one of my earliest memories in life is that my mother tried to commit suicide, she jumped under a train but wasn’t death, she lost half of her leg. I was very young at that time, i think i was around 4 years old so i never got the real story about what happened that day but from that day on things were different at home and it stayed like that until i was 33 years old and had my own little family and my mother died by suicide .

She was manic depressive and when she was in her highs, she was a fantastic mom, the kind of mother who takes you on her lap and tells you stories from when she was young ,she was funny too at these times and we laughed a lot. But when she was in her lows she only had dark thoughts and could pull everybody around her in her spiral down, at these times she just wanted to die, couldn’t cope with this life anymore and everybody in the house, my dad and my 3 sisters were walking on eggs all the time and didn’t really know how to handle this.

Already from a young age i learned how heavy life could be and that life is what you make of it and most of all that life is a choice and you can not make the choice for someone else and that some people are not strong enough for this world and also that you have to respect and accept. my mother was suffering most of the time and no matter how much medication she took or how much she was fighting against it her pain was always there and she always was suffering so after sometime you accept that and if you really love that person you let it be and find peace with it . Cause so often it’s about you and how you feel guilty or you don’t want to let go of this person cause you don’t want to miss them ,so often it’s about you and not the person who is gone .So you learn to let go of them and so i did that around 30 years later when she jumped off a building and died. I accepted that and in away it allowed me to see the beauty in it.

Finally she was in peace and her suffering was over and it was good that way and what was left of her was only love! So years later when my husband had an accident with his motor and died suddenly i could understand and handle it much better , i knew this was also part of life and i also knew that the love was still there , it will always be there , it still is each and every day , i can only be thankful for that ! isn’t love the most important thing ? one day you are here and the other day you are gone but the love you leave behind always stays ,shouldn’t that be enough ? And maybe who knows you will meet again in another time and another life and you will recognise that love. I think that thought is really beautiful !! so love every day at the fullest , don’t waste time on negative things ,they’re just a waste of time, love and live at your fullest and share that love with everybody who needs it or wants it . 

How this story relates to me making collages, well, it’s very simple: through al these years growing up and still now i was and am a very creative person. i always was creating something cause when i make collages or write poetry i’m in a place that’s called freedom and in that place i’m safe and really can let go of everything. i create through my heart and soul cause like that it is the most pure form. Creating something heals me!

Story by Ilde de Munck