When is Suicide not Suicide?

Traditionally, according to Spirit, when one chooses to leave this life voluntarily, one's spirit goes into a place of limbo - where, until the 'prison of the mind' is open again to new possibilities - it stays until it is brought into the Light by guides awaiting this decision. In the case of those who still attain their lessons and then suicide - this is not always the case. The letter below is from a loving mother of such a son, who chose to leave his life after many challenges, but who also took time to learn and gather experience from his theme of persistence and creativity through adversity before leaving.

Val Groenhuizen writes:

I have just read your 'Living Now' article.

I think that the article 'The Loss of a Child' would have brought much hope, comfort and strength to go on with life, for many, many parents. I am a parent who has lost a child also, and I have experienced his presence on a few occasions. Once I felt his ever so gentle touch on my shoulders, but it was not until the third time I felt it that I recognised it was him. It was the touch of unconditional, innocent love.

Another time I heard his voice speak into my mind profound words, and intuitively I knew it was him. I have met him in my dreams on two or three occasions, and have received beautiful hugs, and he has told me things that I would never have thought up in my waking hours.

My beautiful gentle son struggled through near death in infancy, sickness in childhood, breakdown in adolescence, which recurred on throughout his adult life. He lived with Panic/Anxiety, Depression Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Scotopic Sensitivity Irlen Syndrome (SSIS) a visual perceptual disorder which he had most probably had all his life but was not diagnosed until the age of thirty three. Both he and myself believed SSIS was foundational to all his other conditions.

Although Rod suffered so terribly, emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually, towards others he was always loving, compassionate and encouraging, and except for a few close family and friends, practically no one knew the full details of his difficult life.

His life became harder and harder, and in Jan 2004 it became clear that he needed looking after. He asked me would I care for him and I moved in with him, at that time he had been on a disability pension for 6 years. In that year with my son I witnessed such immense suffering as he struggled to find ways to overcome his worsening condition in all areas. He was totally depleted, mind, body, soul and spirit, but still he struggled on bravely and courageously. My soul cried out for him, for hope, for strength, for life. I asked for my energy to be given to him, and for me to be able to bear his pain and for him to be free. My son grieved about the fact that I was removed from the rest of the family by 200 km for he was not able to cope with suburban living and lived on the South Gippsland Coast on the Ocean. I drove up to the suburbs of Melbourne each fortnight and mostly took him with me to see the family. Eventually Rod found even this too draining.

During that year when he was diagnosed with SSIS this gave him a surge of hope. He had begun to write a book of his life struggle to try and understand why it had been so difficult for him. Then he thought perhaps he could reach out for others to have understanding, and to break down the stigma so often associated with 'unseen illnesses' When he received his specially tinted Irlen lenses which corrected his visual distortions and helped to alleviate his severe sensitivity to both artificial light and bright sunlight he found the inspiration to press on with his book. He asked me would I edit his book for him, and he asked his sister would she type up his manuscript. We both agreed to do this for him.

Earlier that year I had promised him the fare for a trip to Perth if he could get himself well enough to go, as it was his lifetime wish to surf at Margaret River. Bravely he started a programme to strengthen himself, it took him 4 months to feel that he could make the trip to relatives in WA. He fulfilled his life dream and surfed at Margaret River, but on his return to Victoria he suffered the most severe breakdown ever and just couldn't get up.

My grief at watching this gentle soul sob out his desire to 'go home to rest' and to see the life energy draining from him was more than I could some days bear. He had always somehow got up and gone on in the past, but this time he didn't. One day while I was attending an appointment he gently put himself to sleep, to awaken no more. When I found him I howled out my grief and loss, and then lovingly released him to go and find the rest his soul craved. What I witnessed at that point was almost beyond description. Whilst I held his physical form, I saw his glorious form walk into a portal of radiance which remains in my memory for ever. The finding by the Coroner was suicide, but I know different, it was the caterpillar turning into a butterfly. He was free, he was Home.

Since Rod's death I have spoken with many, many mothers who have lost their children to 'suicide'. Many of these mothers will tell of gentle, caring, compassionate souls who found this world too severe for their fragile natures. Others have told of terrible psychological illnesses, allergies to chemicals and foods, of lives of incredible bravery and suffering. Then still others have told of those who struggled for years through the Public Mental Health system, of living on the fringe of society, marginalised by poverty, unable to earn a decent living, lonely at times, isolated from family and friends, often not able to sustain a relationship because of illness, and then of these precious ones finally ending their pain.

Dear enlightened soul, please let the wondrous light that you have in your being, permeate even this area of suicide. Forget what you may have been taught, or think that you believe or know. Ask the higher part of yourself, the Intelligence of the Universe which is all Love and all Mercy and all Compassion to illuminate your understanding. The only judgement that is meted out in all the universe is the judgement that we as human beings pass on one another.

Each of us has a responsibility to reach out and in some way ease the suffering of those around us who have been weakened by illness or misfortune.

I am just so thankful that I had no judgement against suicide, so that when I held my precious sons body in my arms it had no power at all over me to hurt me or to rob me of the knowledge that he went where he longed to be, in his own words, 'Home, safe and warm in the arms of love'

Please receive this in the Spirit of Love, for it will enlarge you even more and you will be an even greater blessing to others than you have been in the past.


Lovingly Val Groenhuizen.



Thankyou Val, for your lovely words and yes, I do believe that this decision made by your son after so much work on his theme of persistence and courage over adversity does not, in any way, represent the type of journey that an undeveloped soul takes into a space of limbo for a period of time. I have been to the verge of suicide myself and hold no judgement over this as a human, but I do know where many go afterwards. I think he did what he came here to do, and I am so glad he chose such a powerful family to experience life within. He definitely chose his mother for a reason.

Lucy