Suicide Strikes our Family

Dear Readers:

      I have made this blog a great part of my life for the past two years.  I have never missed a week.  Maybe posted late, but never completely missed a week.  I do this for Anna,me and  for those who live this life, and for those who want to understand this life.  Or maybe for those who just happen upon my blog and find a post or two interesting. 

     I missed last week due to the suicide of my mother.  As I type these words it seems like someone else should be writing them.  Who wants to type that?  Who wants to skip a week for that?  Nobody, ever.  

     So last week when this terrible event happened I stopped doing and going and felt a need to halt the blog for that week.  I felt and (still feel) the emotions that take you over.  I work in the death care industry, have a degree in grief counseling and have skills maybe your average griever might not.  But it still cuts and stings and there are no magic band-aids.  

    I am dedicating this blog to the Warrior moms and what we go through when tragedy strikes.  Anna has been taken care of but unaware of anything different except my energy.  Also, my absence as I make many trips to help with the aftermath of what it means to lose the last parent.  As caretakers we just move to the “take care of now” mode in this special needs parenting.  We move to make sure they are bathed, fed, supplies are ordered, and just work on autopilot of what we normally do.  Their clothes pile up in the hamper, we scurry to make sure all things are done.  One parent is absent on tasks you do after the death because they have to be at home to get them off the bus. Or perhaps the setting isn’t right for them.    

    I couldn’t even talk to my other daughter in person to tell her about her grandmother’s death because I needed her to be my backup for Anna.  A phone call to tell her the news and hope she can step in, or one parent isn’t going. I needed her to come get Anna at a few hours notice and get her off her bus.  You can’t take your child with special needs to a crime scene unless you have no other choice.  You begin the motions.  The “cruise control” of this special parenting kicks in.  You care for them but the extras go away while you deal with the crisis. 

   Are we prepared more because we have been in crisis many times?  Do we talk to those around us with realism because we have been in many serious situations?  We handle things that are more complex because our lives are more complex.  

   I tucked Anna in bed that night and I told her that grandma had died.  She didn’t look at me.  She didn’t change anything about her.  She was just doing what she always does in bed.  I still wanted to tell her.  I still needed to tell her.  It will not hit her like the rest of the family.  I stared at her and thought about not knowing, not understanding.  This is a good part of her in moments like this.   

   We planned the memorial gathering and I thought about the room and how to make sure Anna can be present but not a disruptance.  Another aspect of the Warrior Mom.  Include them but don’t make them become a disruptance, which is a fine needle to thread.   

  I had a sweet young boy in my life call me to offer his condolences.  He was real and honest.    He said he was sorry.  Long pause over the phone.  I thanked him.  “Boy, Aunt Jackie, you sure have a lot of hard things to deal with.”  Out of the mouth of a 13 year old.  We think to ourselves that (or at least I do) life gives us our heartaches.  It’s how we move in around and between them that matters.  

  Nobody is ever prepared for a suicide.  It’s shocking, bewildering, horrible, misunderstood, tragic, I could go on and on.  But when the sun goes down we just start the next day and try to remember the good.  Try to make it through the next heartache.  We hope beyond hope they will be spread far apart.  

   Hug those you love, keep those dates with friends, take those vacations, talk about life in a realistic way, and keep hope in your heart.  The heartaches are worth the lessons and people we get to love.  We can’t stop because of tragedy.  

And a quote from my mother, Suzanne, who is now out of her misery, her pain, her depression:

“Jackie, life is like a roller coaster, sometimes you are on top and the world is full of awe and happiness, and sometimes you are at the bottom and you wait desperately to get back to the top.”   –   Suzanne Leich    December 12, 1951 –  July 15, 2025