20 years after suicide
A letter to my sister on mourning and hope
Hi Katie,
It’s been 20 years since you left us at age 19, which means you have now been dead more years than alive. I am 41 years old, yet you remain the same age. Forever 19 years old, frozen in time.
Your whole life ahead of you
Your whole life gone in an instant
After you died, I pursued Ph.D. studies in Religion at Princeton, dropped out, started a few businesses, and travelled all over the world. You would have loved India. Today I do innovation strategy helping to make the world better. I also became a writer — I even dedicated my first book to you.
I wanted to write something to mark this anniversary, but words fail to capture the complexity of emotions. The true immensity of our loss rests in the silent grasping for answers. You are my younger sister and only sibling. We were so close. What more can be said than we all miss you?
I decided to write you a letter on what I’ve learned through mourning your loss. This is the wisdom and advice I would share if I could magically go back in time before that tragic day. It’s also what I thought you might want me to do in your memory to inspire hope and compassion in others.
Everything is Impermanent
Both of our grandfathers died the same year as you.
Death ripped our family apart.
You don’t realize how interconnected everyone’s lives are until someone close to you dies. Friends don’t know what to say or do, so often they say or do nothing. The support networks disappear and the weight of the world cannot be distributed because the people you counted on aren’t there any more. It all falls on you and your family to bear.
I moved home for a year to help out Mom. The trauma from that year of deaths taught me to be resilient. It also showed me how the simple narratives on TV and movies fail to prepare us for real life issues. I expected mourning to be a process that you go through and get over. People die and you move on. But it isn’t like that.
Death creates gaping holes in your heart. Everyone mourns in his or her own unique way. Life goes on with a haunting sense of uncertainty and remorse. Fading memories and wishful thinking mislead survivors of suicide into believing there is something we could or should have done. The feeling of regret is tinged with anger and betrayal. We loved you unconditionally, and you took your love away. Forever.
Mourning gives rise to complex and conflicting emotions. One minute you are angry, the next sad, the next resting in reflection, grateful for having ever been part of each other’s lives. Mourning is deep, visceral, intimate, with an unwillingness to fit into conventional narratives. You become exhausted trying to name or understand. In this way death reminds us about our own finite nature and reveals the limitations of our own egos.
Acceptance comes when you accept that one day you too will also die. That we all die. Intellectually, we all know this but everything in our culture is designed to hide it from us. Hospitals and retirement homes remove the sick. Our food magically appears in grocery stores and restaurants disconnected from its source, while waste is taken away to give no trace of decay. The old strive to look younger, while the young strive to act older, agreeing on almost nothing except the commitment to deny our mortality.
Death reinforces stronger connections with the living as you are forced to cut through the bullshit that characterizes ‘normal’ life. You become grateful for the limited time that we share together. Death reminds us of the impermanent nature of everything. Life is so fragile and brief. We must savor and cherish each precious moment. As I reflect on loss and mourning, part of me feels grateful for learning this at such a young age.
I have a more meaningful adult relationship with Mom and Dad than I could have imagined when I was younger, and I am a more compassionate person after the inner transformation of mourning your loss. The trivial things most people stress about don’t bother me because I focus my awareness on what is most important. Everything will pass — it always does — because everything is impermanent.
Suffering is universal, and through it we gain wisdom and insight into the interconnection of our lives. The experience of mourning drew me into the study of contemplative practices and comparative mysticism, looking within the self in the hopes of transcending the limitations of my own ego. Suffering, like death, is part of the emotional ups and down that comes from attachments to the material world.
I’ve practiced meditation for most of my adult life and spent several years in India and Southeast Asia. This helped me awaken to how the nature of everything is impermanence. Every moment is precious, and every moment slips away, no different from the next. Recognizing the impermanent nature of everything gives you a renewed perspective on life.
Some people cling to beliefs and think you need them to be a good person. They find comfort in the idea of heaven and living forever. I’ve found the opposite to be true. Stripping away beliefs and fantasies of eternal life reveals our bare essence and awakens who we are. This transformation leads to wisdom and compassion. Beliefs create boundaries. Awakening breaks them down so we can be mindful in the present.
I like to think that you somehow live vicariously through me. That in my constant and relentless pursuit of a purposeful and meaningful life your unrealized potential becomes manifest. That my solitary and lonely journeys to remote temples and monasteries, and years of meditation practice, yield inner peace that eluded you in this lifetime.
20 years later, I think about you with a warm and intimate fondness. The dead live on in the lives of those that loved them. In my search for words to capture what life is like without you, I am somehow met by a comforting whisper. It’s Ok to let go. We all experience sickness, old age and death. Life is a beautiful mystery characterized by impermanence. Its finite nature makes each moment more precious.
Being “Normal” is a Trap
Your suicide helped me awaken to how empty and unfulfilling it is to be ‘normal.’
Most people bounce around like pinballs from one experience to another, with no real sense of direction or purpose. The constant movement gives them an illusion of freedom and control. Yet they must always be entertained and can’t sit still. Death disrupts this aimless bouncing and forces closer examination of who you are, what you want, and why you exist. Its gaping holes draw you into silent contemplation and reflection.
We are taught to cling to the familiar, especially in times of crisis. But what I found over the years is that the more I let go of preconceived ways of being, the more beautiful and magical life becomes. Cultivating a purposeful sense of wellbeing on the inside creates a foundation of wisdom and compassion that leads to more meaningful relationships. Shedding attachments also prepares you for disruptive changes and new environments. Life becomes a journey exploring each moment with a renewed sense of wonder.
