It was eerily quiet in the house as I came home that cold January afternoon from school. Even though there were four of us living in the house at the time, it really wasn't all that strange to have the house to myself at that time. My mom was usually at work and up until a month earlier, my stepdad would be also. Ken, my brother, occassionally would have to stay after school for one reason or another and it was one of those days.
I wasn't too concerned at first about the chill I felt because after all, it was a cold day in January in Chicago. Chilly feelings were to be expected. But something just didn't seem right. Perhaps it was because I was getting used to my stepfather being there, usually drinking himself into a stupor. I was never afraid of him. Actually it was quite the opposite. For some reason I terrified him. He never stepped out of line while I was around. It would be the stories that I would hear about later that would really surprise me. Oh he would get mouthy, but mouthy I can handle. He had long ago stopped trying to raise a hand to me. He usually just quieted down when I came home and then left everyone alone as he went on to nurse his drinks. I never even really noticed that it was happening that way. I was a young teen after all and the total of my existence revolved around school and my friends. Family was inconsequential.
I sat down to do my homework and as I was pondering the adverbs and verbs in Spanish, the phone rang. It was my mom and she sounded a bit concerned. Without saying too much she asked me to go upstairs and see if my stepdads clothes were in the closet. They were. I looked around their room and nothing seemed out of place. She asked if he was home and I said no. I didn't see him anywhere. She figured that maybe he had just gone out since they had quarreled on the phone a few hours earlier. She seemed satisfied and told me she'd see me when she got home.
Within the hour, Ken came home. My mom only worked five minutes from home, so she would call and say she was on her way. It was part of Ken's chores to go and make sure the garage door was open for her to pull into. We had a detached, two-car garage and it was probably 50 feet or so behind the house. One of my chores was to make sure that any lingering dishes were washed and the kitchen clean so that dinner could be made.
I remember standing at the sink and looking up and seeing my brother trying to run through the snow towards the house after opening the garage door. He kept tripping and stumbling but would get up again. He didn't say a word as he brushed by me and headed for his room. I looked through the kitchen window and saw my stepfathers car in the garage and figured he had just come home. A minute later, mom pulled in. I just thought he knew she was coming home and was waiting to walk with her into the house so that she didn't have to tackle walking in the snow herself. He would have never thought to shovel the driveway. He wasn't into any physical labor. That was usually my job and one I really didn't mind. Something about the cold, crisp air biting at my nostrils and the mindless act of moving the snow made me feel alive and allowed me time to think. It was just too miserably cold that day to be out there. It could wait until tomorrow.
I finished putting the dishes away and looked out to see my mom running through the snow much like my brother did. What in the world? As she came in and brushed past me to go pick up the phone, I looked out the window once more. Both cars were there but I didn't see my stepdad coming in towards the house. As I turned to look at my mom, I saw the ashen look in her face just as she was telling the emergency operator that she had just found her husband in the garage and she thought he was dead.
They had been married just shy of 4 years when he unexpectedly took his own life. We knew he had demons that he was fighting, his drinking attested to that, but none of us expected this. I guess part of himself felt bad because he had lost his job and had been unable to find another and part of himself just couldn't battle those demons one more day. In an instant, we went from what seemed like a happy, close family, to a family with the unmentionable fact that a suicide had been committed. I don't care how many people say they don't judge, when it comes to suicide, the family is always suspect at causing it or at the very least, guilty for not stopping it.
I remember the whispers and the hushed people as we would go into stores. The blank stares and some people were rude enough to ask if we had actually done him in. I was fourteen years old when I was thrown into the world of injustice that surrounds those who have a loved one who commits suicide. You have the thoughts yourself that maybe you could have done more, that maybe you could have changed the outcome, that just maybe... the list goes on. But it's a whole other ballgame when those thoughts are voiced by friends and strangers alike, from those who don't even have a clue.
So here we were in our grief and disbelief and really not getting much help from our little world. It really was no wonder that my mother retreated further into her own mind and liquor after that. She died herself, of natural causes, only three years later.
Suicide is a disease all in itself and it effects not only the life of the person who commits it, but the lives of those all around that person. I certainly have battled my own demons through the years so I can understand where the thoughts can come from. But I also remember the pain and the stigma that befell those of us innocent to any of it.
This is a rough time in history. Not only because it is usually a tough time for people after the holidays but especially in these tough economic times. Suicides will be up this year and that really is a tragedy on so many levels. Few of us will go through life without suicide effecting us personally or someone we know. I would like you to do me a favor. Please take a few moments to pray for those who are so locked within their minds that they have no hope and see no way out of their personal circumstances. Please pray for the families and friends of those whose lives will be touched by someone who will commit this incomprehesible act. Please pray that somehow, someway, God's love comes through to those who are so low that they don't even know which way to look to find a glimmer of hope. Please pray. Thank-you.
