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• How do I get up in the morning – I stand up one foot at a time.  I never hit the snooze button and try to shut off my brain, as much as possible.  I focus on concrete short-term goals as simple as brushing my teeth, getting dressed and thinking about workout programs for my fitness clients.  If I start thinking about the loss of my son and all the accompanying issues such as guilt, sorrow, pain, anger and a terrible ache and void, I will never get out of bed.  Training my mind to focus first thing in the morning on short term technical goals instead of the loss of my son is exceedingly harder than riding up hills or doing four strength training circuits.  Getting up is hard – thinking too much is worse.  So, I move, I do, I Ride Through doing the small things which enable me to live and enjoy life.

• How many children do you have – Three.  It’s a simple, straightforward question with a simple answer.  It used to be, but it is no longer.  This type of question is often asked at weddings, social events or when I meet people for the first time.  I’m not sure why this question is asked so often.  Are people really interested?  Or it’s simply a way to handle awkward silence.  And, what happens when people ask, “so what do they do; where do they live.”  If I speak openly, I risk killing the pleasant ambiance. But, lying denies my son’s memory and destroys my soul.  That has never happened in the past and will never happen in the future.  I have three children – just one is no longer alive.  I don’t feel the need to initiate conversations with questions about the family, nor do I have to mention the cause of death.  But I will not shy away from the truth if asked – even at the risk of killing the conversation.  This is precisely why it’s easier to keep to my small circle of friends and why attending parties, weddings or other social engagements are no longer a simple endeavor.  Similar to question number one – something that used to be simple, is now complicated.

• Why?  Why is there depression?  Why is suicide so prevalent and  such a taboo subject?  I don’t know and I don’t think I will ever really understand.  But it really doesn’t matter to me any longer, because it’s a question that only leads to additional questions.  Instead, I have chosen to focus on what we can do to increase awareness of suicide, to reduce stigma and to save lives.  I write and speak about the need to understand the basic definition of depression, to ensure that depressed people are not left alone, to involve the wider community in the treatment of people suffering from depression, to ask depressed people directly and empathetically if they are contemplating self harm, to keep dangerous objects away and to be aware that depression comes in waves and that the impulsivity to hurt oneself in the moment can be curtailed.  Most people yearn to live but decide to end their  lives in order to end their pain.  By discussing suicide prevention openly and acknowledging the struggles people endure, we increase our ability to save lives.

So, the why is not as important as the how – how do we save lives is the question that drives me.

So, let’s talk about the how.  It’s no longer a question – but rather a responsibility, a mission and, in some way, even a privilege to engage in the task of saving lives.

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 On Shabbat,  I sit with my guys at Mitzpe Ariel.

Six days a week I feel Ariel’s z”l absence.

On Shabbat,  I sit at Mitzpe Ariel and feel his presence

יהי זכרו ברוך

The post A Poem to my Son first appeared on Ride Through.

Suicide is still one of the biggest taboos in our society.  We prefer to whisper the word, hide the phenomenon, or simply look away and hope it will pass. But this silence comes at a heavy price — human lives.

Many people believe the myth that “if someone is determined to take their own life, nothing can stop them,” but the reality is the opposite:

Suicide ideation  is not a desire to die; it is a desire to end unbearable emotional pain.  Most people who are at risk experience ambivalence — part of them wants to give up, while another part still hopes that someone will reach out and help.

Meir Charash, who lost his son Ariel of blessed memory nine years ago, volunteers with the B’Shvil HaHaim NGO and has been working ever since to change this perception and save lives.

*Raising awareness and expanding open conversation can save lives.

*When we learn to recognize warning signs,

* When  we learn how to listen and,

* When we dare to ask the direct question:

“Are you thinking about harming yourself?  We are not “putting ideas into someone’s head” — we are opening a door to hope where everything feels closed.

Knowledge is power.
Responsible, open, and informed dialogue is the only way to reduce suicide.

We talk.
We learn.
We save lives.

The post B’Shvil HaHaim first appeared on Ride Through.

I choose to ride through and live my life holding sadness and joy together with dignity.  I also choose to talk about this modern-day plague so there will be fewer people who choose to end their lives, and fewer parents who have to say kaddish for their children.

Writing this website was difficult, but we must talk; it can save lives.

Ride through, and may Ariel’s memory always be a blessing.

