Vachon Imagined

I imagined that at a certain age I would tell my son where he got his middle name.

Allgood.

It was my grandfather’s middle name. It was given to his son, and later to my brother, who at nineteen took his own life.

These are not stories we place upon small shoulders. Children deserve time to be children. But life has a way of unfolding itself, and eventually the questions come.

Where did I get my middle name?

Who was your brother?

I had an uncle?

The truth arrives slowly, one question at a time.

It is a delicate conversation, and one I handle gently.

Depression. Suicide. Mental illness. Suffering.

People often search for a single event, a single cause, a single explanation. But life is rarely so simple. The world enters us gradually, the way a sentence someone spoke twenty years ago can still echo in our minds today.

A thought becomes a story.

A story becomes an identity.

An identity becomes a life.

There is little value in comparing pain or deciding who suffered more. Those arguments only strengthen the belief that suffering itself holds the answer.

So when my son asks where depression comes from, or why my brother died, I tell him something simple.

I tell him that suffering has a relationship with thought.

That the mind can be a faithful servant and a terrible master.

That every human being will know what it feels like to become lost in a story, a fear, a memory, or an idea.

And that every human being has the capacity to notice it.

To know themselves.

To recognize suffering while it is happening.

To see the difference between what they are experiencing and who they are.

Not so they can defeat suffering.

Not so they can become immune to grief.

But so that one day, when they are ready, they can lay down what no longer serves them.

The fear.

The burden.

The story.

And in doing so, give themselves over to another life.

Another calling.

Another possibility waiting to be lived.