They Told Me Not to Call it Suicide — Reclaiming the S-Word
The phone rang at 11: 23pm and I knew something was wrong. My brother’s name appeared on caller ID. No one ever calls that late with good news. Especially from Alaska. I paused, then picked up.
He asked me to sit down. Nothing could prepare me for the words that followed.
“I think Alex killed himself.” I could tell he was crying. “I saw it on Facebook. I don’t know what to do.”
Our baby brother had ended his life a few hours before, the one who was supposed to outlive us all. I guess I should feel honored that Jake called me first.
Growing up, I was the big sister who took care of things for my five younger siblings. Our twice divorced mother wasn’t around much for nurturing. She was always working. Or running. Or going for long bike rides to stay sane. In between meals, laundry, groceries, and bills, she needed her alone time.
It fell on me to cover the gaps.
I cooked, cleaned, babysat, read bedtime stories, enforced naps, baked cookies, and as soon as I could drive, became a taxi service to daycare.
Jake thought I’d know what to do when the unthinkable happened.
As if anyone could prepare for that phone call. There’s no reference book on how to handle suicide gracefully. If there were, would anyone buy it? We spend our lives hoping something like this never happens.
That word never leaves you. Suicide.
Especially when you’re not supposed to speak it.
I quickly learned most people don’t want to hear the S-word. The ones who look away, avert their eyes, the uncomfortable silence. The people who pretend they didn’t hear it and abruptly change the conversation.
No one prepares you for the shame. It’s not supposed to happen to your family. In your circle. It’s a topic people avoid like the plague.
But the S-word also shows you who’s compassionate. The people who reach over and touch your shoulder, instead of turning away. Who furrow their brow and wince at your unimaginable loss.
Those are the people you want in your life. For me, the S-word became a gauge which I’d use to measure someone’s empathy. A filter for those not worth my time.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, cradling the phone to my ear, I tried to be strong. Because strength is the measure of worth in my family.
And in society — resilience is revered. My mind raced for a calm way forward, but there is no such path. Once those words were uttered, we could never go back to the way things were. The unknowing.
“Are you sure?” I struggled to process the words.
“It’s all over Facebook,” his voice trembled. “I reached out to his best friend to confirm it. He tried to stop him, but it was too late. Alex shot himself.”
Just like that. The nightmare was real, there was no waking up.
Jake shared the grizzly details he’d gleaned from the friend who found him. The last person my brother texted before he pulled the trigger. That’s another thing you’re not supposed to share. How the person did it.
Don’t ask, don’t tell.
“I told him to take the post down until family could be notified. I didn’t want anyone else to see it online… What do we do?”
No one should find out on social media their loved one has killed themself. And yet, this is the age we live in. I commended my brother’s quick thinking and weighed our options. Thoughts went to my mother, sound asleep several hundred miles away.
I didn’t want to be the person who woke her up in the dead of night with such horrendous news. I just couldn’t. Thankfully, my brother agreed to do it. After all, he was the one who discovered it. We decided he should break the news. Then we divvied up our siblings.
Jake would call our younger brother first, who lived closest to the scene. It would hit him hard. I would call my sister. She could notify their dad (our former stepfather), who lived in Florida.
Of course, my sister didn’t pick up. So, I left a message…
“I’ve got really bad news. Please call back. As soon as you get this.”
I waited five minutes, then tried again. This time she answered.
The first thing you tell someone is to sit down. It’s code for, brace yourself — someone has died. The bedspread or seat cushion is a much softer landing than falling faint to the floor.
My family is blended, like many American families. Divorce, step siblings, remarriages. And lots of terrain in between.
Technically, the youngest three are only my half-siblings — people like to point this out, when they’re trying to understand my family relations. As if I didn’t know that already.
I’ve learned to politely correct them — I don’t think of my siblings as half of anything. After all, I helped raised them.
I changed their diapers, dried their tears, made them sandwiches. And for ten years, their father was my father. I called him dad, and took his name for a while. They are simply my brothers and my sister. End stop.
We don’t get to choose our families. We’re all stuck in this big soup together.
As the dominoes began to fall into a serpentine line winding through the digital universe, the plastic chips picked up speed, clicking fervently as they raced through power lines and fiber optic cables.
You forget to breathe in the aftermath, clenching your jaw as lead fills your chest. A dead weight that takes years to dissipate and soften, before it’s slowly absorbed into your being.
We all knew Alex was depressed. After divorcing his high school sweetheart, he moved back home to wait tables at The Olive Garden. He wanted to go to college and become a teacher. No one knew he’d bought a gun.
Why didn’t we see it coming? What could we have done to stop him?
You become a sleuth for a mystery that will never be solved. Like most people who take their own lives, Alex didn’t leave a note. We were left to grasp at straws and search his Facebook feed for clues.
He’d been self-medicating his depression with alcohol for a long time. As we spoke with his friends, we realized he’d been planning it for months.
