I celebrated an anniversary last fall. It was a milestone in my life, one that I never imagined I would have to celebrate: my 5th anniversary of my suicide attempt. Leading up to the fifth anniversary, I can honestly say that the days, months, and years went by without much fanfare or recognition. I’ve had jobs, broken hearts, the every day, somewhat mundane occurances of life. But five years of being alive after attempting to take your own life, I thought, was a big deal. I celebrated, and joined my festivities, in the birthday of a friend.
Me, centre, loving life with friends
Silly string included. The party was in early October, just a week after my official anniversary date of September 22nd. Just days before halloween, I was at my local Jacksonville haunt with friends when one told me of his plans for the famed Florida vs. Georgia weekend. He would be attending a funeral. He didn’t know the deceased, but was going in support of his friend, who was the twin brother. The brother had committed suicide. His fiance had found him that day after returning home from work. A gunshot to the head. Each morning she would call him to wake him up for work, as she was the first to leave. That morning he answered the phone and said he was up and getting ready for his own job. She had found him when she returned home that evening.
This friend of mine, the bearer of bad news, went to the same high school as I had. In my life, I haven’t known many sets of identical twins. I should’ve put 2+2 together immediately.
The next morning at work I went to Jacksonville.com and searched the obituaries, my interest piqued. His was the first on the page. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I read his obituary in disbelief. A double take. I printed it out. I bookmarked the page. Went back to view it many times over. I went to school with him. Really? Brett? How? Why?
Dozens of emotions hit me at once. Selfishly, one of my first thoughts was, “Right on the heels of my own celebration of my own attempt. I survived. Why couldn’t he?” I started recounting all the memories I could of our days together in junior high. I started to feel awful. I couldn’t even remember if we went to the same high school. Although I know it wasn’t at all personal, it felt like a stab in the back. Why was I still alive after my attempt- why was he able to follow through?
Brett was always “cool” and popular. Gorgeous. Every girl pined after him. In my freshman year, I thought I had a chance with him. I was dating someone at the time, but my closest girl friend was best friends with him and the two weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day, I hung out with Angie and Brett a whole lot. I couldn’t believe that was my reality. The night before Valentine’s Day she saw him buying red roses for his Valentine at the grocery store where she worked. We were certain it was me. I actually broke up with my boyfriend (how horrible, now, then, I was blinded by infatuation). His roses and affections were for some other girl. I suppose I quickly got over it. We never hung out again.
Brett was always the one always “in the know”; the bad boy from the “rich” family who had the popular head cheerleader for an older sister. My last remberance of him was during the grunge days of the 90s. Baggy pants. Vans. Flannel shirt over the Nirvana/Curt Kobain tee shirt. Long, blond surfer hair tucked behind his ears. Always in trouble with the teachers.
After that brief time with him at Lakeside, I was never close with him. I never spoke to him again. I wasn’t ever in his “circle”. For some reason, I guess because of his “bad boy” persona he emanated in junior high, I always assumed he would have a troubled life.
After spending some time with my friend (who told me of the news) on Halloween night, a Friday, my friend sped off that morning, late to the funeral. I wanted to go, but I felt that I didn’t belong because I didn’t actually know Brett. But I remember looking at the sky that morning on the balcony of my apartment, thinking of him. Mourning him, remembering him.”This is the day that Brett is buried.” It seemed that my adult life became real that morning- what we felt and thought in high school was no more. We are not immortal.
The first time I went to his grave was hard. I knew where he was buried thanks to his obituary. But I had to call the cemetary for the specifics. They gave me the grave marker. I never had to seek out a grave before, and I found it so impersonal. Unit 5. Lot 47. Space 10. Numbers to represent the final resting place of a life gone too soon. It doesn’t seem right.
Before I called the cemetary, I tried to find him on my own. It was a Saturday or Sunday. Immersed by grief, on a cloudy, rainy day, I found the cemertary and was overwhelmed by its size that spanned actual streets. I didn’t know where to begin to find him. I drove around and stopped by every grave that seemed to look “new”. I failed. I called my sister and father on my phone seeking advice and knowledge of seeking out a grave. Darkness spreading, I gave up, and in that, I felt as if I was giving up on him.
Days later I went after work. I brought his bouqet of white daisies and sunflowers into work with me. Others commented on how lovely the flowers were. When asked, I simply said, “They aren’t for me.”
I hurried from work that day to the cemetary, a fight for sun light. I called my mom. As a Hospice worker she was well acquainted with cemetaries. Being the super-mom that she always has been, she fought traffic and sun light (sunset) to meet me there so I could find him.
