Acknowledgements

To THE SPECIAL PEOPLE whose energy and support helped me write this book: Jerry Cleaver, giver of “The Voice”; Marcia Marshall, believer in “The Voice”; Dr. Mary Griffin, a guiding force; Nancy Bohaboy and members of Buffalo Grove High School’s peer counseling group; Karen Gunderson and the staff at Chicago’s Barclay Hospital; Colonel Ted Atwood and the friends of Ted Atwood and Amy Pintarelli; Anthony Wiggins; Florea Dersam; Ernest, Carol, Elaine, Amy, and Paul Fluder; Dixie Logue; Ronald and Beverly Geske; Brian Wydra; Father Charles Rubey and the members of LOSS (Loving Outreach to Survivors of Suicide); Natalie Ruby; Lil Scalise; and my family . . . Shirley, Morris, Liz, John, Alan, and Joshua.

Some of the names in this book have been changed in cases where the people referred to would prefer to remain anonymous.

A fire is cold compared to the fever that rises
each day in my head

Day reaches for night and

Night becomes the day

In that manner I pray

God grant me the power to reach for my glory

And the key mystically moves with my will . . .

If death be life

As life is death

I yearn that coming with all my might

Let me see the light

that burns within me

For I cannot withstand the pain.

—Robin Mersky

1.

When It's Someone You Know

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. Never mind. He and Brad were going to have a ball over the 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 and her stupid new boyfriend. Kevin would make sure of that.

He closed his eyes. Thinking about his summer plans with Brad made him even more anxious for the school day to end. He needed to talk to Brad. They had a lot to work out.

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? Slowly, 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,” Kevin said calmly. “We’re playing cards tonight.”

Ms. Davies bit her upper lip. “I can imagine how you feel.”

The funny thing was, he didn’t feel a thing.

“There’s a detective in Mrs. Lyons’s office waiting to talk to you. He wants to ask you some questions.”

“We’re playing cards tonight. We always play on Friday,” Kevin insisted.

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. His best friend Brad was dead. The thought of him sitting in the garage in a car with motor running, waiting to die, made Kevin shudder.

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 took a few steps toward the casket and stopped. He wasn’t ready. Not yet. Besides, Brad wasn’t really in there. It was someone’s grandfather, someone old and sick. Brad was too young to die.

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 Brad chain-smoked when he played cards with the guys but never touched a cigarette in front of her. If only he could reach out and hug her and make everything like it was. But he could barely remember the last time he had hugged his own mother.

He found a seat. But he heard only bits of the minister’s sermon. “ . . . take solace in the fact that Brad, desperately confused and unhappy in life, has found eternal peace and happiness in the arms of the Lord.”

The knot in his stomach tightened. Brad had had a few problems. Who didn’t? His girl friend Olivia had started dating someone else. Brad had cried when he’d found out. Olivia was the first girl friend he had ever had. 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.

He moved from the foot of the casket, along the side, up to the head. He stared down at the body that didn’t look a thing like his best friend. What had the mortician done? Brad’s once-muscular chest was almost concave. His stomach looked like a beach ball ready to explode. Why couldn’t they have left him alone? He jammed his fists into his suit pockets and turned away.

As the last of the guests left the chapel, the funeral director closed the casket and motioned for the pallbearers to come forward. He felt relieved. He knew Brad felt better, too.

Mrs. Brogan broke the silence. “I don’t want it closed,” she said, tugging at the lid of the casket. “Let me see him one more time.”

“You’ve got to let go,” Mr. Brogan pleaded “Please don’t . . . ”

“It’s easy for you. You’ve had a lot of practice letting go. You never gave him what he needed.”

“For God’s sake, leave the casket be.”

Kevin stood and watched in horror. Couldn’t they wait?

There had to be a reason why Brad had killed himself. 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’d realized that what she’d done was right.

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 had 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 killed himself. What could have been so bad? It made no sense.

He spent hours sitting on his bed listening to the same record. Sometimes he was certain that the footsteps he heard approaching his room were Brad’s. Just like old times. But it was never Brad. He’d never see him again. That was the worst part. Never again.

Brad and he had grown up together, living two houses apart for over fifteen years. Now Kevin was alone. It wasn’t fair. Oh, God, just bring him back. I’ll never do anything bad again.

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, 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 only talked about the accident 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 wasn’t the same after that. He 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 killed himself 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. The two had never really gotten along except when Brad played on the football team. After he quit, his dad was always cutting him down, telling him he’d better “wake up and smell the coffee before it’s too late.”

