Destruction of Suicide

The phone finally rang and my heart stood still as I answered. I was standing in a hotel room in Las Vegas waiting for my sister to pick me up. She was three hours late for our long awaited reunion and I was starting to get worried about her. My husband and I had arrived the night before for a convention. She was very depressed when I called her to make plans for the following day.

I slowly said “Hello.” It was my brother in law. He quietly said, “Your sister is in the hospital and I will be right there to pick you up”. As I waited I kept wondering what went wrong. I knew she had a doctor’s appointment that morning to check her and the unborn baby she was carrying. I knew the circumstances of the new baby were confusing. It was not her husband’s, but he was willing to forgive her and was delighted to finally become a father. They had tried for many years to have a child of their own. He was in the service overseas for many years and her loneliness drove her to have an affair.

On the way to the hospital Jesse had told me that she once again tried to kill herself. I knew of one other time when she was trying to get attention from our stepmother. I remembered her saying to me, “You are always there when I need to laugh”. We entered the room she was in; tubes were like a road map up and down her body and the small lump of the baby. The only sound was of the machine breathing for her. I wanted to scream, “No, you didn’t have to do this, I am here, and I will make you laugh.” The doctors had told us that too much damage had been done to save either her or the baby. For some reason she had taken an overdose that morning.

Jesse and I sat quietly together waiting. My sister Bobby was three years older than me. She was only twenty-nine years old. Our mother died when I was eight and she was 11. Our father suffered with mental illness, so by this time in our lives we had become familiar with loss.

As we waited Jesse told me a story about what had happened to him while he was in the desert. He had received the Dear John letter from my sister. He was in shock and couldn’t believe it, so he got into his jeep and drove as fast as he could to a place to be by himself in the desert. Once again he read the dreadful words of rejection and started to tear the letter up into a million pieces. “What the Hell” were his only words. He picked up the gun that was in the seat beside him. With his free hand he threw the million tiny pieces of pain out into the sand. Jesse raised the gun to his head, looked down one more time and stopped. As he looked, all he could see were the tiny white pieces of paper formed into a cross. He uttered, “God, are you really here, do you have a plan for me?” His gun slowly returned to its place on the seat. Not long after, he returned home with forgiveness in his heart for my sister. She was alone, and accepted him back.

Jesse and I prayed together, and as we did my sister slowly left this earth. It was the first vision I had ever had. I could see my sister running into the arms of our mother. She was smiling and laughing, finally. She had never seemed happy after our mom died and we were never very close. I had feelings of envy; I too wished I could be in the arms of my mother. My own life seemed confusing and lonely. I now had to find our mentally ill, homeless father in the streets in San Francisco to tell him his daughter was dead.

I miss having a sister. At times I wish I could have made her laugh more, so that she would have wanted to stay with us. I tried to love her unconditionally, even though there were many troubled times.

Do you have someone in your life that has committed suicide? Do you say, “If only I would have done this or that, things could be different?” Many times as I thought about my sister, I realized once again it is my choice. I could choose to carry the guilt from her death and let it turn me into a bitter woman, or I could go on and be the best I could be.

Perhaps your pain is so extreme you are thinking of taking your own life. You feel alone and think no one would care anyway; your family would be better off without you. Your life is too hard and you can’t make it through another day.

I too, felt that way a few times in my life. The main thing that kept me from doing it was thinking of the people I would leave behind. I asked myself, “Who would care for my children? How would I be remembered?” On those days I would make a goal for myself to achieve. It could be in the next hour, or in a day, or a week. Something I could look forward to. I prayed for inter-strength to see the good in each day, and I did not allow myself to be alone. I asked for help! Don’t be resistant to anyone that is trying to help you.

I just heard a song not long ago, it said, “Don’t give up, let your voice be heard, you just want to be understood and loved.”