REFLECTIONS : Aftermath ?
by TERESITA BACANI-OROPILLA , MD
Lately , grandma had been talking with pride and happiness to her colleagues in assisted living . A beloved granddaughter whom she helped raise was graduating from college . She was invited to attend !
To find her weeping one morning instead , was an anomaly . In the course of discussing transportation with her daughter , the mother of the graduate , the subject of grandfather ’ s death by suicide had been rehashed . Recriminations and blame once again poured down from that dark cloud that always threatened any joy below .
Thus it is when someone we love dies by their own hand . It can be a budding adolescent , a grown person apparently minding his / her own life as usual , or an aging successful professional with a compromised sick spouse . Who knows what caused them to think life was too painful and no longer tenable ?
To the ones left behind , however , it is a pain that may be temporarily assuaged but never completely gone . What role each one might have played in a loved one ’ s demise is an unanswerable but recurrent question - one that has torn families apart .
One wonders if higher suicide rates , the rise in addiction with self-destruction , could be due to the deterioration of interpersonal family relationships ? Has there been a shift in what is important in life , toward the acquisition of wealth , prestige and personal freedoms ? Have the values of personal interaction been eroded in favor of being “ in ” with the crowd with certain agendas ? Has the era of talking about “ sweet nothings ” ended by the wayside ?
Are we happy with what we have accomplished or is there an aftermath of longing for the “ good old ” less hectic days ?
What say you ? Dr . Bacani-Oropilla is a retired pediatrician and psychiatrist .
June 2023 21