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 had better come right away. Brad said the one side of his dad’s face had looked like it had been mashed in a blender. He was cut up so badly that 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 it was Olivia. Maybe this was all her 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. But when he heard Olivia was dating someone else, he started to cry. He picked up the phone and asked her out. She said no. Brad didn’t go out with girls after that. He played cards with Kevin and the other guys instead.

“You’re lucky,” he said to Kevin during a card game.

“You know what you want to do. You’ve got your art. You want to be an artist. I’ve got nothing.”

Kevin felt uncomfortable. He knew Brad was having a hard time. “You’ll get it together,” he said.

Brad stared into space.

He called Olivia again. He wanted to see her. She said okay, but bring Kevin along. When the two got to Olivia’s, she was with her new boyfriend and some other guy. Without saying a word, Brad turned and stormed out the front door. Olivia followed.

“I figured this would happen,” the new boyfriend said.

“He’s upset,” Kevin mumbled.

He hated Olivia for setting this up. What was she trying to prove?

After what seemed like hours, Brad and Olivia came back.

“Let’s split,” Brad said. Kevin took one look at him and knew he meant business.

Outside, Brad insisted on walking home. “Just go. Take my car and go.”

“I can’t take your car.”

“Take it,” he said, shoving the keys into 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 in the ignition, and 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 killed himself, Kevin halfheartedly agreed to play poker with some of the guys. He had to get out of the house.

Slouched in his chair, he reached for each of the five cards dealt to him. A king and ten of diamonds. He’d keep those. A two of hearts, seven of clubs, queen of spades. Those he’d discard. He slammed the three cards down on the table. Just then, something very strange happened. He smelled the sweet fragrance of roses all around him. But there were no roses in the room. And he started to shiver, even though it was a very warm summer night. It‘s you, Brad, isn‘t it? He was breathless. You‘re here, aren‘t you? He glanced nervously at the other guys. Did they feel Brad’s presence, too?

Okay, it’s just you and me. A shiver ran up his spine. You really botched things up. Caused a lot of grief around here. Your mom is having a real hard time. And I miss you so much. Kevin swallowed hard; he didn’t want to start to cry. Not now, with the other guys around.

Kevin blinked. He couldn’t believe what he saw. There, standing in front of him, was Brad. He was sure of it. Cautiously, he reached out to touch him. Too late. Brad had already turned from him and started to walk away.

After that night, Kevin read everything he could about death and dying. He had to know whether he was crazy or not. Had he really seen Brad or was it all a figment of his imagination? Combing through a book about death, he found a section on the Hindus and their beliefs. It said that the Hindus believe that the soul of a dead person floats around right after death, trying to make contact with those it loved. It also said that the soul of someone who takes his own life floats around even longer. Kevin was relieved. It had been Brad he’d seen. He wasn’t crazy after all.

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 new boyfriend had broken up.

He organized more poker games, hoping that Brad would show up again. He never did. He tried staying up all night, afraid Brad wouldn’t be able to wake him if he were sound asleep. After five sleepless nights, he gave in and slept thirteen hours straight.

Weeks turned into months. He never saw Brad again. But he 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.

The knot in Kevin’s stomach 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 attacks. Playing baseball on a hot summer afternoon, opening a bedroom dresser drawer and finding an old shirt he once loaned to Brad. How could he ever forget?

. . . . . . . .

Later Reactions And Feelings

Blame

It’s not unusual to look for someone to blame. Brad’s mother blamed his father. Kevin blamed Brad’s father and his girl friend Olivia. Blaming, of course, doesn’t change a thing. Suicide is a decision that comes from within when someone finds the idea of dying less painful than continuing to live.

Idolizing

Sometimes it’s easier to remember a suicide victim as “perfect,” as someone who could do no wrong. The problem here is that such feelings may make it harder to deal honestly with the death.

Sensing One’s Own Mortality

When someone close dies, it makes death very real and reminds all of the survivors that they, too, will die. Some people may become very careful in everything they do. Others may start taking risks to “tempt fate” and prove that they aren’t going to die.

Hope

Finally, friends and family are able to begin to have hope for the future. They realize that their lives will go on. And they may have learned some valuable lessons from such a terrible experience.

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:

1. Local mental health agency

2. Local health department

3. Suicide support groups

4. Clergy

5. Private counselors