Cael
The Retreat, The Philippines
A few weeks later
MY FEET STOPPED DEAD AS L
EO LED US TO A CLOSED DOOR. M
Y BLOOD RAN cold when I saw the sign. We’d had days leading up to this point. One-on-one sessions. Group sessions. You name it, we had done it. It had been brutal and intense. I was already wrought and tired and at my emotional limit.
But today was where I had to face what had happened with Cillian. Today was when I faced head-on what Cillian had done.
I wasn’t too proud to say that I was absolutely terrified.
Leo’s hand landed on my back. “I wouldn’t bring you here if I didn’t think you could do it,” he said. He pressed a hand to his chest. “I went through the same thing. And although it hurts, badly, it does help.”
I trusted Leo. The longer I had spent time with him and Mia, the more I had faith in them. And Leo had walked the same path I had. This was his life’s work. I had to put my trust in him if I wanted to get better.
The time we’d spent rebuilding houses was poignant. I had agreed to stay in touch with Jacob by email and letters. But doing something physical, like building houses and shelters, had been rewarding. It was the emotional side I struggled with most.
Savannah went on her exposure experience in a couple of days. She had been spending time with doctors at the retreat. Learning all about how they treated people, especially those with cancer. I could tell she had been lapping it up, absorbing it all like the perfect student she was. But I saw how much it pained her too. The strain it was taking on her grief for Poppy. In a few days’ time, she went to a children’s cancer ward in a hospital. True exposure. I was so worried for her. She had made such strides. I was worried it would put her back.
I worried about that for me too.
“Ready?” Leo asked.
No, I wanted to say.
I don’t think I’ll ever be ready. But I nodded. I had to do this. I had to fight for my future. I’d come this far. Leo and Mia’s company owned several retreats around the world. They were all places for people to go to get away from the United States and get professional help for whatever problem they were experiencing. Leo and Mia focused their time on grief, in particular, though they employed other therapists and psychologists to help their patients with an array of different issues.
We walked through the door to see a small circle of chairs, a few men sitting on them. Leo had explained to me that the people attending this section of the retreat had tried to take their own lives. For various reasons, they were still here. A few of the men looked up at me when we entered. In that second, all I saw were several Cillians looking back at me. It shook me so hard that I was finding it hard to breathe.
“Leo,” a man said and greeted Leo with a handshake. He turned to me. “And you must be Cael.” He shook my hand. I was robotic. Frozen in fear. “I’m Simon. I’m the therapy leader of this group.” He nodded to Leo. “He’s technically my boss.” He tried to joke, to smile, clearly trying to put me at ease, but I couldn’t move. All I saw were the men looking back at me. They had tried to end their lives. But hadn’t.
Why couldn’t Cillian have stayed alive too?
In a catatonic state, Leo led me to the group, and I sat down. I accepted a bottle of water but just held it in my hand. Leo sat beside me, a silent support. My throat was dry and tight, and my heart was racing too fast. My eyes darted from man to man, wondering what they had done, but more, why they had done it. Did they have family? Were any of them older brothers who’d almost left their kid brothers behind?
“Cael, I have spoken to the group and I told them you were coming.” My eyes were wide and sweat beaded on my forehead. “Everyone here is willing to share their story with you. To help you understand.”
My breath was choppy. So much so that Leo leaned closer. “Breathe like we taught you, Cael. You can do this.” I thought of Savannah. I thought of how I breathed with her—in for eight, hold for four, out for eight. I imagined her here, counting with me too. Then the men started their stories. One by excruciating one. And I listened intently.
” … then I woke up,” Richard, one of the patients, said, the room completely silent but for his voice. He wiped his hand down his face, like just talking of his experience thrust him back there, to that bad place. “I realized I wasn’t gone. Instead, I was in the hospital. My parents sat on either side of the bed, gripping on to my hands like they would never let me go. I had terrified them.” My lungs squeezed tight at that visual. Richard looked up at me, met my eyes straight on. “They’d had no idea how much I was hurting … I didn’t tell them. I became a master at masking it.” Many of the other men nodded in agreement. “I
wanted to go. It wasn’t a cry for help. At first, I was so pissed it hadn’t worked. But …” He sighed and I saw some of the strife and pain flee his face. “But then I got help, and now I’m so thankful that I’m here. I mean that.”
I was happy for Richard, I was. So friggin’ happy that he got a second chance at life. But all I could think of was Cillian. That maybe if I’d been better at CPR, I
could have saved him. I could have brought him back and we could have gotten him help like Richard and these other men got help.
As the group shared their testimonies, their stories were all different, but one aspect shone out that was always the same. The disabling depression they were all suffering with. The oppressive disorder that made many feel like life was not worth living and that death was the only way out.
I knew Cillian had felt this. The note that still rested in my wallet told me so. And by the stories being told to me, I knew that many had suffered alone, in silence. But to my shame, the anger I had always felt toward Cill was still there. I’d been able to conquer my outbursts and the way the rage controlled my life. But when it came to how I felt about my brother, I couldn’t shake it. I was just so pissed at him. I stayed and listened to everyone’s story, to not be disrespectful to those opening up to me, but the minute the last person had spoken, I got up from my chair and exited the room.
I needed to breathe. I needed to move. Because Cillian could have told me.
Should have. We were so close.
Why didn’t he just tell me?
“Cael?” Simon, the group leader, came to stand beside me as I paced the patch of green grass outside the retreat’s therapy room. I saw Leo in the doorway, watching on.
“I can’t,” I said through gritted teeth. “I can’t speak about it.”
Simon sat down on the bench nearby and said, “Can you sit?”
I didn’t want to. I felt charged with endless energy. I needed to run, to jog it off. I’d been running again every day, and my fitness was returning. It was helping. But now I wasn’t sure if running a million marathons would help cool this burning inferno inside of me. I didn’t want to be angry again. I couldn’t go back to that person I had been before.
“Please,” Simon said. Leo went back inside to the group. I didn’t think even he would get through to me right now. Simon waited several more minutes for me, until I sat down beside him. My leg still bounced, but I did as he asked. When I sat, I looked up at the palm trees and the bright sun. It was scorching, but I felt like winter inside.
“I didn’t share my story in there,” he said. I stilled but kept my gaze straight forward. “I didn’t try to take my own life.” I concentrated on breathing. I respected the men back there so much for telling me about themselves, about how depression had stolen everything from them until they felt no other way out but death. But I still couldn’t understand why Cillian had not told me how he was feeling. There were no two closer brothers. We’d told each other everything.
“When I was eighteen, my brother took his own life,” Simon said, and I stopped moving. I felt like a hammer had been taken to my chest. Slowly, I turned to Simon. He was staring up at the clouds but then met my gaze when he felt me watching him. His eyes still held some sorrow.
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