 Meir Charash

The post Final Thoughts first appeared on Ride Through.

I continued to explain to the inquisitive parent that I didn’t utter a word for three hours during the ride and that the riders were sufficiently sensitive not to ask me any questions, especially the most annoying of all, “How are you?”  How do you think I am after just losing my son to suicide? Just give me that much-needed hug and stop asking questions.  Let me ride and help me up if I fall.  So, I barely uttered a word during the Friday rides during that first year after my son’s death, but I never missed one.  I knew that I was saving myself by simply showing up for those rides.

That was resilience.

This does not mean, of course, that the loss and trauma ever go away.  One cyclist saw me crying during a ride a few years ago and protected me by saying to the other riders, “Don’t crowd Meir, he is having an “Ariel Tsunami.”  An example of an “Ariel Tsunami” was one day when two riders didn’t arrive at the meeting point and didn’t answer their phones.  When they finally arrived (only five minutes late), they explained that one of them had had trouble with a tire.  I then burst into tears, dropped to one knee holding my face with both hands and screamed at them, “You must always answer your phone!”  They looked at me as if I had gone mad, so I explained that on that terrible day my wife and I must have each called Ariel 50 times.  In shock and total disbelief, we were hoping that Ariel would pick up the phone on the 51st attempt.  So, we both kept calling and calling and calling. But there was no answer. There never will be.  It doesn’t matter.  I am allowed to cry, but there is a cryptic and powerful statement in the Talmud (Moed Katan 27b) in the context of the laws of mourning:  “Cry, but not too much.”  So, I cried when my friends didn’t answer their phones, but I then stood up, got back on the bike, and continued to cycle.

During the first year after Ariel died, I think I cried at every single red light as I drove from client to client working as a fitness trainer.  The red light was a safe place.  I could not cry while working with fitness clients as that would be unprofessional.  I also could not cry while I was driving because that would be unsafe.  So, the precious few moments at the red light are where I gave myself permission to cry.  But not too much.   The light turned green, I wiped away the tears and drove to the next client.  For me, that is resilience – crying, fiercely at times, but knocking on the door of the next client with a smile.  And the smile was just as real as the tears.  Riding through is smiling and crying endless times during the course of a day.  

Nine years later, these tearful breaks at red lights no longer occur.  In a strange way, I miss them because the tears were cathartic; when the storm was over, a strange sense of calm prevailed.  Now, instead of powerful outbursts, the pain feels more like the minor, but incessant, aftershocks of an earthquake.  There are fewer tears, and of lesser intensity – but the sense of loss persists.  The goal of my resilience is not to stop feeling pain – that is simply impossible – but to stay as close as possible to the “path” so when I stray a bit to the left or right and fall, I can pick myself up and continue riding through.

As I ride up and down the Jerusalem mountains, I now see things during a ride that I had previously never noticed.  I used to focus on how fast I was going, how far I had travelled and at what cadence and watt power. These statistics are still important to me, but now other things matter as well.  I see sunrises, sunsets, trees, and flowers that I simply never saw before.  My sense of sight has changed since the loss of our son.  I need to see the beauty and goodness of life because the thorns that press upon me lead to sadness and darkness.  So, I ride, and observe the beauty of God’s creation.  I ride and feel powerful; I see beauty and feel good.  Our son’s absence is always present – and always will be.  It’s because of this continued presence of absence that I have trained myself emotionally to be more aware of the beauty and light within the darkness.

Another aspect of resilience focused on my professional work as a social work educator. At the time of our son’s suicide, I was the Director of the Israel Block Program for the Wurzweiler School of Social Work.  My job entailed locating appropriate social work agencies for the students’ internships, hiring supervisors who would work with the students, and administration of all aspects of the students’ field work in Israel. 

Both the students and the supervisors visited me during the shiva as I sat on the floor, unshaven (according to Jewish tradition) and often in tears.

This was not easy for me, and I didn’t have much time before I needed to resume my professional responsibilities because the students were required to submit monthly reports by January 1st (our son had taken his life on December 17th), and the monthly meeting with them was set for the first week in January. Some of the professionals suggested that I skip the January meeting with the students and forgo the mid-semester assessment sessions between the students and supervisors.

