My personal opinion is that telling them: "Sometimes the pain gets to be too much" is to convey that suicide is a possible positive choice to keep in the back of one;s toolbox when pain gets extreme "enough"... and I think you want to help them find other tools to use, and to think about with their friends. And I think saying "they are no longer able to care about other people" may send the message that the suicide was related to how much the person did or did not care for the people who loved them.

Both of your statements are, of course, true, but what I am saying is that these are powerful concepts best enfolded in an approach that lays out what people CAN do to cope and keep going. And one way to convey that is through modeling, through your own example. Know what my stepson told me as he left for the Navy? He told me that through all the awful years, when he prayed for our death on a nightly basis, what he COUNTED on was that I stayed straight with him, and kept moving MYSELF forward. That was the stuff that really stuck, much more than what I said.... and he was aware of it, throughout-- not just in hindsight.

I am also very curious-- and knowing the ages of your kids-- what do each of them think would help them with this? Of course your heart aches to mother them through this, and you must. But they also are of an age to be able to say what they need as help, and how they want to go about getting it.

Hard as it is-- and I think you know this-- their own time to get some help and deal with this may not be here, just yet. They may need a little more positive life experience, and time, and distance, before they are ready to do some work on this time in their lives. So just being with them as time passes, and helping them focus on other things as time passes, may be a huge thing you can do.

So what does that leave? LIFE. Activities that emphasize and celebrate LIFE. And dear one, my bes/bud, that has to start with you. Were you not just now telling me to take good care of me? So.... honey... have you found and trained the perfect person, yet, to hold you close while you cry and scream and think? Remember what I tawkin about?

Or.... throw em all in the car and come on over. Spring break?

~S~