POS - FFOS
Memorial Cookbook
Remembering
Those Who Have Died
by Suicide
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When Someone is
Too Bruised to be Touched
Fr. Ron Rolheiser
July 7, 2002
"This man is the last person who should of killed himself because he was one of the most sensitive people I've ever met!"
A book could of been written on that statement. Too often it is precisely the meek who seem to lose the battle, at least in this world.
Finally, I submit that we shouldn't worry too much about how God meets our loved ones who have fallen victim to suicide. God, as Jesus assures us, has a special affection for those of us who are too-bruised and wounded to be touched.
Jesus assures us too that God's love can go through locked doors and into broken places and free up what's paralyzed and help that which can no longer help itself.
God is not blocked when we are. God can reach through.
And so our loved ones who have fallen victim to suicide are now inside of God's embrace, enjoying a freedom they could never quite enjoy here and being healed through a touch that they could never quite accept from us.
Suicide is a desperate attempt to end unendurable pain, akin to one throwing oneself through a window because one's clothing is on fire.
Many of us have known victims of suicide and we know too that in almost every case that person was not full of ego, pride, haughtiness, and the desire to hurt someone.
Generally it's the opposite.
The victim has cancerous problems precisely because he or she is wounded, raw, and too bruised to have the necessary resiliency needed to deal with life.
Those of us who have lost loved ones to suicide know that the problem is not one of strength but of weakness, the person is too-bruised to be touched.
I remember a comment I overheard at a funeral for a suicide victim.
The priest had preached badly, hinting that this suicide was somehow the man's own fault and that suicide was always the ultimate act of despair.
At the reception afterwards a neighbor of the victim expressed his
Parents of Suicide
Friends and Families of
Suicide
"Index"
"Dedication"
"Welcome"
"On The Internet"
"We Remember Them"
"When Someone is Too Bruised to be Touched"
"Recipe Contributors"
"I Am Alive"
By: Jeff Shuck
"POS is a Light House"
By: Alice Stephen
"The Invisible Cord"
With Love From Terri Apostolakos
"Parents of a Suicide"
By Denise Bellion
"A Guide to Healing After Death, Loss and Suicide"
By: Iris Bolton
"We Remember Them"
~From the Jewish
Book of Prayer~