I thought differently, and chose a different path that resonated with me – to move.  This was my resilience, similar to getting back on the bike 11 days after my son’s funeral. As such, I wrote the students and supervisors expressing my gratitude for their support during the shiva and notifying the students that their monthly reports were due on January 1st.  In addition, I reminded both the students and the supervisors that mid-year assessments were going to take place as planned. My resilience was resuming my responsibilities with assertiveness, even though I was in great pain.

It takes a village to be resilient – and some good therapists!  A few months after Ariel died, I started working with a trauma therapist who was immensely helpful.  She was a good listener and was extremely careful not to push too fast or too hard.  A question that I learned to appreciate greatly during my year of therapy was, “Is this bearable?”  which reflected the caring and sensitive way my therapist treated me.  I was and remain, grateful.  There were times, though, when I felt that like some of my friends, she too tried to protect me instead of listening. 

One example of this was her explanation of why Ariel did not mention any family member in his suicide note.  On another occasion when I expressed guilt, I found her need to protect me to be exasperating. In my opinion, guilt after the suicide of a loved one is an integral part of the mourning process, and needs to be heard without judgement or protection.  For example, in “Healing After the Suicide of a Loved One,” Ann Smolin and John Guinan mention a support group for mothers who had lost their children to suicide.  During one session, two mothers each blamed themselves for the suicide of their respective daughters. One mother blamed herself because she had chosen to keep her daughter at home instead of hospitalizing her, while the other mother felt terrible guilt because she had chosen to hospitalize her daughter who then took her own life. 

(To the friend who gave me this book during the shiva I will be forever grateful, as I believe it helped save me during that first, awful year.) 

Regarding guilt:  therapists, friends, and society in general need to hear anguish and not brush it off with platitudes or patronizing pats on the back.  The ubiquitous ‘what ifs’ are exactly that – ubiquitous.  It’s normal.  I need to be heard, held, and hugged when I express my guilt, and not told that I am wrong or too harsh on myself.  There is no wrong in mourning.  To paraphrase Megan Devine in “It’s OK That You’re Not Okay: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn’t Understand,” suicide is horrific and it’s okay not to be okay!  To my therapist’s credit, when I told her during one session that I felt unheard, she apologized and promised to do some work on herself as to why she felt the need to protect me. 

But I wish to reiterate that my trauma therapist was a critical factor in my ability to process my trauma and to survive during that first awful year. I feel blessed that I had the opportunity to process my loss, anger and, yes, guilt with her.  She also really helped me understand (after she was able to listen to my sense of guilt) the difference between guilt and regret.  For more on the issue of regret, I recommend Daniel H. Pink’s “The Power of Regret.”

 I may feel guilty or regret about many things that I did or failed to do with Ariel, but that does not mean that I am “guilty,” nor does it mean that if I had acted differently or had had more knowledge that Ariel would be alive today.  I will never know.  But I do know that I will always live with the ‘what-ifs,’ and regret, and that I need people to listen to my angst instead of trying to convince me that I’m a good guy.  I think I know that.  But good guys make mistakes and it’s okay not to be okay and, even more importantly, it’s okay to own my mistakes and talk about them with others so they won’t be repeated.

Another critically important aspect of my resilience was participating in a support group for parents who had lost loved ones to suicide.  There is great power and comfort being with people who know exactly what you are going through. In “The Skills of Helping:  Individuals, Families, Groups, and Communities,” Lawrence Shulman calls this type of support “mutual aid,” the “same boat” theory, if you will.  Even though many members of the group eventually left and the two professionals who led the group were often ineffective, the remaining members bonded together and are still in touch today.  As one member of the group noted, we are like a bundle of sheaves – we are close, and we protect one another.  There is no better definition of a support group than this. 

The group met in Herzliya every other week for two years.  I could have chosen to participate in another support group that also included parents who had lost children to car accidents and murder, but I intuitively knew that the loss of a child to suicide was profoundly different from other types of losses.  I believed that sensitivity to the issue of guilt and the pervasive ‘what-ifs was crucial to understanding the angst of a parent who had lost a child to suicide, so I decided to attend the group that B’shvil Ha’Haim offered, and am glad I made that choice.

