I surrender.

My hand is outstretched high above my head, my palm wrapped around the solid wood handle fully aware of its weight; the flag gently waving in the breeze feels top-heavy and the white, square shaped material appears brilliant against the blue sky.  

I surrender.

I throw up the white flag.  My life has been cancelled until further notice.

I have always been a planner and prior to June 23rd, I had big plans.   In July, I would attend two separate fitness competition events.  Attaining my dream physique has been a goal of mine for years and what better motivation is there than being held accountable in a bikini on stage?  My training began January 25th and every month I lost body fat and gained lean muscle.  The sacrifices I made were paying off.  By June, I looked and felt amazing.  The competition was so close I could taste it.  

In August, my company’s flagship event (Celebration) would take place in Vegas.  My $200 ticket was purchased months ago. I couldn’t wait to once again dance in the aisles with my friends and watch as Mario Lopez hosted our formal Gala event.  Even Maroon 5 would be there as our very own private after party entertainment!  Our company goes big. It was sure to be epic.

Sounds great right?  

It was.  But, only against the backdrop of my perfect, happy life.  When Aaron’s heart stopped, so too did my life.

Yet, I still clung to a false sense of normalcy.  When my dogs were boarded on the morning of June 23rd,  I was adamant I’d pick them up “in just a few days”; the expression on everyone’s faces in the room telling me otherwise.  Despite spending the night at other houses the first week after Aaron passed, I always returned back to my house in the day time, as if trying to reclaim my territory.  The minute my therapist gave me the "ok" to return home at night,  I did so without hesitation.  When I turned the lights off those first few nights, restlessness and panic set in yet I held onto being home.  I gripped my room so tightly, not wanting to lose it into some abyss.

For the days that followed, I found myself clinging more and more to the life I had with Aaron.  I got myself back into the gym where the weights were symbolic of how heavy my heart felt. But, I was proud to be seen.  Look at me!  I’m kind of a bad ass!  Sure, I missed my July show but come September, it's a go!   I’m okay.

But, I wasn’t okay and I’m still not okay.  Instead, I’m grieving and in mourning. And, I just need to accept that.

Little by little I’ve started to let go.  After much thought, I made the bitter sweet decision to cancel my plans to attend Celebration.  It’s a fun event but not when all I feel is pain and loss. The enormous crowds that brought energy and excitement in 2015 will ubdoubtedly prove overwhelming this time around.  Through the tears, I got on Face Book and made a post that my ticket was up for grabs.  On social media, I see the excitement of my team members posting about Celebration.  In those moments, I want to throw my computer out the window of a moving vehicle.

The fitness competition is also off the table.  I was physically present in the gym but my mind and heart were elsewhere.  Since Aaron died, I haven’t been able to follow my meal plan.  Eating chicken every day feels much like trying to force cockroaches down my throat.  I’m always sad and I'm pretty sure chicken makes me sadder.  I’m not saying a huge tub of mashed potatoes would cheer me up; I certainly don’t want to backslide but if I’m craving a Greek yogurt, I want to be able to enjoy one without feeling like a failure.  Training and prepping for a competition was challenging even when I was healthy in mind, body and soul.  Training while being broken...well, if anyone figures out how to do that, let me know.  I’m all ears.

Clinging to my previous life was evidence that I wasn’t honoring the cold hard fact that everything has changed.  I was trying to move on as a symbol of strength and perseverance.  But, real strength lies in acknowledging and accepting that life is different right now. And, that requires pause.  It begs for some breathing space.  I need time to grieve, mourn and eventually heal and reinvent myself.  So, with that, I'm surrendering my old life and giving it to God.  That doesn’t mean I’ll stop experiencing or living life.  It just means I’m taking a sabbatical; I’m creating some breathing room.  The weeds have to go to make room for flowers to bloom. Like my friend Jill said “Sometimes putting things off is okay.  Sometimes God needs you to focus on other things like yourself.”   And, my friend Debbie from the gym reminded me that dreams don’t have expiration dates.  She’s right.  They don't.  

So for now, I just surrender and allow God to restore me in a way that only He can.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like quitter.  I so badly want to continue to run my Isagenix business and go to Celebration and all the other mini-events that I've been missing.  I so badly want to prove myself on a fitness competition stage.  But that's all ego and non-acceptance of my current state.  Times like these require that I listen to my higher self - that small, soft whisper that implores me to just sit with the winds of change. Sit with the sadness, the loneliness and with with void that demands my attention at every waking moment.  It's time to pause.  It's time grieve.  That's where the healing lives.

Matthew 16:24-25 ~ Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

Forever Changed

When you lose someone to suicide, you’re called a “survivor”.  

I never even knew the phrase “survivor of suicide” existed prior to June 23rd of this year.   

I belong to an online support group and some put “survivor” next to their name like a post-nominal title.  Instead of seeing Jane Doe, PhD and John Smith, CPA like I’m used to seeing, I spot signature lines that read “Michelle Jones, Survivor”.   

Is that what I am? 

I’m not feelin‘ it.  

Frankly, I am not surviving Aaron’s suicide very well, at all.  It’s been a living hell.  

Destroyed by Suicide might be more like it.  Or crushed.  Or forever changed...

