

Was a waste and destruction,

A pain of grief hardly to be endured.

I am only beginning to learn

That your life was a gift, a growing

And a loving left with me.

The desperation of death

Destroyed the existence of love,

But the fact of death

Cannot destroy what has been given.

I am learning to look at your life again

Instead of your death and your departing.’

(Marjorie Pizer, ‘The Existence of Love’)

Thank you.”

 

 

‘What are you studying?’, ‘Well….’

It’s always interesting noting the reaction of people to my answer to the question, ‘What are you studying?’ I find the initial, mostly-instantaneous, blink-and-you’ll-miss-them, probably-involuntary responses fascinating; indeed, I think they are pretty indicative of the wide spectrum of general views regarding the subject of suicide bereavement.

Take for instance, last week. The joy of SCONUL that allows access to academic libraries outside of the home option meant I recently had the chance to broaden my source-searching locations. I filled in the requisite paperwork, provided the necessary face-to-camera pose for the access-card photo, and listened to the spoken guide covering access times and borrowing rights. Then the person on the help-desk asked, ‘So is there anything particular you are looking for? What are you studying?’, ‘Suicide bereavement and siblings’. Their eyes widened and they puffed out their cheeks hamster-style, before releasing a big blow-out of air and stating, ‘Right…well….I don’t know about that’. There was a lengthy, take-stock pause before they guided me to possible Dewey ranges where relevant texts might be. On a separate occasion, the reply (after a rather lengthy pause) was ‘That’s not what I was expecting.’ Why? What would a person be ‘expected’ to study? Is that a comment on the subject, or on the female researcher stating that this is her research topic? Unfortunately, ‘ice-breaker’ chat times don’t really provide the right kind of scenarios for me to explore such responses further… In general, comments that have been directed at my response have ranged from (referring to actual words) ‘Oh…well…that’s not a laugh a minute, is it?!’ (What research is?), to ‘Really?! That’s fascinating. How are you going with that?’, which is obviously a response I thoroughly appreciate and engage with, one that leads to rather brilliant conversations.

Dickson-Swift et.al. (2008: ix), talking from experience, have mentioned that there is possibility of researchers being “not immune from the stigma” of the topics they pursue, with people in the vicinity of the projects, (especially those involving ‘sensitive topics’), prone to speculating about the reasons for researchers’ engagement with such subject matters. Before starting my research, I hadn’t really appreciated that a mere mention of the words ‘suicide bereavement’ would provoke such polarised, instant reactions. Not only that, the range of negative/judgemental to positive/interested responses has really highlighted to me the depth of feelings that the topic can evoke – I knew it was a controversial, sensitive topic but not one THAT strong across the board. I would like responses to my answer to be predominantly of the latter-mentioned tone, the former sometimes inducing personal feelings of awkwardness, but I fear society simply is not in ‘that place’ yet with regard to its relationships with either suicide or bereavement, never-mind the two together. Obviously, it is not for me to address that alone; there are thousands of admirable people working hard to boost this need to not view ‘suicide’ and ‘suicide bereavement’ as ‘taboo’ subjects. For me, regardless of any perceptions of stigma being attached to my person, in monitoring these reactions as my research continues, I think I will maintain part of the fuel needed to drive the project, and contribute to building that open discussion.