I developed important, life-long relationships with the group members who remained to the end of the two-year commitment.  More importantly, despite issues with the moderators, I learned an important lesson: one can always learn from other people, even if there is a lack of connection.  In fact, I have integrated two important ideas I learned from one of the moderators that has strengthened my resilience:

• Instead of saying “never,” I will never be happy, I will never travel again, after the loss of my child, etc., the moderator suggested that we add the term “for now.” By so doing, we allow ourselves the possibility of change in the future.
• If we allow for the possibility of change, we can appreciate the power of movement.  One cannot simply let go of pain, but we can move forward – ride through – with the pain and despite the pain.  As I mentioned in the chapter about the shiva – we are allowed to sit with our pain, but we need to learn also to move with our pain – always at our own pace, but with forward movement.

Years after the support group had concluded, I attended an in-service training program for volunteers organized by B’shvil Ha’Haim.  The goal of the program was to train a cadre of volunteers who had lost loved ones to suicide to share their personal stories and/or to elucidate suicide prevention principles through a power point presentation.  With the help of a skilled moderator and other staff at B’shvil Ha’Haim, I learned how to integrate the two methodologies into a lecture, and in the past year and a half I have given talks to educators, city councils and soldiers.  These talks have been very meaningful for me, as I can say with full conviction that if Ariel’s suicide changed my life forever in a painful way, becoming a public speaker about suicide prevention has changed my life in a positive way.   During a recent talk with soldiers who had lost a fellow soldier to suicide, a soldier asked me: “How do you have the strength to continue living after such a painful loss?”  My response was, “By doing exactly what I am doing now – as I believe that increasing knowledge about suicide prevention is my responsibility, obligation, mission, and privilege. Giving presentations like these strengthens me because I believe it can save lives.” 

One aspect of resilience is connected to honoring Ariel’s last wish in life to help the children of the Miklat.  My wife helps throughout the year by preparing gift baskets for the Jewish holidays for the children at the Miklat as well as those living at the transitional apartments.  My way of helping the children has been the establishment of an annual fundraising campaign for the Shelter as a way of honoring Ariel’s memory.  Five years ago, when I first initiated the campaign, we raised 15,000 shekels.  This past year, we raised over 70,000 shekels.  I realize the irony – I was and am still angry that Ariel didn’t mention any of his family in his suicide letter, but I have decided to keep that anger at bay. Honoring Ariel’s wishes and his love for the children gives me great satisfaction. It helps me ride through.

The final aspect of resilience, the most surprising one for me, has been writing.  I do not consider myself an author.  My story is about our son’s suicide. I had – and still have – a choice to fully live and enjoy life and ride through with loss, or to wallow and ultimately shrivel up in that loss.  Writing has become a form of self-therapy that has enabled me to constructively channel my pain.  I am not trying to inspire.  I am trying to survive.  When people offer kudos, I am certainly thankful – and humbled.  But I respond by offering my truth – I am just a very average guy who absorbed a crushing blow, but I decided to get back on the bike and live life with the pain and despite the pain.

The writing of this website has been much harder than writing a post on Facebook or a blog for Times of Israel.  The posts and blogs were written after days of an idea swirling around in my mind that prevented me from thinking about anything else.  My mind was so terribly busy (maybe Ariel was teaching me how hard it was to live with a noisy brain) , and after I managed to put the idea down on paper and push the send button, I was able to relax and breathe.  This wasn’t creativity –– but a learned skill to survive.  Creative or not, the ideas did flow out of me once I was able to formulate them in a coherent way.

The writing for this website, on the other hand, has been more demanding and challenging for me.  I had to think instead of feel. I was forced to relive so many painful memories that I had successfully stored away in the basement.  Now, I had to lift heavy boxes up many flights of stairs.  It was hard work. 

The post The Power of Resilience first appeared on Ride Through.

There are a number of terms or phrases that I would suggest as an alternative to “committed suicide.”

• A person ended his/her life by suicide
• A person chose to end his/her life by suicide
• A person ended his/her pain and suffering by suicide
• A person died by suicide.

