suicide

My darling daughter Rachel, grandson Lucas, and I at Lucas’s graduation from Middle School celebration lunch…

What an incredible day. It seems like just yesterday that I was present at Lucas’s birth. This morning he graduated from Middle School. We were all so proud. He won several awards and we were just beside ourselves with pride and joy. Lucas is the oldest of my four grandsons. Rachel is my second daughter and middle child (Jenny is my eldest and Aaron my youngest) and the only one of my children who lives here. I am so grateful that she is here and being able to be part of Lucas’s life as he grows up is something I cherish beyond words. Being a mother and a grandmother is truly the most important thing in my life.

This has been a day of joyous celebration, and I would like to just write that and leave it at that, but before I was even out of the house at 8:00 this morning to head to Rachel’s house there was very sad news on Public Radio. Chef Anthony Bourdain is dead, the second celebrity suicide in the news this week. I listened to the news report as I drove to Rachel’s house, stunned. Certainly it was sad to hear about Kate Spade’s suicide earlier in the week but I had no personal connection to her. For years I have watched and admired Anthony Bourdain and his suicide shocked me more. And, too, both Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain had young daughters. This broke my heart. It hit home. In 2012 our family was touched by such a tragic occurrence when Rachel’s brother-in-law, a very sweet young man with an 18 month old baby girl, took his life. It was beyond devastating and the reverberations are still felt in our family. It was with this knowledge that my heart went out to the little girls and families left behind. And finally, and while I am gratefully not in this place any longer, I have been suicidal in my life. Through the grace of God with the help that I have had I have come through these times, I am no longer in that place, I look forward to my life, and celebrate it. But others have not been so fortunate.

I think about those who are gone not being able to see their grandchildren graduate from Middle School, not able to see their children grow up and have families of their own. The greatest joy in my life — and I don’t believe there is anything greater — is to see your children have their children, to watch them parent them, and grow as families. I am so proud of all three of my children, and their spouses, and my 4 young grandsons — Rachel’s Lucas, 14; Jenny’s Pierce, 6, and Silas, 3; and my own “baby,” Aaron, now 35, with his 2 year old baby Atlas. How tragic that Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain, and all of the others that have ended their lives through their heartbreaking suicides will not be here to see their children grow up to have their own children, and experience all of the joy that it brings. My heart aches thinking about it.

And the statistics about how suicide is on the rise takes my breath away. And God help you if you say around me that these people were “selfish” in taking their lives. No one will ever know the excruciating pain that led those who took their own lives to do just that. I have had lifelong struggles with mental health, will deal with it all the days of my life, and, living in a world where mental health issues are misunderstood, where there isn’t the help that there should be, where terrible things are happening in the world because so many people go untreated, is one of the worst things that we are dealing with today. No one is untouched by this, every single country, and culture, and race around the world are dealing with this. God help us all if we don’t get this figured out.

For today, on this happy, beautiful day in our family, I am sorry to bring this up, but it is how the day started and there have been reverberations all through the week as suicide has been in the news. And for me, who has suffered, and struggled, for so many years, it is also a triumph to celebrate today with my family, and it brings, in sharp relief, the knowledge that each moment is so precious, and that we cannot, for one moment, not be vigilant about those around us. We are, each and every one of us, responsible for our loved ones, our family, our friends, our co-workers, and anyone we know who might be suffering and struggling. We cannot turn a blind eye. I don’t have all of the answers but if you can reach out, pass along information, call someone, do what you can, please do, and, in the end, if you lose someone to suicide do not blame yourself, or them. Pray that they have found peace and do whatever needs to be done to heal yourself. Get the help you need. The devastation and damage a suicide leaves on the ones left behind is immeasurable.

Tonight I am thankful for my family, that they are safe, and happy, and healthy, and well. I am thanking God, and I am praying that they may stay so. We are, none of us, without our struggles, our worries, we are human and we are alive on the planet at a time that is challenging in so many ways, but we are here, and we love each other, and I am grateful for this above all else. I pray that you, whoever and wherever you are, are okay, and if you are not that you get the help that you need. I am holding you in my heart and prayers tonight, wherever you are.

And, darling beautiful Lucas, you just so TOTALLY rock. I am prouder of you than any grandmother has ever been. Rock on young man. Rock on!

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Call 1-800-273-8255