John O'Donohue: For the Family and Friends of a Suicide

Photo by Molly

For the Family and Friends of a Suicide 

 

As you huddle around the torn silence,

Each by this lonely deed exiled

To a solitary confinement of soul,

May some small glow from what has been lost

Return like the kindness of candlelight.

As your eyes strain to sift

This sudden wall of dark

And no one can say why

In such a forsaken, secret way,

This death was sent for …

May one of the lovely hours

Of memory return

Like a field of ease

Among these gravelled days.

May the Angel of Wisdom

Enter this ruin of absence

And guide your minds

To receive this bitter chalice

So that you do not damage yourselves

By attending only at the hungry altar

Of regret and anger and guilt.

May you be given some inkling

That there could be something else at work

And that what to you now seems

Dark, destructive and forlorn,

Might be a destiny that looks different

From inside the eternal script.

May vision be granted to you

To see this with the eyes of providence.

May your loss become a sanctuary

Where new presence will dwell

To refine and enrich

The rest of your life

With courage and compassion.

And may your lost loved one

Enter into the beauty of eternal tranquillity,

In that place where there is no more sorrow

Or separation or mourning or tears.

 

— John O'Donohue

From To Bless the Space Between Us:

A Book of Blessings