September 7, 10am-11:15am Pacific
How We Go On: Living with Another's Choice to Not Live is part of our monthly series in 2025 called Grief Conversations.
How do we go on loving this life when someone else has chosen to leave it?
When a person chooses to take their life, it shakes the communities in which they lived. In addition to our grief about their death, there can also be grief about the suffering that person endured in their life—an ache so great they chose to end it. Perhaps those still living feel guilt. Perhaps blame. Perhaps shame. Perhaps there's a persistent "what if" or "if only." So many questions will forever go unanswered. So many conversations will never happen.
How do we go on?
We will not arrive at answers in this gathering. Everyone's experience is so different. But we will meet this question with all the wonder we can muster, holding space for the complexity of grief after suicide—the love, the guilt, the unanswered questions, and the slow, tender work of learning to embrace life again.
In this heartfelt conversation, bereaved mother and poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer shares her experience meeting the devastating loss of her son, Finn, and spiritual teacher Mirabai Starr joins her in exploring how we continue to love both our deceased loved ones and the world that remains.
This Gathering Is For You If You Are:
- Grieving the loss of someone who chose to take their life
- Supporting someone through suicide loss
- Struggling with guilt, blame, or unanswered questions after a suicide
- Seeking ways to honor your grief while still engaging with life
- Looking for community with others who understand this particular kind of loss
- Wondering how to hold compassion for both the deceased and those left behind
- Searching for practices that help you continue loving life after profound loss
Through Our Time Together, You Will:
- Discover how grief after suicide can be held with both tenderness and wonder
- Learn practices for caring for yourself and your family after such a loss
- Understand how relationships with deceased loved ones can continue to grow
- Explore how poetry and creative expression can be companions through grief
- Gain tools for meeting the complexity of emotions that arise after suicide
- Connect with a community of fellow travelers who understand this landscape of loss
- Find permission to love life again without betraying your grief
Questions We'll Explore:
- How do we hold compassion for both our loved one's choice and our own grief?
- What practices help us care for ourselves and our families after suicide loss?
- How can our relationship with our deceased loved one continue to grow?
- What does it mean to "fall in love with the world" while grieving?
- How do we meet the persistent questions that may never have answers?
- What role can creativity and poetry play in processing suicide grief?
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