Gratitude for Those Who Receive Our Broken Hearts

The season of gratitude is often dreaded by those who’ve lost loved ones to suicide. It’s not just feeling out of step with the holiday mood. It’s that our capacity for gratitude and joy has been grievously wounded. After my son Noah’s suicide, I felt disconnected from prayers and daily gratitude practice; I simply didn’t have the heart for them. I went through the motions but it took at least a year or two to sincerely feel grateful again.

Tomorrow, November 23, many of us will take part in International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day, sponsored by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Over the years, I’ve been grateful to know there’s a place to gather with others who understand at this stressful time. We create space to step into each others’ stories and shared sorrow. It’s a time to feel grateful for community and for the the people we’ve lost. (Visit this site to find a gathering near you on Saturday, November 23.)

I’m also grateful for chance encounters with other grieving parents. Who knew I would find one of those moments at a ceramics exhibit? Massachusetts-based potter Steven Branfman lost his son Jared to brain cancer at age 23. As a form of Kaddish (the Jewish prayer for the dead) in memory of Jared, Branfman began making a chawan (Japanese tea bowl) every day for a year. It wasn’t until nine years later that he felt ready to glaze and fire the 365 bowls with his signature raku technique.

Though I didn’t get a chance to see the documentary film, “A Father’s Kaddish,” about Branfman’s project, I saw an exhibit of 80 of his small, round cups, each with its own texture and color palette, each marking another day’s meditation on loss. Immediately, I wanted to hold and own a chawan, to celebrate the creativity that bubbles up out of the morass of grief. I was drawn to a bowl with pale green and emerald glints that remind me of Noah’s eyes and the sea he loved, with rough edges evoking how unfinished Noah was at 21. I like how the bowl fits perfectly in the cup of my hands and how I can feel the hands of the potter in its ridges and indentations. To my amazement, when I bought the piece, the artist wanted to meet my husband and me to exchange stories, and we had a sweet phone call together about our sons. I’m so grateful to have this artwork that began as a container for another parent’s grief that now can hold my own.

Just as I will always be grateful for the friends and family who’ve held me in my grief, especially in those most difficult early years.  “I was blessed to be one of those people who received your broken hearts” after Noah’s suicide, a grief therapist wrote to my husband and me. I’m touched that she finds this to be a blessing. I know what she means from when I’ve had the honor of supporting others bereaved by suicide.

To my fellow survivors: May you be surrounded by love and care this holiday season. May you take the opportunity to thank those who’ve received your broken heart, to remember who or what has helped hold your grief. May you feel a glimmer of gratitude return to your soul—if not this season, then maybe the next.