What do you do when a loved one commits suicide? What do you do? How do you pick up the pieces? How do you recover? How do you make sense of it all? If you are struggling with the loss of a loved one, author and speaker, Ganel-Lyn Condie, has some heartfelt advice.
When A Loved One Commits Suicide
When Ganel-Lyn learned about her sister’s suicide, she said it felt “like a bowling ball smashed into my heart, then fell with a thud to my stomach.” She says that the grief caused by suicide is “a different kind of grief.” It lingers, tears at the heart, and creates questions that lead to a very dark place.
And yet, in the time since her sister’s suicide, Ganel-Lyn has learned some powerful insights about healing and moving forward. While there are no quick remedies for grief, it is Ganel-Lyn’s firm belief “that hope is never lost.”
Ganel-Lyn Condie is the author of I Can Do Hard Things With God, and devotes much of her time to speaking and writing about hope. She and I connected through an article she had written last year (4 Lessons of Hope I Learned From My Sister’s Suicide) and we quickly became friends. Her insights about having faith and hope amid life’s challenges are incredible, to say the least. In the summer of 2015, I drove 12 hours (through the night) just to interview her—and I’m so grateful I did.
Below is a portion of my interview with Ganel-Lyn. If you are struggling with grief related to suicide, please take the time to watch this video. As someone who has struggled with feelings of hopelessness, I found a lot of comfort in the words of Ganel-Lyn.
Thankyou for this, my sister also took her own life last August after struggling for years with depression leaving behind her two estranged teenage daughters. It also broke me in a way I had not know before and we lost our mother 13 years ago – my sister never learned to live with that – everyone tried to help her but the guilt I now feel is intense as we had disagreed (which was extremely rare for us as adults) before she passed and I spoke to her harshly – I was trying to help her see sense and got annoyed with her – now I wish I had been more patient with her. I also believe in life after death, I am not religious and was not raised to believe this, but this is something I sensed strongly after my sister passed – kind of like a vision.