Conceptions of being ‘normal’ are based on comparisons, which are the biggest trap in life. Everyone else has a house, car, the latest fashion, so therefore I need them. My resume needs X, Y, Z on it like that person. Life becomes a treadmill, chasing the next thing to be happy. Except it never stops. As soon as you own or achieve something, it’s on to the next. This approach to ‘success’ is a path to mediocrity. No real success in life can be gained by striving to be like everyone else. Success is becoming the real you.
The scariest part of being ‘normal’ is to stop doing things that you enjoy and instead experience life by identifying with the accomplishments of others. So many people live vicariously through the lens of celebrities, politicians and athletes they will never meet, watching them on TV and movies, and following their lives in news, gossip and sports. They become spectators instead of participants in life.
Most of the world anchors their identities in the lives and accomplishments of others. Religion and nationalism operate on the same principles by coloring the present with glories of the past. Cheering on celebrities, teams, nations or gods gives an illusion of accomplishment without doing anything. To be ‘normal’ is a mass delusion. Awakening to this can be liberating and terrifying because your perspective on everything flips.
There are two types of people in life: spectators and those that awaken to the game. Alan Watts said life is like a game of hide-and-seek that the universe plays with itself. Everything is a play of consciousness. Moments of connection and transcendence occasionally provide people with glimpses of who they really are, but most people are too scared to let go of the illusion of a ‘normal’ world created by our egos.
The hardest thing about awakening to the game is that 99% of people will never “get it.” In fact, most of them will think you are weird or crazy and would do anything to avoid changing. Don’t be frustrated or angry when people remain trapped in the delusion of being ‘normal.’ It is very hard to break free. In fact, it is so hard being your true self that doing so can lead to depression, anxiety, and thoughts of suicide.
Depression and Anxiety Can Be Signals from your True Self
People always ask me why did my sister kill herself. I can never answer by pointing to particular events, like relationship or financial problems or the terrible car accident you were in that may have given you a closed head injury. That’s what people expect to hear, these types of simple narratives that replay over and over on TV. They want the complex mysteries of the universe explained in 10-second sound bytes.
The inertia and weight of expectations to give up any sense of originality can be soul crushing to those of us that want to follow our own path. When I reflect on how extraordinarily talented and creative you were, I think you died because the bullshit idea of being ‘normal’ didn’t provide enough choices to pursue a meaningful life. I think you felt trapped by the suffocating monotony of it all and wanted a way out.
I miss you, but I don’t blame you. Life is hard — and in fact, I think it can be hardest for people like you that are unique, special, different and beautiful. The further away that you get from being a spectator in life and start thinking for yourself, the more you are going into uncharted territory experiencing a range of complex emotions that can be difficult to navigate. True freedom can be liberating and terrifying.
‘Normal’ people spend their whole lives thinking that they are free. Except they use freedom to act and behave like everyone else. They all wear the same clothes, listen to the same music, buy the same stuff, watch the same shows, and complain about the same jobs that they all hate doing to support their lifestyle of being like everyone else.
Breaking free from the trap of being ‘normal’ can make people critical and judgmental of you. This creates stress on top of the stress of trying to be different, and all of that stress contributes to depression and anxiety. While I don’t discount the need for therapy or medication for people suffering from mental illness, feeling complex emotions resulting from being different should be expected and can be signals you are on the right path.
The best choice I ever made was when I quit my job years ago and bought a one-way ticket to Southeast Asia and India. This began a long journey of shedding all the bullshit expectations and baggage that I internalized about what I should do and who I should be in life. Almost everyone told me that I was crazy for sabotaging my career, but deep down I felt that I had no choice. Something inside me had to follow a different path.
As I visited remote temples and gurus, learned how to scuba dive and trekked into jungles, the depression and anxiety that built up from the stress of a toxic work environment slowly went away. These experiences combined with deep meditation practice led to a profound awakening. The story of that journey is told in Red Bull to Buddha, the book that I dedicated to you.
Contrary to what everyone else told me, letting go of preconceived ways of being has allowed me to excel in my career. I now do innovation strategy helping to make the world better and have since traveled to about 40 different countries. It takes considerable inner strength and discipline to break away from the traps that everyone else buys into. Life doesn’t conform to simple narratives. It can be hard.
But you know what is harder?
Getting to the end of your life and realizing that it was a giant soul sucking waste. That you amassed tons of stuff and sat in front of your television set being a spectator of other people’s lives. If you are suffering from depression and anxiety, maybe you are awakening to the nightmare of being ‘normal.’ Maybe your true self is sending you signals and it is time for a radical change. Maybe what feels like the end could be the first day of your new life.
Before you pop another pill or seek a quick fix, or in the worst-case scenario contemplate suicide, consider for a moment what you really want to do with your life.
Seek answers and find your own path. If you feel trapped or that life is hopeless, pause and look within, because these feelings might be telling you something. Challenge conceptions of what you could or should be.
And always question everything
Expect the journey to be tough, and when you feel down or experience anxiety, listen to your inner voice and push even harder. Find likeminded people that are brave enough to break free and figure it out together. Ignore criticism from everyone else.
Approach every precious moment with compassion and wisdom. Life requires courage and resilience to travel into uncharted territory, but in the end it can be magical and awesome.
Your loving brother,
David
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