I have seen this last term ‘died by suicide’ often of late, and while it is certainly more respectable and sensitive than the phrase committed suicide, I prefer the other terms listed above. My issue with died by suicide is the passive tone – it reads as if it happened to the person; like a person died of cancer or in a car accident.  As I have previously emphasized, while I suffer because of Ariel’s decision and don’t agree with it, I respect that ending his suffering and pain by suicide was totally his decision.  It did not happen to him – he decided to end his life.  Did he suffer from a horrific mental illness – yes.  But many people suffer from depression and/or OCD and do not choose to end their lives. Ariel did.  I so wish he hadn’t.  But, as I wrote in the eulogy, I refuse to take his last act away from him by claiming that mental illness ended his life.  Ariel suffered terribly from mental illness, but it was his choice not to undergo Cognitive Behavior Therapy, and it was his choice to end his life.  Some people have suggested that he was courageous or a hero.  This disturbs me to no end.  A firefighter who runs into burning buildings to save lives is a hero, as are soldiers, police officers and medical personnel. Indeed, all  people working hard to make an honest living and support their children  exhibit courage and are my heroes.

As such, I suggest that we refrain from using words that romanticize or glorify suicide and, instead, simply state facts, without judgment and stigma.  Ariel chose to end his pain by suicide.

The social aspect of the shiva is also extremely hard for me.  There should not be any words at all.  According to Jewish custom, people visiting mourners should not speak to the mourner until the mourner initiates the conversation.  But people feel so uncomfortable with loss and pain they often feel the need to fill the room with small talk.

What is more troublesome is the language that tries to deflect the pain of the mourner.  For instance, I arrived home from my son’s funeral and someone said to me: “You should know no more sorrow.”  I understand, of course, that this is a well-meaning expression meant to comfort me.  But it doesn’t.  I am in shock, unmitigated pain – now; right now, in this moment, so please do not talk to me about the future. And since pain is part of life, why wish something that is totally unrealistic!?

Before I lost our son I, too, would always say to a mourner a comment often heard in Hebrew in Israel, “I share in your loss.” Again, I fully understand that the intention is good.  The person is trying to say something powerful – you are not alone; I’m here with you. But that is exactly the problem – I am alone.  I lost my son to suicide – not you.  No one can “share” in this loss – it’s mine only.  A silent hug is all I needed; it’s all I still need nine years after the loss of my son.

I understand though, that words are the way we communicate, so my recommendation is to keep the message simple without assuming anything or giving the mourner advice. Simply say:  I am so sorry for your loss.  The salient points are: it’s your loss (no joint participation); and I am sorry now – I stay in the present because the mourner is in pain now.  Wishing a mourner no more pain in the future is irrelevant and almost insulting – at least from my perspective. 

The post The Language of Suicide first appeared on Ride Through.

But, oh yes, I am angry.

This was my response to my friend’s question about God:

• I am angry at myself for failing to sufficiently support, understand, help, and protect my son. 
• I am angry at my son for ending his life without fully thinking about the consequences of his decision and all the pain and anguish that he would inflict on so many people – especially his immediate family.
• I am angry at the mental health system and the army that failed Ariel and my family so miserably.
• I am especially angry at people who tell me how I ought to feel.

I have let go of a few friends who could not, for whatever reason, support me in a way that I felt was helpful.  With other friends I have tried to be more patient and explain what I need as I grieve for my son.  For example, a friend wrote to me after reading my post about being angry at myself and Ariel that I really ought to be gentler with Ariel and myself.  He noted that we both did our best in a most difficult situation.  My response to him was as follows:

I do not like being judged and do not need to be told how to process my mourning.  You know that I have been in trauma therapy, have participated in a support group for parents who have lost children to suicide and am riding through in a healthy way.  I do not need you trying to protect me or to put words in my mouth. What I do need though is:  to be heard; to be held and to be hugged. 

When asked about the difference between being held and hugged, I explained that a hug is something physical.  But to be held means that my friends should resist their need to feel they need to fix me and that they should be able to accept my raw anger without judgment.  My friend asked me to stand up and repeat the three h’s (heard/held/hugged) and gave me a warm hug.

I felt heard.

Another time that I did not feel heard is when someone flippantly said, “Just let go of the pain.  This is the best, in fact, the only way to process loss – let it go.”  I was incensed by this suggestion and later found a statement by Xavier Dagha that aptly expressed my intense dislike of this glib phrase:

Let it go

Let it in.

Let it be seen.

Let it be heard.

Let it be felt.

Let it be acknowledged.

Let it be validated.

Let it be grieved.

These words helped to assuage my sense that I had been judged and ultimately abandoned by the friend who had urged me to ‘just let go.’  I do it my way!  Riding through is not about speed and power.  Rather, it’s about processing loss and moving forward with it at your side.

Ride through!

The post God first appeared on Ride Through.