The Lighthouse: a short story of overcoming loss

Sian closed her grip on the wooden oar, aware at once of its silk like smoothness from many years of service to her family.

She rowed swiftly out through the incoming tide, her strong stroke belied her 15-year absence from the water.

As she rowed around the entrance to the small inlet she saw the proud whitewashed structure begin to gleam in the rays of the rising sun that were breaking through the fog. It still looked fresh and new despite its now defunct status.

Sian stopped rowing and allowed the boat to bobble about in the current, the oars clanking against the metal rungs. The flowers she bought tossed from side to side in the bow of the dinghy. She listened to the wind and watched the landscape slowly appear in the dying fog. She licked her dry lips and pulled her hood down over her ears to protect them from the wind. Her auburn hair escaped and whipped her face making her eyes tear.

Her vision narrowed from taking in the vast landscape to the lighthouse, its presence for 15 years omnipresent only in her mind and now solid before her. The mist swirled briefly again about the lighthouse, then cleared revealing a figure standing on the lantern gallery, the sight punching the wind out of her lungs.

Sian inhaled sharply.....she was transported back 15 years ago to the same spot when her brother Jesse was standing there - his lithe shape still so familiar to her. She watched as he carefully climbed the gallery railings.

She shook her head....this can't be happening again. As she looked back up she saw Jesse's figure balance beautifully on the top railing his body taught and graceful. He out stretched his arms and even at this distance Sian could feel his eyes bore into hers.

She screamed from somewhere so deep within she did not recognise her own voice. The wind silenced her screams. She stood in the boat struggling to keep balance as the air suddenly stilled. She watched as Jesse dove off the railing his body plummeting briefly before rising to soar on the wind.  He seemed at once separate and yet entwined with the fog, the seascape and the sky.

Sian sat back down, tears streaming silently down her face. Now she knew why she had to come home. Her brother had never left her, he is in the wind and the sky, the ebb and flow of the ocean, the cry of the birds.

The wind picked up again and seemed to caress and hold her. She picked up the bouquet she'd bought  and threw it into the sea....a peace descended as she realised what he had to show her.....I need not weep any more.....I know now you're not here Jesse, you're everywhere, you're in me, you'll always be.

I wrote this story as home work for a writing group I am a part of. It bubbled up from deep within one night as I sat with the subject I was given 'The Lighthouse'. I didn't know what I was going to write until I sat down to write it.

That week a poem 'Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep', by Mary Elizabeth Frye, was in my mind and the influence in the story is obvious:

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there,

 I do not sleep.

I am in a thousand winds that blow,

I am the softly falling snow.

I am the gentle showers of rain,

I am the fields of ripening grain.

I am in the morning hush,

I am in the graceful rush

Of beautiful birds in circling flight,

I am the starshine of the night.

I am in the flowers that bloom,

I am in a quiet room.

I am in the birds that sing,

I am in each lovely thing.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there. I do not die.

Losing someone to suicide is fraught with even more angst than any other type of death. The guilt and ramifications linger many years afterwards. Often that person is barely spoken of - the beauty of their life is covered by the shame of their death.

I was shocked by people's responses 15 years ago when my brother committed suicide (I didn't think about that time frame when I wrote the story). I felt like a pariah in some circles - as if they might catch something from me if they spoke with me. Where I worked people did not know how to deal with me. There was one girl who just treated me the same as always - and for that I was truly grateful.

Suicide is so rarely discussed, yet I know so many people's lives have been touched by it. What is it that keeps up from talking about it? Is it a lack of understanding? Or is it the shock of someone we love choosing to do something so horrific - so that us who continue living put it all out of our mind, along with that person?

There are plenty of excellent hubs on coping with suicide - so despite my years of experience with the subject - I'm not going to cover the same ground.

What I want to offer through my writing is hope.

That through the journey of grief - as you allow it to unfold - there will come a day when it will no longer suffocate you to think of your loved one. There will be a day when you have learned to forgive yourself for your self-perceived failings and 'should ofs'.You will no longer need to blame yourself or anyone else.

You will come to accept that, even if you can never understand being in a place where you could make the choice they made, it was the choice they wanted to make  at the time.

You will accept that you will never know what was going on with them, how it was to be in their mind and body. As you peel back the layers of grief, you will rediscover their life and their love.

You will remember the joys they brought into your life - the nick names they gave you, their smiles and laughter, their passions and their beauty.

You will not stand at their grave and weep - for you shall sense them all around you and smiling in your heart.