For about a week, I’ve been purging personal files (the professional ones were tossed about six months ago), and came across a file labeled, “Isaac,” which contained all the medical records of my beloved feline, Isaac, who left this sweet world on December 10, 2008. Included in the file was a note from a veterinarian, R, who euthanized Isaac here in my home. I saved the note because R had taken the time to name specific things she remembered about Isaac, and she had only met him once before.
I first shared what R meant to me two years ago in a January 11, 2019 Spark and Spitfire post entitled, “None of it Mattered.” I wrote the post after learning on Facebook that R’s 16-year-old son had committed suicide three days earlier, and in that post, I included R’s thoughts about the loss of her son.
Over the months, R continued to share on Facebook how her son’s suicide had broken something in her that could never be healed. In many ways, I admired her raw emotion and searing honesty. So this past Tuesday, I photocopied the note R sent to me after Isaac’s death. In it, I shared how much her attention to detail meant to me and that perhaps she would find some solace about losing her son with the last words she offered me, “Somewhere, he lives on.” I addressed and stamped the envelope and stuck it in my front door mail slot for the postal carrier. Moments later, it occurred to me that I hadn’t read any recent Facebook posts from R, so checked out her Facebook page. I was re-directed to a page entitled, “R Tribute Page.” I was shocked and felt awful that someone so young and gifted had succumbed to something devastating like breast or ovarian cancer after losing her son to suicide.
Then the soul-crashing revelation in a post from her husband:
Sunday, December 20, was always going to be a difficult day. We were supposed to be celebrating what would have been our son’s 18th birthday. But the difficult day became another nightmare when R went out to spend time by herself and ultimately succumbed to the broken heart and depression that had plagued her days since our son’s passing almost two years ago. She just couldn’t make it one more day and ended her life.
In her final Facebook post — posted during the morning of December 20th — R wrote, “December 20th used to be one of the best days of my life, and now it is one of the worst. Happy 18th birthday, my son. I am so very sorry.” Her words were accompanied by 15 photos from her son’s life, including this one:
I am still so sad and shocked by this news and and how I learned of it on the very day I had written to R. I retrieved my note before the postal carrier picked it up and am pondering whether or not to send it to her surviving husband and 20-year-old daughter. How broken they must be.
A virtual memorial service will be held the weekend of March 13-14 when R would have celebrated her 46th birthday.
R was a marathon runner whose goal was to run a marathon in all 50 states. I believe she had done that in at least 25 states. She had a law degree, was in the military, and was a force in the Democratic party in Maryland — in fact, her Facebook page includes a photo of her with then-presidential candidate, Biden. She was active in Moms Demand Action, women’s rights, trans rights and marched in the Black Lives Matter protests in DC this past summer. She was arrested with Amy Schumer on Capitol Hill for protesting the Kavanaugh nomination to the Supreme Court. And on and on and on . . .
More than 500 people attended the funeral for her son a little over two years ago. She and her husband started a foundation in her son’s name and raised tens of thousands of dollars in scholarships for high school kids devoted to their son’s interests.
She asked friends and family to paint her son’s name on small “memorial” rocks and to leave those rocks in special places wherever they traveled. Her Facebook posts included photos of those rocks now in special places all over the world.
Family and friends are now leaving “memorial” rocks in special places with her name.
This detail no doubt crushed her loved ones: in a note apparently left behind, she included the names of charities and organizations to which she requested donations be made in her name.
I haven’t stopped thinking about your friend, R, since you shared this heart wrenching news with me two days ago. In your former post, “None of it Mattered,” Beth’s reply included the words, “There simply are no words.” I cannot help but think about my three sons at a time like this. My heart aches for the suffering R endured. My heart aches for the suffering her husband and daughter must now endure. I struggle to articulate what I am feeling inside. There simply are no words.
In a small booklet I published more than 30 years ago, I described suicide as “a closed world with its own irresistible logic.”
The confluence of events in this family makes absolutely no sense to me.
R, by the way, did not believe in God, at least a Christian one. Did she believe she might reunite with her son in the next world? Did she blame herself for passing on her depression gene to her son? Did she believe that by leaving this world for the next, she had the chance to apologize to him “in person”?
I can’t stop asking these questions.
I am so sorry, Sharon. Like Merrie Lee, the “right” words are just so hard to find. Your details have shaken me. The tears fill my eyes and my heart is pounding. I find myself wishing I knew her and yet thankful I did not because the pain I feel for this beautiful stranger is nothing in comparison to the confusion, excruciating and unbearable pain for those who love her. The truth is and what comes up for me: I wonder if I could survive a loss of my child. Especially, suicide. I feel like I would blame myself somehow. After reading this, I think about last night, when I struggled through a meaningless argument with my husband. What a useless waste of breath. My thoughts have come to a screeching halt. I need to call my kids. I love you.
May her memory be a blessing. It seems that it already is. I am so sorry. This news comes to me just after our state has defeated a bill to offer suicide prevention programs in our schools, to train students, who are often the first to know, but do not always know how to intervene. Our state has the highest suicide rate in the nation. One legislator said, it is the elephant in the room, “Only, in Wyoming,” she said, “it is a wooly mammoth.” Indeed. Thank you for your compassionate heart and for paying tribute to R here.
About 10 minutes ago, I received an email from Beth that I thought was very important to share with everyone about suicide. With her permission, I post it here in its entirety:
“Your post is devastating and important. I have learned in the suicide prevention world that saying ‘committed suicide’ is stigmatizing language and often hurtful to survivors, as it sounds more like ‘committed a crime.’ We don’t use the word for other types of death. The preference now is to say ‘died by suicide.’ As you know, this topic hits very close to home, as my young friend died on Dec. 30, following her identical twin sister, ten years later, in death by suicide. These are tragic losses. Always.”
Sadness so deep. Far too deep for any words to touch. Wherever/however R is now, I hope/trust/believe it is a place beyond stigma, a place of peace that passes all our understanding and grief.