Alex had mentioned his suicidal plan while drunk at a party one night. Friends were disturbed enough to call authorities. The police visited his apartment and asked a few questions. That was it. Of course he denied it.
No one ever bothered to call his family and let us know. If they had, I believe my baby brother would still be alive today.
The first thing counselors tell you is that every suicide is preventable.
The urgency will pass, and the fog of desperation lifts. Especially with proper medication. There are always warning signs, if you know what to look for.
And speak up.
The majority of people who attempt suicide are suffering from some form of mental illness. Many who succeed are abusing drugs or alcohol.
The S-word isn’t really about suicide — it stands for shame and stigma. Silence is what prevents people from getting help when they feel suicidal.
Sadly, the shame doesn’t end if they’re successful… It only intensifies, and gets passed on to survivors. Society expects us to be silent as well.
It was August 24th when my youngest brother killed himself, nine years ago today. He was only twenty-five.
Luckily, my brother was beloved by his peers. The outpouring of support from his friends and coworkers helped us through the reckoning. We planned a large public memorial so they could grieve openly with us.
No one ever got a chance to say goodbye.
It’s challenging to memorialize the life of someone who kills themself. Especially when your family is adamant the S-word is never used.
Don’t call it suicide. Those were my instructions.
It fell upon me to compose the obituary, and I poured my heart into those words. People get particular about obits, especially in a blended family. I went through many edits and reviews, to ensure no one was left out or offended. I did my best to make everyone feel a part of his life, and respected the wishes of my grieving parents. We omitted cause of death.
No one wants to end a story on a dark note, so you look for the good, and celebrate whatever happy memories you can summon when all you want to do is cry.
Managers of the restaurant where Alex worked were devastated, and offered to provide a lavish buffet for the event. His coworkers held a car wash to raise money for expenses. Then donned their black and whites to serve us in our sorrow.
We feasted on unlimited breadsticks and salad in his honor, with overflowing trays of cold cuts, cheese, and antipasti. These gracious acts of kindness are what sustained us. And I will never forget them.
Over three hundred people attended his memorial. To know that my brother was loved and mourned by so many made our grief bearable. Everyone who had known him wanted to pay their respects — high school coaches, teachers, employers, girlfriends, coworkers, classmates, neighbors. Hearing their stories and seeing their tears helped soothe the overwhelming shame.
We didn’t have to say the S-word that day. Everyone knew what happened. His death ripped through the community like a tsunami… His Facebook page flooded with glowing tributes and heartbroken expressions of shock for over a year.
I did manage to convince my mother and sister we should set out suicide prevention pamphlets at the event. Just in case…
I treasure his brave friends who came forward to share their stories. All the times Alex worked in a soup kitchen, and served the homeless meals. The jokes he played at work, how he made people laugh. Shining examples of generosity and kindness.
Everyone talked about the size of his heart, how it was even bigger than his body. Alex was very overweight in the last couple years, and struggled with the shame of obesity.
A petite brunette stood at the podium with the microphone clutched in her hands, sobbing as she recounted her fallen friend. “A big teddy bear,” she called him.
Hanging out at a local park one afternoon with his friends, a man fell to the ground nearby, struck his head, and began to bleed profusely. My three-hundred-pound brother rushed to his side, and fell to his knees to administer aide. Alex tore off his shirt, baring his blubbery middle for all to see. In that moment, he didn’t care about his weight. He wrapped the man’s head with his shirt, to control the bleeding until an ambulance arrived.
She laughed through her tears, and the audience nodded in awe of his selfless compassion. We should all hope that such a story will be told about us some day.
It made me proud to be his sister.
If only Alex could have shown himself the same compassion, and felt the love of all those people gathered that day, he could have found a way forward. If only he could have saved himself, and sought treatment for his depression.
The stigma of mental health festers in our society, and suicide has become an epidemic, especially among the younger generation. But things are starting to change…
People are beginning to share their private struggles with depression and anxiety. We should commend them when they do, because it normalizes mental health.
It’s taken me nine years to write about my brother’s death. To put the S-word in print.
Grief takes a long time to process, especially in a world that never stops spinning. People expect you to get on with life, and leave your sorrows buried in the ground, out of sight. Out of casual conversation.
Omit the cause of death. Now, I refuse to…
When I re-entered society after suicide, I was unwilling to remain silent. I saw the danger of sweeping ugly things under the carpet, and found healing in the power of words. It’s important to give voice to our fears and failings, so that shame does not consume us.
It’s equally important to listen, even when it’s uncomfortable. To see when someone is hurting, and place your hand on their shoulder when you don’t know what to say. The deepest grief you can suffer is in silence.
Which is why I use the S-word. And you should too…
Don’t be afraid to reach out if you suspect someone is struggling with depression. Or to speak up if you need help — There is hope.
If you are in crisis, call the toll-free National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1–800–273-TALK (8255). Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The service is available to anyone. All Calls are confidential. http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
Please take a moment to program this number into your phone — You might just save a life!