I made it before she did and in a panic, I walked with flowers and iPod in tow in hopes 0f finding Brett. As soon as mom pulled up, confused as to where to find me, I found him.
I stood there in the silence of the graves. The music of my iPod, depressing as the playlist might have been, I didn’t think it appropriate. Silence surrounded me.
I placed the flowers on his grave and just stood.
The sun was setting. The environment was becoming more eerie by the second. My mom stepped out from her car and then backed away, saying she would give me space.
I told her she could come. I asked her, “Why does it look as though he was buried in a casket? He shot himself in the head. You would think they would cremate him.”
My mother offered that we’ll never know if he was or not. I’ll never know, because as a stranger, I didn’t go to his funeral. I’ve often wanted to ask my friend, who did attend the funeral, but I’ve thought it inappropriate and uncomfortable.
His identical twin brother was supposed to speak at the funeral. He checked himself into the hospital before he could.
He has a memorial web site. The pictures that others have posted are of a different Brett that I never knew.
That first night in the cemetary, with dusk setting in- I felt terrified. For him. I had the harderst time leaving him. I could feel the loneliness. I felt like he didn’t want to be alone. I felt like I wasn’t there for him in life, so I shouldn’t leave him in death. And yet I knew I had to. I had to remind myself that he wasn’t there.
I couldn’t be there for him in life. I wasn’t a “friend” just an old classmate, an acqauaintance. He didn’t know me. I didn’t know him. And yet I couldn’t shake the thought that if I had just once shot, post 2003, if I could just tell him of my experiences, maybe I could have helped him.
I’ve been to his grave every few months since, to check up on him. I’ve taken a moleskine and pens and my iPod each time, trying to write down my sentiments. I know it’s not possible to be there for him in death, but I wish I could let him know that in some small way -despite lacking the knowledge and details of his death, that I’m here. That I remember him and think of him often.
Today, even, I thought of him. Mom and I were driving home from church. I pass the cemetary daily. I asked at the last minute if we could go by the cemetary and mom dodged traffic to get us to the exit. We drove through, and I walked onto the sacred ground, telling mom she could come along- I wouldn’t be long. It’s been a few months since I visited him last and I almost lost his grave. I’ve been waiting for his grave marker. The permanent concrete with his name. 7-8 months later, it’s still not there. They have taken out the plastic marker with his name. The tiny angel is still there, accompanied by the yellow fake flowers. I wondered aloud how long it takes to create a permanent marker.
Well, here, Brett- is mine, for you:
It’s simple. Just black Sharpie marker to plain white paper bag. I never saw it filled with sand or candle. No pictures, bright paint, streamers, or beading. I couldn’t fit the 5,000 words I’ve written to you on it. It may not be as elaborate as the others, but out of respect of your friends and family, I didn’t write your true first name or last. Just because you may not have a stone marker for your grave doesn’t mean that you aren’t remembered by at least one person. You’re still with us. At least with me.
That month, November of 2008, I had registered to take part in the National Novel Writing Month. I was prepared to write not a novel, but a memoir, of my life, just one aspect of it at least. With this new sadness and grief weighing on me, I wasn’t sure where to start. I began to write of my own suicidal past- I had vowed to many friends that I would one day start to write of my own life, as they had requested. Once I started, I found myself writing what would be unsent letters to Brett. I’m not sure how many words I wrote. I have all the letters saved on my macbook pro. Once I started writing my words, thoughts, and feelings, I had a hard time stopping. I suppose it was timely, in that, while finding my way through the grief process of his suicide, I came to touch upon what my loved ones might have experienced when I attempted only five years before.
I wasn’t inconsonable, but I faced grief in a way that I never had before. In 1999, my senior year of high school, I lost (to date) my closest family member, my grandfather, to natural causes. And yet, surprisingly, I didn’t grieve the same way. With Brett’s death, practically a stranger, I was almost beside myself. I spent most of my time with my mother at her house. I didn’t want to be away from my family. I wasn’t the social butterfly I had been. On one night only weeks after Brett’s suicide, my friends started to see a difference and would beg me to come be with them.
They would send me text message after text message, after I repeatedly said “No”: “There’s no time like the present.” “You have to live life now.” “You only have tonight.” I caved one night and went out with them, but even then I was in my own world, staring up at the stars seen through the tree branches above me.
That same night, I felt like I experienced a little bout of post traumatic stress syndrome. On my way to my friends, I was cut off by a fellow driver- a semi truck driver who made me swerve and I then started driving under the speed limit, out of fear. On my way home, I drove past an accident on the major highway. I witnessed a car overturned, with an ambulance, and I started sobbing for those involved, out of empathy and sadness at the thought and possibility of a life taken prematurely.
