Geoff

I haven't posted in awhile. My Mother's Day and birthday were the focus of my dread last week, willing them both to cheerfully go away if I could. Then they both happened, despite my best intentions for them not to come and the day surprisingly was uneventful and peaceful....for the most part. I say for the most part because it was not my dreaded thirty-nineth birthday or Mother's Day that actually put a heaviness in my heart that day, it was my husband's friend Geoff. Geoff committed suicide on my birthday. On Mother's Day, at the age of thirty. It was a sobering end to a night spent in the warm embrace of family, in good company. Having had a spur of the moment family dinner at my inlaws house, we had gotten home late and I had just retired to the bedroom computer to "check my FB" to view my birthday wishes and there it was....in the form of a status update..."RIP Geoff".

WTF? I was stunned. Immediately saddened and then angry that my husband's friend's death was a status update on FB. I wondered where the etiquette of phone calls had disappeared to, why my husband had to find out that a friend he knew since childhood had died via a FB update. Disturbing and sad. I felt a deep sense of sorrow for Geoff's mother who was spending her Mother's Day facing the news that her son had taken his own life. I was angry at his disregard for the timing of his decision. Committing suicide is a hard enough fate to accept, but learning that it was done on the day that celebrated motherhood was especially disquieting for me. Not wanting to hurt Shane with an angry outburst, I kept my feelings under wraps until the next day when many of us got together at a local pub for beer, hockey and quiet talk about Geoff's loss. Overhearing a comment about how we should "All give his mother some space....", I opened my mouth and disagreed. As a mother who also lost her son, the last thing I wanted at the time of Calvin's loss was silence. I wanted people to tell me that they were sorry. I wanted the comforting arms of loved ones and people who genuinely cared. I couldn't bear the thought that Geoff's mother would be facing his loss in solitude. "Call her," I said..."Let her know how much he meant to you...". It was what I wanted, and I'm sure she needed to hear words like that just as badly as I did at the time. I wanted to jump on my soapbox and educate my husband's friends about loss. I wanted to let them know how painful it is for a mother to lose her child, how no other pain in the universe comes close. I resisted the urge to lecture and instead quietly pleaded with a few to let Geoff's mother know he was loved. It saddens me to think he didn't know how much...