The ones left behind came about after I decided I wanted to write a story about grief and how it effects the people who are and are not closely related to the victim of a tragedy. As someone who has been through the process a number of times, I knew a thing or two about how someone can feel after something as serious as the events of this story happens. The feeling takes many different forms, and sometimes you don’t even realize it until its pulling you down. Because there are so many ways to express these kinds of emotions and feelings, I decided to make it a multiple part story that covers many different characters all going through the struggles of different kinds of internal thoughts after the event takes place. I wanted each character in each part to be unique and that’s what made me give each of them a different relationship with the character that commits suicide. Some closer than others, but all affected by it. This not only gave me the opportunity to make a story that juggles many different characters, but also many different themes and perspectives.
Each character in the story actually represents a different stage of grief. Of course, some may argue there are more than the ones represented in the short narrative, but I focused on the five main ones. Those being denial, aggression, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The story goes through these stages one character at a time in the order of the stages. Now, these stages and emotions can come in different orders and some can even repeat for some people. When it comes to serious scenarios such as these every person handles them differently, and I think that is important to remember. However, the part of the story that is centered on acceptance is very different than the others. While it’s written from one set perspective, it doesn’t actually have a specific character it pushes towards. It takes place during the funeral, where all the characters attend, in an attempt to move on and accept the tragedy. Of course, something this serious is never easy to move on from.
I wanted to make sure to highlight this feeling very particularly, because some people never really do come to terms with something of this magnitude. Suicide and the unexpected death of those you have a connection to is not something you just get up one day and get over. It’s challenging to navigate and even when you’ve pushed forward in your life it can still eat away at you. So while this final part is titled acceptance, it isn’t as trivial as the title makes it out to be.
All of these characters have one central focus and theme which made it quite a challenge. While I’m used to having one main theme, having to accurately represent, while not under representing, five very different themes was a delicate procedure. I wanted to make sure I did them all justice as well as the characters that acted as the vessel for these ideas. It’s such a delicate topic already, so I didn’t want to mischaracterize anything about the thoughts that go through those surrounding the victim of such a horrific act. That’s why I took very special care with each one. I really got into writing and fleshing them all out, because this is a topic I really care about. So, I put my maximum effort into each of them. Whether it was a small detail such as the first letter of their names starting with the letter of the phase of guilt they were meant to represent (which in the end spells out DABDA, which the five stages are often refereed as), or putting extensive time into unpacking how they uniquely react at different moments after the event has happened, while also showing some of the similar mindscapes people can fall into after a suicide takes place among someone they know.
In the end I feel like there is a lot more I can do with this kind of story. When first writing it in one of my courses, I actually got some great feedback. Upon suggesting making it go further, people actually thought I could do a lot with it and even make it into a full length novel. So I feel like this is a piece I could come back to and continue working on, further expanding the characters and themes I tried to represent in this story.