I never started, or finished my own memoir, before December 1st. One random Sunday afternoon while at lunch with my mother and grandmother, I asked my mom about the meetings she had been attending. It was something called “Grief Share”. As a social worker working for Community Hospice, she took a woman who had recently lost her husband to cancer. It wasn’t a requirement of her job, but my mom took this woman in order to help her through her grief, but my mom also went to further her education in the death and grieving process. Out of nowhere, I told my mom that maybe I would go. My mom was bewildered.
Do you need to go?
Maybe. (pause) A classmate of mine just took his life.
The sessions were already half-way through. I didn’t feel like I belonged. It was a small group. Mostly older women who had lost their spouses to disease or natural causes. I was the youngest member of the group. I remained silent. The leader of the group finally asked me at the end of my first session what brought me. I uttered my first sentence. And then I collapsed in uncontrollable tears. My mother rubbed my back, because my tears wouldn’t allow me to say anything more. The leader asked more probing questions because I wasn’t able to say anything more. I finally got it all out. I was surprised and encouraged by the others there who were so quick to talk with me, even though they knew nothing of suicide.
I went to the rest of the classes, which ended the week before Christmas with a “party” where we were supposed to bring pictures of those we had lost. I’m not very artistic. I wanted to paint a picture of a dark storm cloud- but with the sunlight and the sun rays finding their way through the black clouds.
I wanted to include a line from a Death Cab for Cutie Song: “I will follow you into the dark” but I wanted to add “and walk with you into the light”. I had spent weeks trying to paint the perfect picture, but it never worked out as I wanted, and I didn’t have any other picture of Brett, except for the one in our yearbooks- which were in storage. So I ended up talking about the very last, bittersweet memory I shared between my grandfather and I.
It was Brett’s suicide that finally made me decide what I wanted to do as a career: psychology, something I had already entertained before. I decided I would go into suicide prevention and community awareness- but yet I’m still not sure how.
Before I started school again in January 2009, I read everything about suicide I could get my hands on. I was relentless. Everything I wrote about or talked about was suicide. I ordered many books from Amazon on suicide, and I guess I became obsessed. I registered for To Write Love On Her Arms first-ever conference in the spring. I went in March and was so excited. I took so many notes and ran out of paper and left feeling like I wanted to completely immerse myself with these issues of depression, mental illness, self-injury, and suicide. During the months leading up the conference, I began to feel like an outcast with my friends- because I was obsessed with preventing suicide. It was all I could talk about. I would ask my friends, when they said they were “ok”- “but are you really? You know you can tell me anything. Are you really ok?” At the MOVE ‘o9 conference, I felt like I was “home” with “my people”. People who understood me. People I felt comfortable with talking about these stigma-tizesd issues.
Only two months after we all parted ways, we began talks of a summer reunion because we missed each other so much. Someone from Chicago mentioned getting together to participate in the Out of the Darkness overnight walk for suicide prevention. After all- this was one of the issues that brought us together in the first place. I had read about it a little before. When she mentioned it, I was all in. Not many others were.
I told my conference friend, Colleen, that I would go if she did and convinced her that fund raising wouldn’t be that difficult. We registered.
I flew into Chicago and within ten minutes of being in the O’Hare airport, at 11:00 p.m. our housing plans went amiss. I got on the train to the northside, not knowing where else to go, although I realised I wasn’t sure what my destination would be. It was chaos and I felt that my plans for a meaningful, wonderful weekend were going completely wrong. In the midst of a strange city, I knew there was no turning back. In the midst of my new five years alive, I had embraced chaos and adventure, and I had to remind myself that in the midst of uncertanity, I was living life to the fullest.
While on the train, I figured out, with the help of some friends, where I would stay. It turned out to be a very long night, and not the best start for the weekend.
The next day, I met up with my fellow Colleen and walker, along with my hostess for the weekend, Christina.
She showed us a bit of the city, and we ate some authentic Chicago pizza from Giordano’s. I missed the Tweeet-Up, with my fellow tweeters, but we made it to Soldier Field on time. Our cab driver asked why we were going there and we tried our best to inform him on suicide, and suicide prevention, as much as 5-10 minutes would allow us. He thanked us for enlightening him.
When we emerged from the cab, and we saw the yellow signs- we couldn’t believe we had made it. We received our beads first- and I was very excited about the beads. Once again, seeing the signs, I felt like I was home with people who have experienced what I have.
We registered and said our short goodbyes to Christina. She was the best host- making sure we were settled into what we had come to Chicago to accomplish. I only wished she could have walked alongside us.
