CHAPTER ONE
WHEN IT’S SOMEONE YOU
Like a comet
Blazing ‘cross the evening
sky
Gone too soon
Like a rainbow
Fading in the twinkling of an
eye
Gone too soon
Shiny and sparkly
And splendidly bright
Here one day
Gone one night
Like the loss of
sunlight
On a cloudy afternoon
Gone too soon
Like a castle
Built upon a sandy
beach
Gone too soon
Like a perfect flower
That is just beyond your
reach
Gone too soon
Born to amuse, to inspire, to
delight
Here one day
Gone one night
Like a sunset
Dying with the rising of the
moon
Gone too soon
Gone too soon
“Gone Too Soon” – Michael
Jackson
Kevin’s Story
Kevin’s history book was open and
sitting
upright on his desk.
He couldn’t concentrate, not after last
night’s scene. He wondered
whether Brad had gone straight home
or
walked the streets brooding
over Olivia and her new boyfriend.
Never
mind. He and Brad
were going to have a great summer.
Camp
out on weekends. Work
at the grocery down the street during
the
week and make some big
bucks. Maybe take a trip to the
Rockies at
the end of the summer.
Brad would forget all about
Olivia.
He closed his
eyes. Thinking about his summer plans with Brad
made him even more anxious for the
school
day to end.
When Kevin opened his eyes, he saw
his
counselor, Ms. Davies,
standing over him.
“I need to talk
to you,” she said quietly.
What had he
done now? He picked up his books and followed
Ms. Davies into the
hall.
“Something
terrible has happened to Brad,” she said. “His
mother found him in his car in the
family
garage last night.”
So, that’s
where he went.
Ms. Davies took
a deep breath. “Brad is dead. He took his
own life.”
“He’s not dead.
We’re playing cards tonight.”
“There’s a
detective in Mrs. Lyons’s office waiting to talk to you.
He wants to ask you some
questions.”
…
Kevin slammed the car into reverse
and
screeched down the
driveway. He and his parents had
been
arguing all morning. His
mother was worried sick that he’d
“drive
off a cliff.” His dad had
ordered him not to drive to the
funeral
alone. They were upset.
He didn’t care.
Why hadn’t Brad
talked about it? Kevin would have listened.
They told each other everything.
Now he
wasn’t so sure. Maybe
Brad hadn’t wanted his help. Maybe
he
hadn’t wanted anyone to
change his mind. Kevin swiped at the
tears
running down his
cheeks. He wasn’t going to get all
choked
up. Not again. Brad
hadn’t talked to him, so why should
he
care?
…
The funeral was supposed to be small,
but
there were hundreds
of people, people Kevin had never
seen
before. He hated all the
strangers. Brad would have hated
them too.
He was the shy, quiet
type who loved being by himself,
taking
things apart and putting
them back together. Why couldn’t he
have
gotten his life right?
Kevin walked
closer to the casket. He could see Brad’s mom
surrounded by a ring of people. She
looked
so tiny. Kevin had
always thought of her as much taller.
He
remembered the night
Brad had come home drunk. Mrs.
Brogan had
told Brad what a
fool he was. If he wanted to be a fool,
she’d said, he could be one on
his own time. But he had better not
be a
fool in front of her again
or she’d knock him around the block
and
back. Mrs. Brogan had
seemed very tall that
night.
Kevin wanted to
talk to her. He wanted to tell her how sorry
he was and how, even though Brad
never
touched a cigarette in
front of her, he chain-smoked when
he
played cards with the guys.
If only he could reach out and hug
her and
make everything like
it had been. But he could barely
remember
the last time he had
hugged his own
mother.
The knot in his
stomach tightened. Brad had had a few problems.
Who didn’t? Olivia, his first
girlfriend,
had started dating
someone else. And he hadn’t been
able to
decide what to do after
high school. Being a cook in Miami
sounded
cool. “Asshole idea,”
his dad had said.
When people
started out to the parking lot, Kevin sat up,
adjusted his tie, and nodded at the
other
three pallbearers standing
near the casket. He had never
understood
funerals. His mother
had told him that they make a
permanent
picture in your head that
the dead person is gone. He didn’t
need a
funeral to do that.
…
Why had Brad taken his own life?
Someone
was responsible.
