Many years ago I heard that an old school friend of mine had committed suicide. We were not very close, but we went to school and to Sunday school together, and we formed the kind of bond that result from sharing such activities. I remember not really being touched by the news, because all I could recall about him was his cheerful nature and his inability to spell a particular word correctly.



For some reason I was surprised at how much the people around me were disturbed by his suicide. One person cynically revealed that it was not my school friend's first attempt at suicide, and that once a person had made the decision to kill themselves, nothing and nobody would stop them and they would eventually succeed. The implication was that people who wanted to kill themselves might as well be written off, because in their minds they had already violated the sacred life that was given to them.

The other thing I noticed at the time was the lack of compassion from the church. I became aware of an ancient practice where people who committed suicide were not entitled to a church funeral and their dead bodies were not even welcome in the graveyard. Of course that was meant as a sanction to the deceased, but in fact it added to the punishment of a grieving family who had many questions.

I was not particularly disturbed by the suicide, and also did not really think about my reaction at the time. I was young and busy, and this person did not touch my life.

However, later in life a person close to me died of an overdose of alcohol and drugs. She had a long history of abuse and spent the last years of her life in and out of mental hospitals and rehabilitation centres, but obviously nothing could relieve the inner pain she wanted to get rid of.

I started asking questions about death and dying. I had already become involved in Lifeline (the South African version of the Samaritans) where I had been trained to deal with suicidal people on the helpline.

The most important part of the training was to not react emotionally when a person tells you they would kill themselves, but to rather confront them with the permanency and consequences of such a radical solution, and then help them to realise that they have other choices.

I had two such phone calls while working on the helpline. In both instances the people had a logical discussion with me where they explained why they had decided to take their own lives. In their minds that was the only and best solution. In my mind they were completely irrational and very disturbed.

One of the callers was located as a result of the call and given medical treatment, but the other one put the phone down and I remember reading the local newspapers with a feeling of trepidation for months afterwards, expecting to find a description of a suicide case that would coincide with the information that the caller gave me.

That is where I first became aware of the very important lesson that I can and have to take full responsibility for my own life, but I cannot do much to change other people's life choices.

Somehow I was surprised at the nature of my questions about death and dying, because people normally fear and avoid the topic of death and do not ask questions. I wanted to know exactly what happens when a person dies. I wanted to understand the process, because I knew intuitively that death was not the end, but a process.

I discovered that death is the moment when a spirit leaves behind the body that it inhabited during this incarnation. The spirit is not destroyed, but lives on. The spirit is energy and energy cannot be destroyed. It can only change shape.

I also discovered that after death the spirit is taken into, shall we call it an "intensive care unit", where it gets as much love and care as is required for recovery from the effort of dying. Some spirits recover quickly, for example where a person knew that his work here was done, and he peacefully leaves his body. Other spirits take longer to recover, for example where the death was sudden, or where the death was self-inflicted and preceded by inner torment. When we reach this "intensive care unit", we find only love, no matter what the circumstances of the death were. It is the people that remain behind that add the judgement and speculation and grief.

Some spirits have to return in another incarnation so that they can complete the work and the lesson that was interrupted, while others move to a higher level.

Because we lose a large part of our eternal consciousness when we are born into this world, people who are suicidal tend to think they are alone and that nobody would understand them. We live in a culture where we believe that this life is all there is, and when we struggle to deal with our challenges here, we often feel we have nowhere to go. The life hereafter is held up to us as a relief from the "ordeal" of this life, when the truth is that this life is meant to have one major challenge. Once we have overcome this one challenge, we are free to experience the joy and love of this existence. Our spiritual guides and the angels and God are there to help us, if only we would allow them to do so.

I now understand that where a person ends his own existence here, it is probably the bravest thing they ever do. They understand the judgement that will come from the society they live in and the guilt and pain that their families will experience, but the pain of their existence outweighs all the concerns they have about those around them.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote a book called On Death and Dying in which she describes the different stages of grieving. There is a point in the grieving process where a person comes out of a depression and everyone heaves a sigh of relief because they show interest in the world around them again.

For a suicidal person that is the most vulnerable time, because the person then has the energy to end his own existence. By the time the person gets to this point, they are desperate and very alone. This is a frame of mind that none of us can change in another person. All we can do is keep our judgement to ourselves and love the person. We cannot determine the path of anyone else. We can only love one another unconditionally.

If you are reading this and thinking of ending your life, think about this:

There is a legend of the Cherokee Indian youth's rite of Passage. The youth's father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone. He must sit in the same space all night and not remove the blindfold until the sun comes out the next morning. No matter what happens, he is not allowed to cry out for help to anyone.

Of course the boy is terrified. The night sound carries far and he can hear many strange and frightening noises. The wind feels eerie at night and the rustling of the leaves is sinister.

But the boy knows that the only way he could become a man is to sit through the night with the blindfold on, no matter what happens.

In the morning when the sun rises, the boy finally removes the blindfold and discovers his father sitting on the stump next to him. The boy then discovers that the father had been on watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.

The boy is not allowed to tell the other boys of this experience, because each boy must come into manhood on his own. Once he survives the night, he is a man.

We, too, are never alone. Even when we are not aware of it, God is watching over us, sitting beside us and at times carrying us. When the dark night of the soul comes, all we have to do is reach out to Him. Just because you can't see God, doesn't mean He is not there.

Blessings and Light and above all, Love to you.