Colleen and I visited all of the booths and while filling up on Gatorade and water, we bumped into one of the TWLOHA interns we had met during the March conference: WHITNEY! She was a sight for sore eyes. What a small world and what a wonderful place to see her once again.
Jules in the middle, Whitney on the far right.
Whitney, Colleen & Colleen
Colleen & I wandered around, taking pictures before the opening ceremony and then found a nice shady spot to lounge before things got started. While filling up on more Gatorade and water, Colleen & I bumped into Jules, another TWLOHA intern/staffer who Whitney said we might bump into:
Jules, Colleen & Colleen
How refreshing!
The opening ceremony was filled with stretching, stories, and tears. I couldn’t help but turn around and gaze upon the field of others just like me. The North Stars guided our way to the beginning of the walk, and I didn’t expect to burst into silent tears before the first mile. While the walkers began the walk by bumping into one another on the narrow way, my eyes couldn’t help but start the water works as family and friends lined up beside us- already applauding. They started holding up the signs and whistling.
At first, I didn’t take it personally. I didn’t have anyone I knew in Chicago cheering me on. Christina was, from afar, as she had already gone about her plans.
At our first cross walk, the OOTD volunteers were already encouraging us. We took it light-heartedly and laughing. Woo hoo! Less than 18 miles to go.
When the walkers started to spread out when we came up to the lake, Colleen and I couldn’t help but look before us and behind.
Less than five minutes in.
Along the lake front
We couldn’t believe the numbers who were joining us. It was astounding. It seemed never-ending. We celebrated and took pictures when we reached the first mile.
It seemed so easy then. I’m not sure when it started wearing on me. We reached the first rest stop and it was a complete party atmosphere with music and streamers and colours and balloons. “Is it going to be like this the whole way because this is AWESOME.” I’m not sure I have ever been greeted with more enthusism or encouragement. We didn’t spend too much time there. I had not had too much purple gatorade and took what snacks I could. We didn’t wait to eat. We continued walking.
I assumed, for some reason, that my fellow Colleen and I would hardly make it in the time we were supposed to. But in fact, at every rest stop along the way, we were always at least an hour ahead of schedule.
Along the first half of the walk, with open arms we embraced the soft, quiet rain, and the wind. I hoped the elements wouldn’t give us much more than they offerered, and they never did. I laughed, when we crossed the pedestrain cross road, over the highway and approached the baseball field, in the wind and rain, and as Colleen called her mother, we saw a bunny rabbit, which we came to find, is a common occurance in Chicago. I told Colleen’s mother “HI” while she was on the phone, and her mom was a bit confused for a second- “Why are you saying Hi? Ohhhhh….your friend Colleen!”. Colleens are amazing.
It wasn’t so much the length of the 18 miles. I never had bleeding feet or blisters, and although I brought a few extra pairs of socks and clothes to change int0- it was my backpack that gave me the hard time. I’m an over-packer. I had some TWLOHA shirts, my TWLOHA hoodie, as well as some black workout pants to change into, along with my Polaroid camera and s0me film- with some other junk “just in case”. Between miles 5-9, I thought I couldn’t make it.
Towards the half-way mark, Colleen and I had to start remembering why we were doing what we were, and what brought us to this city far from our home.
I kept reminding myself that I was not only walking for myself, but walking for Brett- who could no longer walk this life on his own. When I would become weary, the extraordinary ASFP staff would be riding their bikes along the way to check up on us. One of my favourite sights: a white conversion van decorated with streamers, paint, and glowing florescent necklaces- driving the streets of Chicago, honking at the walkers, shouting words of encouragement.
We made it to “lunch” at midnight- somewhere on the northside and once again we would be welcomed with banners and signs and claps and encouragement. I wasn’t even hungry. I just wanted to rest on the wet grass. Sitting down was an accomplishment. Getting back up was a feat. We saw an ambulance take away an injured walker.
And still we went on.
The last half of the walk was by far the hardest. Physically, I wasn’t sure I would make it, even as a somewhat-in shape 28 year old. I took a break more than once, as fellow strangers and walkers would see us sitting on the sidelines and would say “You’re doing GREAT! You’re almost there!”
Again, I had never experienced so much encouragement. The volunteers who acted as crossing guards dressed in orange- the most engouraging people I have ever met. They would life us up when we were tired and felt like we couldn’t make it. The strangers who were probably cheering for thier very own walkers, I embraced them as my very own and each time we encountered them, I choked up on the verge of tears and I started applauding THEM for being out so early in the morning, cheering us on: “You’re doing a GREAT job! I’m SO PROUD of you! THANK YOU for walking for us!”