Not Mrs. Brogan. She had always
been there
when Brad needed
her. And sometimes when he didn’t.
He
remembered the time,
years before, when she’d marched
Brad back
to the grocery store
and made him admit to the checker
that
he’d lied when he said the eleven pop bottles were his. What he had done was
dishonest, and Mrs. Brogan had wanted her son to accept the consequences. At
the time, Brad had hated his mom for being so principled. Later on, he realized
she’d done the right thing.
Kevin tried not
to blame Mr. Brogan, but it wasn’t easy. Brad’s
father worked, slept, and drank beer.
That
was it. When Brad had
been younger, his dad had come to
watch
him play football. But
when Brad had quit the team, his dad
had
been angry. “You’re just
like me, only worse,” he’d said. Brad
wasn’t anything like his dad.
When his dad got angry, everyone
paid.
When Brad got angry, he
got quiet and withdrawn. He was the
only
one who paid.
…
Kevin’s best friend was dead, and
there
was no reason. If he’d died
from a disease or an accident . . . But
he
had taken his own life.
What could have been so bad? It
made no
sense.
If only he had known Brad was so
unhappy.
If only he had seen
the signs. But what
signs?
Kevin remembered
the night back in seventh grade after the
roller-skating party. Brad and another
friend, Dave, had decided
to walk home instead of riding the
bus.
They didn’t have far to go.
Besides, maybe they’d stop at
McDonald’s
for something to eat.
As the boys approached the
restaurant,
Brad challenged Dave to a
race. Brad took off across Madison
Street
with Dave on his heels.
They talked
about the accident only a couple of times. Brad
told Kevin the car swerved to miss
him but
hit Dave instead. There
was nothing the paramedics could do;
Dave
was dead on arrival at
Good Shepherd
Hospital.
Brad hadn’t
been the same after that. He had seemed to crawl
into a shell. He got headaches that
made
him vomit, and his skin
turned white. He got pimples all over
his
face. Kevin figured Brad
had to work it out on his own; he
didn’t
know what else to do.
If only he had done something then,
maybe
Brad would be alive
now. If he had made him talk about it.
But
Brad had said he didn’t
want to talk, and Kevin hadn’t
pushed.
Anyway, Brad couldn’t have
taken his own life because of an
accident
so many years ago. He
had to have forgotten all about
it.
A sharp guy
like Brad doesn’t kill himself for no good reason.
That would be crazy. Brad might
have been
confused, but he wasn’t
crazy. Maybe his dad had finally
gotten to
him. Mr. Brogan was a
cop who worked the shift from three
in the
afternoon to eleven at
night. And on weekends, Mr. Brogan
sat in
front of the TV, drinking
beer and doing crossword puzzles. If
he
drank too much, and
he often did, he’d either fall asleep or
leave the house without telling
anyone where he was
going.
One night, the
phone rang late, and it was someone from the
hospital telling Mrs. Brogan that her
husband had been in an accident
and that she better come right away.
Brad
told Kevin one side
of his dad’s face looked like it had
been
mashed in a blender. He
was cut up so badly he stayed in the
hospital for almost a week.
“That’s not
good enough,” Kevin screamed. “You couldn’t have
killed yourself because of your old
man.
You could have moved out,
gotten your own place with some
other
guys. You go off and kill
yourself without letting me know,
without
letting me help. Okay.
So you wanted to keep it to yourself.
Fine. Keep it all to yourself. I
don’t care. Just don’t expect me to
waste
my tears over you.” Tears
streamed down his
face.
Maybe this was
all Olivia’s fault. She and Brad broke up every
other week. They broke up, then got
back
together. Again and
again. They went steady off and on
for two
and a half years.
Brad and Olivia would be going
separate
ways after graduation.
So why not get it over with? Brad
didn’t
care. At least that’s what
he said.
During a card
game with Kevin and some other guys, Brad had
talked about his future. “You’re
lucky,”
he’d said to Kevin. “You know what you want to do. You’ve got your art. You
want to be an artist. I’ve got nothing.”
Kevin had felt uncomfortable. He’d
known
Brad was having a
hard time. “You’ll get it together,” he
had said.
…
Brad had made one more attempt to
win Olivia
back. When that
had gone south, Brad had stormed off.
He’d
insisted on walking
home. “Just go. Take my car and
go.”
