Vincent and James.

2017 – 16. Male. RIP.

2024 – 19. Male. RIP.

Brothers. Second generation Chinese immigrants in USA. Their mother, a writer who lost both of them to suicide.

Where Reasons End (2019) by Yiyun Li, after Vincent’s death.

I read this book when it was first published. An imagined conversation between her and her older son, Vincent who lived ‘feelingly’. Sixteen chapters, one for each year of his life. It has a witty and mischievous tone. Nicholai, a name he gave himself, chides his mother’s new embrace of cliches and adjectives. “If you’re protesting by becoming a bad writer, I would say it’s highly unnecessary,” he says. (“Dying is highly unnecessary too,” she shoots back.)

Things In Nature Merely Grow – Pulitzer Prize Finalist 2025, by Yiyun Li, a memoir. She wrote it within two months of her younger son, James’ death. I feel deeply for her and with her but I am not sure I want to read that book right now. A few lines from it sing true:

“I am in an abyss. If an abyss is where I shall be for the rest of my life, the abyss is my habitat.”

“My children were not my burden. My sadness is not my burden.”

“I am very realistic in that I would always acknowledge that I am limited as their mother. I was limited, and I am still limited as a mother, so I can only do my best.”

When people hold an expectation that her grief must have an end date, she retorts, “How lonely the dead would feel, if the living were to stand up from death’s shadow, clap their hands, dust their pants, and say to themselves and to the world, I am done with my grieving; from this point on its life as usual, business as usual.”

“This is a very sad fact of our lives, they took their own lives knowing we would accept and respect their decision.”

Could I accept and respect Saagar’s decision one hundred percent? I believe it was not his decision. It was his utter helplessness and desperation in the face of his illness, his unsuitable antidepressants, lack of medical care, his isolation, his inability to recommence his education, our inability to talk about it and so much more. He was driven to it. It was not by choice. Anyone who knew him, knows that. I do understand though.

I understand, my darling.

References:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/05/where-reasons-end-yiyun-li-review#

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/may/17/author-yiyun-li-on-the-suicide-of-both-her-sons

Two overlapping worlds.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

The Bhagavad Geeta addresses the ethical and moral dilemmas around the questions of who we are, how we should live our lives and act in this world. If this voluminous text was to be summarised in two sentences, they would be:

Do what needs to be done, knowing that all actions come from God.
Do not be attached to the results of your actions.

Six weeks ago, I re-entered the world of Suicide Prevention due to a presentation I agreed to make. It took me back to a familiar battleground where strong currents of injustice flowed through me. I went over our story yet again, in mind and body. It burnt me up. It made me restless and irritable. It kept me staring at the ceiling at night. It brought back the shit of guilt in big droppings. It was silly of me to agree to do it, but it was too late already. I wrote it down, prepared a set of PowerPoint slides to support the story. I repeated it for the nth time to many. I wondered, to what end, but I did it anyway.

Four and a half years ago, when my road gradually swerved from the Suicide Prevention world towards peer support with other parents, it was like a cool breeze gently blowing in my face. That conversation felt like a proper invitation. Instinctively I knew it was good for me. Despite huge self-doubt, I trusted that path. I went with it. This work was also about preventing isolation and possibly suicide amongst parents, as our risk is 60-70% higher than others. It did not feel like work at all. We formed strong bonds of friendship. We shared deeply and held each other in understanding and compassion. This felt like home.

The organisers at National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health provided me the best possible support to be able to present my thoughts. The comments on the chat were that of gratitude and inspiration to change. One person said that it was better than any training course they had attended. I am glad that I did what was needed. The strength to do it came from somewhere. Now, it can do its work and I can go back home.

The recording is here (‘Bridging the gaps’ starts 6 minutes and 45 seconds in).

Dad, boys and crow.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

“Once upon a time there were two boys who purposefully misremembered things about their father. It made them feel better if they ever forgot things about their mother.

There were a lot of equations and transactions in their small family. One boy dreamed he had murdered his mother. He checked it wasn’t true, then a put a valuable silver serving spoon that his father had inherited in the bin. It was missed. He felt better.

One boy lost the treasured lunchbox note from his mother saying ‘good luck’. He cried alone in his room, then threw a toy car at his father’s framed Coltrane poster. It smashed. He felt better. The father dutifully swept up all the glass and understood.

There were a lot of punishments and anticipations in their small family.“

An excerpt from Grief is the thing with feathers, a book by Max Porter.

Eight years ago it was hard work and I could remember it only vaguely.

I read it for the second time this morning. It felt brand new, easy, fun and hearbreaking. Part memoir, part sound-poem. A bit more than 100 pages long. No more than 18 thousand words. The ‘missing’ in the life of a young family after the mother dies suddenly is palpable. In the background rings the sound of a crow flapping its wings. One big black feather has dropped on the ground. It lies near my right foot.

PS: Losing a parent or a close relative or friend at a young age puts the young at a high risk of suicide.

Wolf-moon.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Twelve years ago the word ‘lunatic’ was removed from all federal laws in the USA. It was replaced with ‘of unsound mind’.

Edgar Alan Poe has said, ‘I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.’

Emily Dickinson begged pardon for her sanity and claimed that much madness is divinest sense. Some days, sanity is a serious challenge as all I do is dart around from one home to another. I have five homes – illusion, reality, the past, insanity and my breath. I wonder if others do too. Do you have a few? Happy full-moon!

Your suffering is a bridge.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

He described himself not as a revolutionary writer but one born into a revolutionary situation. He was born out of wedlock in the USA a hundred years ago – black, poor, despised by his adoptive father, the eldest of nine siblings and to top it all, a homosexual. His name was James Baldwin. He knew the meaning of suffering and could talk and write about it with striking beauty.

“I can only tell you about yourself, as much as I can face about myself.

As it happens to everybody who’s tried to live. You go through your life for a long time and you think that no one has ever suffered the way I’ve suffered. My God! My God! Then you read something, you hear something and you realise that your suffering does not isolate you.

Your suffering is your bridge. It tells you that many people have suffered before you, that many people are suffering around you and always will.

All you can do is hopefully bring a little light into that suffering. Enough light so the person who is suffering can begin to comprehend his suffering. Begin to live with it and begin to change it.

We don’t change anything. All we can do is invest people with the morale to change it for themselves.”

Indeed. We can and we do. Thank you for your light, James Baldwin. Happy centenary.

[ CORe: Bringing light to those who have been unfortunate enough to lose a child.]