The Wound Is Where the Light Enters You: Finding Healing After Suicide Loss

“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” – Rumi

When I came across this quote from the 13th-century philosopher Rumi, I thought it captured something profound about the healing process after suicide loss. Most survivors struggle in the first few months with overwhelming pain and loss. Healing is not even in your vocabulary in the early days. It is just so overwhelming. Focusing on daily responsibilities feels impossible. Just getting through the day is often a big accomplishment.

The Early Days: When Darkness Surrounds You

The endless series of thoughts about the past often consume your waking hours. The could have, should have, and would have questions reverberate in your head. When I talk with new survivors about their loss and mention that there is long-term healing, they often look at me like I am crazy. Darkness surrounds you, and it is hard to see any light.

In the early days after losing my son John to suicide back in 2009, I remember asking everyone who knew anything about suicide when we would be healed, when the pain would stop. I could not grasp that we would ever heal. I thought that my life and emotions would forever be as dark and as painful as those first few days. I had lost the sense of future. I had lost the desire to think about the future. I had no idea what healed would even be. There was no map with a destination called “healed.”

When we lost John, my body and soul were wounded. I remember thinking that the loss was more painful than when I had survived stage three cancer twenty years earlier. I knew pain and I knew suffering. I just could not believe just how painful suicide loss could be. I realized that after John’s death, I would have to be open to figuring out what healing was. I clearly had the wound that Rumi was talking about. I just needed to find the light.

Opening Yourself to the Possibility of Light

The light is the energy that allows you to heal. You have to be open to trying new things. You have to be open to doing things differently, and you have to be open to help from others. Understanding that not everyone grieves the same way helps you find what works for you. They may find comfort and healing in different ways than you do.

It may be yoga. It may be meditation. It may be journaling. It may be a thousand things you have never tried before. Just coming to a support group is a way of letting the healing energy enter your body and soul. At some point, you are exhausted from your soul-sucking grief, and you just want to feel something other than grief for a day.

The Alliance of Hope community demonstrates the healing power of connecting with other survivors. As one member described, “Connecting with others whose background, age, and other traits may be different but whose suicide loss is an eerily similar journey has helped me to quiet my own guilty replays, paralyzing regrets, and unanswerable questions.”

Healing Is a Journey, Not a Destination

For me, healing came a little bit in the first week after the funeral. It came a little bit in the first month when we went to a support group. It came a little bit when we got the police and coroner’s reports. It came a little bit when we put the headstone on the grave. It came a little bit as we struggled through each of those first holidays and birthdays after the suicide. It came a little bit on the first anniversary (I hate the idea of remembering the most tragic day of my life as an anniversary). It came a little bit as we worked through the grief of the second year when reality set in that this was part of our life forever.

Healing was a long road that we walked down. The journey and direction of our healing came from within ourselves. Healing was a thousand choices we made after the suicide. Healing came from walking with and talking with other suicide loss survivors. As time went on, I realized that there is no one day or one event that defines when I was healed. No one can give you a map that will heal you. I have realized that we have truly been on a journey of healing all along the way.

Becoming Light for Others

I also am a strong believer that once you have seen the light and you begin your journey of healing, you become a different person than you were before the loss. Many survivors develop a strong sense of empathy towards others. You know what the worst day of your life felt like, and you don’t want anyone else to know that feeling by themselves. You learn how to reach out to others.

In my almost 17 years of attending and facilitating suicide loss support groups, I continue to be amazed at the connections and the empathy that folks exhibit. The depth of compassion that survivors show one another, even in their own pain, is one of the most beautiful things I’ve witnessed on this journey. Suicide loss survivors learn to share the light that they have found with other loss survivors.

Finding Your Light During Difficult Seasons

As we approach this holiday season with our wounds, remember to look for ways that you can gather some of the light around you to help you find your journey towards healing. When you look for the light around you and you let it start to warm your soul, you begin to heal the wound.

Just like the sky slowly brightens in the dawn before the sunrise, you will begin to heal long before you are “healed.” The wound is real. The pain is real. But so is the possibility of light. You don’t have to search for it all at once. You don’t have to force it. Sometimes you just have to be open to the smallest glimmer, the gentlest warmth, and trust that healing is already happening, even when you can’t see it yet.

As one survivor shared in an Alliance of Hope essay about the healing journey, “I want to assure you that there is hope and life again. You must be patient with yourself as you walk through the early days/years of grief.”

You Are Not Alone on This Journey

You are not alone in this darkness. And you will not be alone when the light begins to find its way in. Whether you tell your story on your own terms or find quiet moments of healing in solitude, your path forward exists. It may not look the way you expected. It may take longer than you hoped. But healing is possible, even after the devastation of suicide loss.

The community of suicide loss survivors is vast, compassionate, and waiting to welcome you. As one survivor wrote about the miraculous power of a suicide loss community, “They used their wisdom learned from indescribable pain to build something so rare and magical in this modern world: a true community of mutual care, built on respect and recognition of the sacredness of the grief journey.” We understand the weight you carry. We know the questions that keep you awake at night. We remember the early days when even breathing felt like too much effort. And we are here to tell you that while the pain never completely disappears, it does transform. It becomes something you can carry alongside hope, alongside purpose, alongside moments of genuine joy.

Take your time. Be gentle with yourself. And remember that every small step toward healing matters, even when it doesn’t feel like enough. The light is waiting for you. It enters through the wound, slowly, gently, one moment at a time.

Other Posts You May Also Like

• Time After Loss: Finding Your Way Forward – Understanding how time becomes something different after suicide loss and how to navigate the altered relationship with past, present, and future.
• Navigating Holiday Greetings – Practical guidance for handling holiday interactions when simple phrases like “Happy Thanksgiving” feel impossible after losing someone to suicide.
• Understanding Anger and Conflicted Emotions in Suicide Loss – Exploring the complex storm of emotions that follows suicide loss, including anger, guilt, and conflicting feelings.
• Telling Your Story After Suicide Loss: A Guide to Sharing on Your Terms – Learning how to share your experience with others in ways that honor your boundaries and support your healing.