“I can’t take
your car,” Kevin said.
“Take it.” He
shoved the keys in Kevin’s hand.
“Come on, this
is nuts.” Kevin tried to give the keys back. But
Brad had already turned around and
begun
walking away.
Frustrated, Kevin got into the car,
turned
the key, and then
slowly backed down the driveway.
Okay, he
thought, I’ll cruise
around the block a few times and
stall for
time. Brad needs to cool
off. After wasting several minutes, he
drove by Brad walking slowly
toward home.
“Hey, jump in.
You’re crazy to walk. Besides, this is your car.”
“I want to
walk. Just park the car in the driveway and leave the
keys in the mailbox.”
No use arguing.
When Brad made up his mind to do something,
he did it. No point in trying to stop
him.
…
A month after Brad took his own life,
Kevin halfheartedly agreed
to play poker with some of the guys.
He
had to get out of the house.
Kevin waited anxiously to see Brad
again.
He had so much to tell
him. He was going to art school in
the
fall. The high school baseball
team had taken the league
championship.
Olivia and her boyfriend
had broken up.
Brad never
reappeared. But Kevin thought about him a lot.
Some days he thought he understood
why
Brad had killed himself;
other days he had no idea. He could
never
remember how
long it had been since Brad had died.
Sometimes it seemed like
years, sometimes only a few
days.
Time was
meaningless to Brad’s mom too. She and Kevin
talked a lot. Every time he saw her,
she
cried. Not right away. She
pretended she was fine at the
beginning.
Then she’d ask Kevin if
he remembered a certain incident,
such as
the time she’d marched
Brad to the grocery store to return the
bottle money. And then
she’d cry. At first, Kevin felt funny
talking about Brad. He thought
the less he talked, the sooner the pain
would end. But it was just
the opposite. Talking made him feel
better. Sometimes it made
him laugh. More often, it made him
cry.
The letting go felt good.
But the searching for answers never
stopped.
Now, the knot
in Kevin’s stomach often loosens. His younger
brother tells a dumb joke about the
chicken crossing the road and
he laughs. The wounds are starting to
heal. And sometimes things
are almost as they were. He forgets
all
about Brad. The pain is
gone. Then, like a ghost, it reappears.
When he’s playing baseball
on a hot summer afternoon, or when
he
opens a bedroom dresser
drawer and finds an old shirt he once
loaned to Brad. How could
he ever forget?
Reactions to
Suicide
It’s been many years since I
interviewed
Kevin (not his real name)
about the suicide death of his best
friend. In many ways, his reactions
to Brad’s death mirrored my own and
those
of the majority
of others who have lost a friend or
family
member to suicide: the
denial, the blame, the guilt, the anger,
grief, search for answers,
and the healing that never goes in a
straight line.
Take a look at
the following quotes and decide which reactions
to suicide they each
represent.
one: “He’s
not dead. We’re playing cards tonight.”
two:
“ There must have been a reason
Brad
killed himself.
Someone was
responsible.”
three:
“ If only he had done something then,
maybe Brad would be
alive now. If he had made him talk
about
it. But Brad had said
he didn’t want to talk, and Kevin
hadn’t
pushed.”
four:
“ You go off and kill yourself
without
letting me know, without
letting me help. Okay. So you wanted
to
keep it to yourself.
Fine. Keep it all to yourself. I don’t
care. Just don’t expect me
to waste my tears over you. tears
streamed
down his face.”
five:
“ He wasn’t going to get all choked
up.
Not again. Brad hadn’t
talked to him, so why should he
care?”
six:
“But the searching for answers never
stopped.”
seven:
“ The wounds are starting to heal.
And sometimes
things are
almost as they were. He forgets all
about
Brad. The pain is
gone. then, like a ghost, it
reappears.”
one: Denial
When Kevin was first told that Brad
had
taken his life, he refused
to believe it. The truth was too hard
to
bear. How could his friend
do something like that? It didn’t
make
sense. And it was easier to deny
that his best friend wouldn’t be at the
card game that night, or any other night, than to accept that his friend was
dead.