It started hitting home as I fought back tears.
Back alongside the marina and lake front, Colleen thought that I would fall into the lake. I inched and stumbled closer and closer to the edge, closer to the docked sailboats- where Chicago residents were drinking on their investments late (2:00 a.m.) into the night. Colleen noticed and started walking closer to the land, and as my fellow walker, and at this point, my leader, h0ped that I would follow- so that she wouldn’t have to rescue me from the water.
I followed, and yet both of us at some point along that last mile had to stop on a bench to revive my back, and our feet. Still, our walkers would say, “You’re almost there!” and the occasional, “I could never stop…I would never get back up.”
More than once, on these breaks, I would get up from my hunched-back break and exclaim, “LET’S BRING IT HOME!”
We crossed under the overpass of Solidarity Drive (I should’ve taken a picture as I wanted to) and all the while, while realzing how close we actually were: the first thing I truly noticed- one thing I have come to absolutely LOVE:
the chirping of birds. What a BEAUTIFUL sound. The morning sound of a bird who can fly with wind, with freedom.
When I first heard the birds, I thought about this blog I would come to write and I started to form the first sentence of this first-hand experience (about the birds). How glorious.
We kept walking. We could see the end in sight. Before the birds, I wondered when we would see the luminaria bags, something I had been anticipating.
And then they were in sight. While my feet were screaming expletives at me, I slowed my pace, as did the walkers around me.
This was sacred ground.
While I looked for the too-simple bag I wrote Brett’s name on, I looked at the pictures, the names, the stories, the letters on the bags written by others. Some had fallen over on their self. Some were standing strong against the wind and breeze. I wasn’t just looking for Brett’s bag any more. I was competely overwhelmed and immersed in the lives represented.
I started crying. For some reason, I tried to hide it. I covered my face, my eyes. I’ve been so accustomed to embrassement because of these issues, because of speaking out, telling MY story. I was overwhelmed because of seeing, with my own eyes, the numbers (and still others) who lose their lives to suicide.
I still looked for Brett’s bag. While we walked step by step towards the finish line, more and more walkers began to clap for us. I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t concentrate on any one thought. Brett shot himself. I survived. I’m here. ALIVE. There’s the finish line. Strangers love me and understand. They’re clapping for me.
I wiped my face as I saw the yellow and blue balloons and the photographer. I smiled as best I could.
I escorted Colleen to the medical tent for ice and sat and rested as I watched others. While finishing, I thought all I was capable of doing was collapsing into a ball ont0 the ground.
However, what was beneath the physical wanted me to go encourage those still crossing that finish line. In baby steps, Colleen and I walked across the line to the other side (I had some sort of holy respect for the walk way and didn’t want to cut across) where we sat down, and stretched ourselves out. I changed into my hoodie and flip flops and clapped and cheered for those we would never come to meet.
We cheered as individuals crossed. We cheered as colour-coordinated groups would be within yards of the finish line, embraced, and cried. These two girls, seemingly in a group all their own, stopped, grabbed hands, and RAN to the finish line. I wished in that moment that Colleen and I had done that.
They RAN, not walked, to the finish line.
They had an appropriate soundtrack playing in the background of the shouts and applause. I’m not sure what song was playing when we finished, but it was full of U2’s “Walk On” and Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten”.
An immense amount of planning went into this event, and it showed. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention gave us a walk that seemed effortless. While I have never experienced a walk for any other event, this event was flawless, from the eyes of a participant. I don’t think they overlooked a single detail- from the emails to the walkers with news and plans and details leading up to the walk to the ease of the registration- the volunteers on bikes and the crossing guards who were filled with energy- perfection. The snacks and provisions they provided were plentiful. The banners. The signs. The white van. At the first rest stop they handed out safety pins with yellow and blue beads. I never understood what they were, and I sadly lost mine- but they were down to the detail.
I have to applaud every staff member and volunteer on every level. As a first time participant, I have absolutely no complaints. Their vision is focused. If I had to applaud any one thing, it would be the encouragement along the way. I could not have done this 18 mile walk without the countless encouragers along the way.
A week later, I’m still wearing my yellow bracelet, with no plans to take it off in the near future.
I am proud to be a part of such a wonderful selfless organization and I look forward to donating my money, time, and efforts to them in the future.
To all the thousands of walkers whom I didn’t get to meet- Thank you- and way to go. Thank you for raising the funds, and the awareness, and making sure the light of those we have lost will NEVER go out.
To those we walked for- we love you more than you could ever know. You are loved, and NEVER forgotten.
