Little Steps
My Spiritual Journey: Coping with My Son's Suicide
All too often, survivors of a loved one’s suicide are left behind, struggling with a loss that fosters stigma, shame, blame, guilt, and abandonment. For the survivor, these struggles last long after the funeral is over, and friends and relatives have returned to their daily lives.
Healing the loss after the suicide of a love one is about restarting your life with nothing firm to stand on. Little Steps is the guided process James Adams recorded in his journal documenting before, during, and after his son committed suicide. It starts with conversations where voices of wisdom are guiding him along a spiritual path of discovery; then, as he was confronted with his loss, those conversations shifted toward coping with and understanding the grief process.
Feeling left behind and somehow responsible, James continued to write his guided conversations as he dealt with lingering questions: Why did he do this? What should I have done differently? What could I have done differently? If only I had known . . . What did I do wrong?
These real-time journaled conversations capture in a loving, spiritual, and supportive way all the drama, trauma, and recovery as they occurred, making Little Steps a powerful documentary of healing from a traumatic loss.
James Adams, born in 1947, graduated in 1969 from Ohio University with a bachelor of science in industrial manufacturing technology. As a senior in college, he was introduced to journal writing for a class assignment. In 1970, James was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in Vietnam. During deployment, he wrote extensively of his experiences to friends at home and created “significant day” journals, describing the details of life in a war zone.
Upon being discharged, James married and returned to the workforce as a manufacturing engineer in an aerospace company. He then dropped out of the workforce and journaled his experiences as he and his wife explored America in a camper. They eventually settled in Northwest Arkansas on 25 acres of Ozark woods. James continued documenting their lifestyle.
In 1981, he returned to working in a factory as a manufacturing engineer, and in 1985 entered a drug rehabilitation center to address a chemical addiction that began in Vietnam. James kept a journal of his recovery and it was an important component of his 12-step program. James’s journal writing took a new direction in 1991. After his divorce and while single-parenting his son Andrew, the questions he presented in his writings began to be answered by undefined voices who offered wise counsel and insights focused on guiding him through turbulent times.
James remarried in 1997 and continued to journal his day-to-day conversations. The journal writing became more spiritually focused and was a key factor in James’s spiritual development. When Andrew committed suicide in November 2009, the voices of wisdom continued to support James through his grieving process and continue to guide him on a journey of spiritual awakening.
