These Mandalas for Marinke come from Michele in the UK who writes,
“Thank you for organizing this depression awareness campaign and tribute to Wink. I must admit that I was not aware until very recently that Wink had passed. Her patterns came up a lot in my project searcher, and I looked at them because they were so colorful, but I never looked further at her blog since I started out by making baby blankets. Her blog was something I was intending to come back to later.
I taught myself to crochet last June / July and quite honestly I think it kept me sane at a very difficult time, since my brother took his life at the end of last July. Crochet became a marker, too, of getting through the days, of making it through a day or a week when normal life just seemed to be a dream.
I never expected suicide to touch my family, not because we were impenetrable to it, or strangers to loss, but my brother had always seemed to have a fighting spirit and spoke out against unfairness and cruelty. He cared for others as a career but was unable to reach out to others in his time of need. It’s only with hindsight and his private documents that I can see he has probably struggled with these dark thoughts throughout his life.
I do understand now that suicide is a death you never get over, but life carries on so you carry it with you in the hope that one day that death, too, will become bearable – similar to other bereavements. Unfortunately, I think acceptance is always hard, even if you know that choice was a choice of their own made with full consideration.”
I am so sorry to Michele and her family for the experience of this loss. Suicide is a heart-wrenching thing that touches far too many lives. This project honors each of those impacted by the disease.