Nobody’s Fault

A grieving woman told me about the deaths of her niece and sister. Her niece had died four months earlier from cancer. Her sister, the niece’s mother, had died by suicide just two weeks before our conversation.

The devastated woman blamed herself for not seeing her sister’s distress or intervening. She felt certain the manner of her sister’s death was untimely and would adversely impact her eternal state.

“Is your niece at peace?” I asked.

“Yes, of course,” she responded.

“You realize you couldn’t have stopped the cancer?” I said.

She nodded.

“Your niece didn’t take her own life,” I said. “It was her disease, her cancer. It’s nobody’s fault.”

She nodded again.

“Your sister is at peace,” I said.

Tear streamed down the woman’s face.

“Your sister didn’t take her own life,” I said. “It was her disease, just like the cancer. It’s nobody’s fault.”

My message is the same to others. Please, please, stop feeling guilty. Your loved one’s suicide is not your fault or theirs. You couldn’t have prevented it. Their eternal state is not tarnished by the way they left mortality. Stop blaming them for their illness. They’re fine. They’re at peace. Their death was no less timely than the death of any person from any cause.

Inexperience took my 15-year-old brother’s life when he tipped over a tractor. His death was nobody’s fault, and it wasn’t untimely. We may not like divine timing, but that doesn’t make it less divine or less timely.

Faith in the Divine includes faith in the timing. Be at peace.