It used to be so easy for me to hold on to anger when it came to Kody. Anger after suicide loss was so much easier than sadness. I went through stages of grief so quickly it was difficult to identify each one separately. I would be feeling hopeless and depressed and quickly move into anger just to get through the day. Anger was easy. Anger meant that I didn’t miss him, I didn’t cry. I could just be furious and then at least I could move.

For me, anger was a coping mechanism originally. When I felt myself sliding into depression, I could work myself into a fury. When I was angry, I could function. I could burn through all the tasks that I needed to do with thoughts that powered me through them. How dare he kill himself the week before I was moving. He knew I was moving. How selfish, how arrogant, how inconsiderate of him. I held on to these thoughts, clung to them like a life boat just so that I would be able to power forward.

While it was easy to hold onto the anger, it was always a temporary fix, a butterfly bandage on a gaping wound. As the months have moved forward, I’ve realized that the anger is working less and less. I can work myself up into a fury, but it doesn’t really work. The air has gone out of the anger. I still sink into moments of depression. I often find myself wondering through what ifs and bargaining myself into a corner. But the anger is melting away now.

It has been eleven months. I feel the year mark slowly approaching and dread the date. I know that it will come regardless of my fear. If this year has taught me anything, it is that nothing you are dreading seems to approach slowly. The days are eaten up so quickly, it feels like no time is passing and yet a week is gone and then a month, speeding by.

I can no longer use anger as a coping mechanism, because I have managed to let it go. It wasn’t an intentional freeing. I would have clung to it for longer if I could have. Listening to myself in rage has shown me that the anger after suicide loss is false. I am not angry at Kody for dying by suicide, I am angry at a world he couldn’t live in. I am sad that he was so sad and hid it successfully from so many people. But even that kind of anger can’t buoy me up anymore. I have reached some level of acceptance, and it only took eleven months to get here.