What Happened to Italy?

from a piece by Emily Per Kingsley

We are often asked to describe the experience of having lost a loved one to suicide, by people who have not had the loss happen to them, so that they can imagine and try to understand how we feel and thus maybe help us and others.

"You are going to feel," we tell them, "that what has happened to you has never happened to anyone else like you before. The belief that these things happen to other people, certainly not people like us, will be shattered forever."

We compare it to planning a trip,  -this being the trip through life ...but you're going to Italy. You have bought and studied all of the guidebooks. You know that you will visit Rome. The Coliseum. You will see the works of Michelangelo. You will ride the gondolas in Venice. You will even take the time to learn some handy phrases in Italian. Italy is going to fill a lifelong dream.

After months of eager anticipation the travel day finally arrives. You pack your bags, check your passports, and you get on that airplane. Off you fly into blue skies. Several hours later the plane lands. The stewardess comes down the aisle and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland," you scream. "What happened to Italy? I signed up for Italy. I planned for Italy. All my life I've dreamed of Italy."

"But," she tells you, "there has been a change in plans. You have now landed in Holland and so ...here we are."

We must now convince ourselves that we haven't really been taken to a horrible, disgusting filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place. A place that wasn't in our plans to ever travel to. So now you must go out and get new maps and new guidebooks. You must learn a whole new language. After some time you will meet a new group of people you would have never met before.

You will find that when you catch your breath, and you look around, you will begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has Rembrandts. Hollad has tulips. Yes, you can learn to live with the un-expected Holland.

But, you will meet people who have been to Italy.  You will probably say to yourself, for the rest of your life,  "...yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned for myself."

For you  ...things will be different. And the pain of that loss will never, ever go away, because the loss of that dream will always be a very significant loss in your life. After the suicide of a loved one ...you are Forever Changed.