July 8

July 8 marks the anniversary of one of the most impossible days of my life. On that day in the year 2014, my father-in-law ended his life. I can’t say that I was oblivious to his pain or his fear. I had been sitting in the hospital waiting room with him for a couple of weeks at that point, as we hovered around his wife of 53 years during her recovery from a near-fatal medical emergency. I can’t say that I didn’t see evidence of his depression and his anxiety. He showed ample evidence of that as he struggled with all the decisions that needed to be made for Barb. I can say that his choice of how to deal with that pain and fear, that depression and anxiety completely knocked me off my feet. I did not see it coming, and I certainly did not see it coming on his 53^rd wedding anniversary.

As I don’t typically work during the summer, I am the one who had the most time to spend up at the hospital with Les and Barb. I was not there all the time, and many others came and went during that time, but I was there a good chunk the day of every day. I loved Les and I enjoyed spending time with him, for the most part. I don’t think I always chose the right way to counter his anxiety. He steadfastly refused to get any kind of help or to accept any shortcuts, and that frustrated me. I am sure my frustration showed at times. He mistrusted everything about doctors and hospitals. He held himself to a high standard of responsibility, duty, and even perfectionism. He knew how things SHOULD go and he wanted control of how they DID go – and it frustrated him when that kind of control was not possible. More than just frustrating him, it caused him pain and fear and ramped up his depression and anxiety. I knew that in an intellectual way but didn’t fully understand the perilous position it put him in.

Barb was about to be released from the hospital. Her medical crisis was past the critical point, but the degree of her recovery was still in question. There were so many unknowns. There was so little control any of us had over that. There were also things none of us knew or understood about Les himself. There was a tipping point, a point of no return. A measured and yet desperate act was about to happen, and I did not see it coming.

Every day after that, for many long weeks and months, I replayed July 7, 2014 in my mind. It was not a bad day. Did Les know it was his last time to see us? Were his goodbyes extra intentional? Should I have picked up on something that I did not? I WAS THERE. Why didn’t I notice something extreme was coming? Would one more hug or word of encouragement have made a difference?

Every year around this time all those feelings come flooding back to me. The ache, the betrayal, the pain that I felt. The notifications were the worst. Suicide is a tornado that rips apart the lives of those left behind, and it truly ripped apart my mother-in-law’s life. All we could do was keep putting one foot in front of another and hope that the decisions we were making for her were as right as they could be under such wrong circumstances.

There were some profound lessons to be learned in the raw, ugly, wounded life we lived during that time immediately following Les’s suicide. The first one is that people are amazing. I wish Les could have seen that, could have let those people be amazing for him, but I can tell you with certainty that SO MANY people loved him. They surrounded us, prayed for us, offered us food and time and hugs and so much love. They were a balm on our grieving souls. We found that accepting help was really the only way to survive.

We also learned that the grieving process with something like a suicide (or any grieving process, really) is not a linear thing and is not the same for any two people. What helped me did not necessarily help Barb or R.J. or anyone else. And that’s OK. We each had to find our own path to peace and forgiveness and back to the love we knew we wanted to feel for Les. 

I also became acutely aware of the nuances of struggles with mental health. Sometimes people really cannot get out of the hole they are in, the despair they feel, the helplessness and overwhelming sadness of their lives. They need intervention, but it is up to them whether they get it or not. I cannot live another person’s life for them or force them to accept help. I CANNOT. That took me a long time to process and accept. 

There was so much more. The ache is still there. I still miss Les. I wish he could have stuck around to meet my newest son-in-law and my grandchildren, his great grandchildren. I wish I could spend another day being frustrated by his habits. I wish he could have held Barb’s hand when she passed away in 2016. I wish I could hear him whistling or playing piano or ringing a bell.

I’m here to tell you what you already know. Life is short. Let go of that illusion of control, if you can. Forgive. Love. Enjoy the little things. LIVE.

And remember, I love you.