I Hoped the Ocean Would Help You See

I loved this story by Beyond Blue reader Melzoom on the combox of my post, "Dear God: Come All Who are Weary":

My second suicide attempt was not immediately severe enough to put me in the hospital. My husband came home to find me bleeding all over the bathroom, but with my first aid training and virtually all the butterfly bandages in the house, we "fixed me up." He told me we had to go to the hospital. I refused. Both of us felt very scared. Each of us completely alone as we cleaned the bathroom and then held each other. 

The next morning, he said we needed to go for a drive. And what a drive it was. He drove me from Ohio to Virginia Beach, checked us into a hotel on the waterfront, and walked me out to the beach. We sat there for a moment. It was cold and the air was damp, no spring-breakers, the beach was completely empty. Watching the waves, I felt everything well up inside me and started sobbing. I sat in the sand, arms wrapped around my knees, mascara staining my jeans, and my husband sitting beside me, legs outstretched and arm over my shoulders. I gave it all: the pain, my pride, my silly insistence that I could do it 'on my own' to the breakers crashing onto that empty beach.

After about an hour, as I started to compose myself and breathe he said, "I hoped the ocean would help you see." We went to dinner that night, drove home the next day, and the following morning I checked into the hospital.

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