学会在绝望中寻找光明

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I believe in mystery.
I believe in family.
I believe in being who I am.
I believe in the power of failure.
And I believe normal life is extraordinary.
This I Believe.

Our This I Believe essay today was sent in by public radio listener Annaliese Jakimides. She lives in Bangor Maine where she’s a copy editor for Saw Million Woodlark magazine and other local publications. Jakimides also does creative writing on her own time. Here is our series curator, independent producer, Jay Allison.

There is one dark event in Annaliese Jakimides’s life that she says she’d never written about before, but after she decided to take this up on our public invitation to create an essay for this series, she discovered that she was drawn to write about that event. Not because of the darkness but rather its opposite. Here is Annaliese Jakimides with her essay for This I Believe.

I'm 57. Divorced after 28 years of marriage, I no longer have a house. I own very little, make a marginal living and I lost my youngest child to suicide when he was 21. At my core I am grateful for it all — even my son's death. It gave me the lens through which to see everything.

I believe in a silver lining.

I will forever carry my son with me. How can a mother not? This is the only choice I had: I could either carry him as a bag of rocks or I could live a life celebrating him. Now let me be honest here: I wailed for months before I figured out how to trade the rocks for the joy, and found the silver lining thing. I'm a people person, but Arrick was really a people person. He told me once, "I talk to everyone I want to talk to."

 "Everyone?" I asked incredulously.

"Well, yeah, I might miss someone I need to know."

And now, five years later, I've embraced my son's philosophy.

My daughter on the other hand, is more cautious — she shushes me when she sees I am about to say hello to a strange woman by the subway stop. "You can't do that, Mom," she says half laughing, knowing that I now see every single encounter as filled with possibilities that can make a difference in my life; that I am more eager than ever to connect with others.

Waiting for the train, I hear strains of an Ornette Coleman tune. I smile, and drop a precious $5 bill into the open case. My Arrick played the saxophone. I wish I had his saxophone's soft leather traveling bag with me, so I could give it to this man in case he someday finds himself on the way to a non-street gig. I tell him that. He smiles.

Arrick couldn't figure out how to make his way, how to live out the rest of his life. I believe he wanted to. When I call up that beautiful face and those elegant cocoa-brown fingers running along the sax's keys, I am always convinced of it. The youngest of three, Arrick was the smartest, the funniest, and we all say so.

He was also the darkest, but no one ever saw him as suicide dark. The why of these choices is often not clear — actually downright murky. I still don't know what brought him to suicide. What is clear, however, is that my son

continues: He continues to be part of my story, the family's story and every day now, I'm still making connections on his behalf.

And so I smile at the checker in the grocery store, discuss architecture with the homeless guy who reads every bad-weather day in the library. I tell the woman my daughter thinks I shouldn't speak to that I love her fuchsia hat with the funky feathers, and I thank the saxophone player for the fine Coleman on a subway platform in wintry New York City.

Arrick's death made me sit up and pay attention. I lingered on the edges before, playing it safe, but I'm in the game now. Arrick showed me the silver lining and I'm showing it to everyone I meet
Annaliese Jakimides with her essay for This I Believe. Jakimides said that she’s found that the subject of a child’s suicide can be taboo, and that she hopes her essay might help counter that.

If you like to write about the core beliefs in your life, we hope you visit our website NPR.org/thisibelieve to find out more. You can also search through the more than 35,000 essays that have been submitted to date. For This I Believe, I’m Jay Allison.

Jay Allison is coeditor with Dan Gedimen, John Gregory and Vicky Merrick of the book This I Believe, the personal philosophies of remarkable men and women. Next week on NPR.org ,an essay from the founding editor of Wire magazine Kevin Kelly.

Support for This I Believe comes from Prudential Retirement.