I can’t do a damn thing in my waking hours without having Aaron on my mind.  I’m either wishing he was with me, missing him more than I’m capable of explaining, replaying the horrific events of June 23rd, or, in moments of acceptance, I’m talking to him knowing he can see and hear me while being fully aware of the inequity of my not being able to hear or see him. 

My life and the lives of those who deeply love Aaron have been completely shaken, turned upside down and shattered into a million pieces.  Life still moves forward for everyone else, but for us we’re stuck in a time warp.  We’re stuck in a place where we can’t seem to move forward despite time whizzing by like the days are in some sort of sprint, like the end of the month is some sort of finish line.

Do suicidal people get online and become aware of the term “survivor of suicide” to describe those they’ll leave behind?  Because that term seems so....pleasant.  Like, “Oh, see?  They’ll survive without me!”  I’m used to the term “survivor” to describe people who have beat cancer.  That makes sense to me. They most likely felt broken and defeated at times by their diagnosis but they overcame.  They beat the odds!  They survived and are whole again.

I don’t feel I’ll ever feel whole again; how could I after this experience and after a loss this severe?  I’m completely broken.  I won’t always feel as broken as I am today but my heart will never be whole.  Yes, I will create a new normal.  I will carry on.  But I’ll do so carrying a void I will never be able to fill.  

I think “survivors of suicide” should describe the people who contemplate or attempt suicide and are still upright today with their hearts still beating; their family and friends still able to see them, hold them and tell them how much they are loved.  Those are the real survivors of suicide.  To describe those of us left behind as survivors?  I'm just not feelin' it.  

Signed,

Lisa Ruggiero, 

Forever Changed by Suicide

June 23, 2016

The 23rd is represented as a tiny square among 29 other squares in my day planner for the month of June.  I know in 2016, few people use day planners.  But I do.  And, I find myself staring at the June 22nd square as if trying to find some indication of the tragic event that would reveal itself the following day.  Yet the contents of that square only serve as a reminder for the Isagenix Headquarters tour ~ an event I was excited about for weeks prior. I had wished Aaron could join me but I knew he would be working his pool route.  That evening, though, I remember telling him in great detail about the tour; what a state-of-the-art building it is and about the Harley Davidson motorcycle that is on display in the lobby, literally smack dab in the middle of a water feature, its two tires and kickstand precariously placed on individual small cement pillars that elevate the entire motorcycle above the water.

The June 23rd square in my calendar is blank.  I clearly remember Aaron asking me that morning what my plans were for the day.  "I have training at 11 at Joe's.  I want to run by the post office and check the mail, and I need to go to the Vet to get a copy of Cinnamon's vaccination records...".  I continued explaining that the place I board the dogs didn't have her current records and we'd need those for when we boarded the dogs for the Tucson trip we had scheduled for July 9th and 10th.  I was seated on the couch drinking my coffee; he was standing in the living room directly in front of me.  All seemed normal.

I wish I would have asked him what his plans were for that day.  I assumed I already knew what they were - he'd go to work and return home to me.  But that's not what happened.   And, little did I know that my plans would be nothing like what I explained to Aaron that very morning.  No. Not only did my plans change for that day but I changed.  I knew I would never be the same person I was...for all the remaining squares on every day planner I'd ever own, I would be forever changed.

Aside from the detectives who interviewed me on Thursday morning, only my therapist and two other people know in grave detail what transpired on the 23rd.  I knew I needed to talk about it.  Lord knows my brain wouldn't stop playing the events over and over and over again in my minds eye.  I hoped saying it aloud might quiet the movie-loop that was playing in my head.  And, I was selective about who would be on the receiving end of such graphic detail.  I sought out friends who are stoic and strong enough in character to allow me to say what I needed to say.  And they listened intently, their eyes welling up with tears as my story drew to an end.

Yes, looking back, Aaron seemed a bit more agitated than usual that morning.  Aaron woke up like he did every morning but indeed he grew more agitated as the minutes passed.

But, I still never saw that coming.

Aaron woke up at 5:00 a.m, right on time like always.  He popped right out of bed like a champ and began his normal routine of getting dressed, loading up the truck with his pool equipment and supplies, downing his bowl of oatmeal and enjoying the cup of coffee I made him that morning.  By 6:15 he should have left the house to meet his dad.  By 6:41 Aaron took his own life.  I was standing right next to him.  He never said goodbye.  I never got a chance to tell him goodbye.  And, all those who love Aaron would never get that chance either.

I know Aaron is at peace and free from the bondage that caused him so much pain. But, knowing this doesn't at all diminish the sheer pain and grief that I feel at every waking moment.  My darkest days which lasted for the good part of two weeks, I believe, are finally behind me.   Now it's just a matter of choosing to breathe when I feel like I can't.  Pretending to be whole in this life while being shattered into a million pieces.  Trying to negotiate the days in spite of my heart having been ripped out of my chest.  So you can imagine what the darkest days were like...

I grieve.  I cry.  I mourn.  I'm in disbelief.  My emotions are a roller coaster.  And, from where I sit now, I don't know how I'll ever feel better.  It doesn't seem possible.  Yet I know it is.  But, I have to choose healing over and over again.  I have to choose to fight for it.  I have to choose to overcome, and I have to choose the light over the darkness.  And, I do.  I choose life.

John 8:12  ~ When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”