Denial is a
short-term defense mechanism against death—
death by suicide or by any other
means. “I
can’t believe that this
has happened, that he won’t be
around
anymore.”
two: Blame
Kevin did his best to find someone to
blame for Brad’s death:
Maybe it was Mr. Brogan, Brad’s
father. He
hadn’t been the most
supportive of dads. Or maybe it was
the
friend who was hit by a car
in front of Brad and later died. Then
there was Olivia, who broke
up with Brad and broke his heart. Or
maybe
it was Brad himself;
he didn’t have a clue what he wanted
to do
after graduation.
Truth is there is never one reason
why
someone takes his/her
own life. And never just one
person to
blame.
three: Guilt
Friends of those who have taken their
own
lives, such as Kevin, feel
they could have prevented the suicide
if
only they had known how
unhappy their friend was. In some
cases,
they did know their friend
was suicidal but didn’t tell anyone,
probably because they were
sworn to secrecy. Secrecy is never an
option. If you sense or know
that a friend is severely depressed,
find
a trusted adult who can
help your friend get the professional
help
needed. Better to break
a friend’s confidence than to lose him
forever.
four: anger
Anger is part of the grieving process.
We
usually get angry when
feeling hopeless, helpless. You get
angry
at the friend who took his
life. Angry at the fact that he didn’t
bother to talk to you about his
problems, that he didn’t even say
good-bye. Angry at yourself for
not seeing the writing on the wall.
While
anger is a natural reaction
to suicide (to any painful loss), it
eases
over time. Most often,
the anger morphs into sadness and
forgiveness.
five: Grief
Everyone reacts differently to suicide.
Some people scream and
cry. Others, like Kevin, try not to get
emotional but waver back
and forth. But sooner or later, they’re
forced to accept the truth: a
friend is dead, and the death was not
a
mistake.
There are no
right or wrong ways to grieve. You can take all the
time you need, even when people say
things
like, “Well, you’ve got
your life back on track, right?” or
something more direct: “It’s time
to stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
Life
is not a TV show in which
characters “get over it” in thirty
minutes
to an hour. It takes time to
grieve. For many, the pain never goes
away; it becomes a dull ache.
six: Search for
Answers
For Kevin and everyone who has lost
someone to suicide, the
search for answers can be
confounding. If
someone dies in an auto
accident, there is a cause, a reason. If
someone dies from a disease
like cancer, there is a reason. If
someone
dies of old age, the death
is understandable. But suicide? There
are
only guesses as to why.
Some survivors,
like me, find comfort in talking to everyone
who knew the person who took his
life in
an attempt to find clues
or, in some cases, to find support.
The
act of doing something can
be helpful. I wrote a book. Now I’m
writing a second one. I’ve
learned a lot about my brother and
about
the way other people
remembered him. But after all these
years,
I still have many questions
that will never be
answered.
But I’m still
certain that my brother visited me after he died. I
know I wasn’t crazy when, a few
days after
my brother’s funeral, he
appeared in my bedroom in the
middle of
the night. I sat up and
turned on the light, and there he
was—dressed not in some white,
angel-like getup but in a pair of faded
jeans and a work shirt. I was
terrified and had no idea what to do
or
say. For three nights, my
brother showed up after dark. On the
third
night, I managed to
tell him how much I loved and
missed him
but that I understood
he’d made a decision to move on to
whatever was next. He nodded,
turned, and walked through my
closet.
I’ve retold
this story many times. And more often than not,
people look at me like I’m crazy.
They
think I’ve gone off the deep
end with grief. But I know what I
saw was
real. I know that my
brother needed my permission to
leave this
earth plane and that,
as his older, beloved sister, he’d
come to
me to cut the cord.
seven: Healing Never Goes in a
Straight
Line
There are days—even weeks or
more—when the
grieving stops.
Your life goes on. Then you hear a
song or
see an old friend or
attend a family event, and the pain
returns. Usually, the grief
doesn’t last as long as it used to. The
truth is: it never goes away
forever but leaves a dull ache that
comes
and goes.
Strategies:
Resources
If you know someone who has died
by
suicide and feel that you
need help or information, contact any
of
the following people or
organizations near
you:
• Local support group – You can use
support group directories
from, among others, the American
Foundation for Suicide
Prevention
(Afsp.org/find-support/ive-lost-someone/find-asupport-
group) and Suicide.org
(Suicide.org/suicide-supportgroups.
html).
• School counselor or teacher whom
you
trust
• Private counselors – Ask your
school
counselor or doctor for
recommendations.
