Suicide - Addressing the Elephant in the Room

At 1:20 p.m. on Thursday, November 29, while on a Cadre conference call, Jay came in to tell me, "Your mom and sister have been trying to get ahold of you, it's an emergency." I then made the worst phone call of my life. My sister informed me on the other end of the line that my dad had committed suicide. My niece had found him and, at the time, they were all standing outside his house waiting for the police to get through. All that I remember repeating over and over again was, "I'm on my way home, I'm on my way home, I'm on my way home."

Jeanne wanted to put me on a plane. I wanted to drive. Out of concern for me, she wanted to put someone in the car with me for the 11 hour drive, I wanted to be alone ... I needed to be alone. I needed 11 hours with Jesus to cry, scream, beat the steering wheel and be silent.

The next four days were a blur. While I don't remember many of the conversations, the text, calls and emails flooded in. I came away thinking, "Wow, am I loved." My friends, family and church could not have expressed love any better.

I decided to do my father's funeral. I knew he would want me to if I could. With the Lord's strength I was able to pull it off. Afterwards, my sister said, "When did you decide to tell everyone he committed suicide? It's ok ... really it is ... I think it was important, but you are usually a more private kind of person than that." I told her, "Honestly, it never even came across my mind not to tell." Most already knew anyway. I guess, with out thinking, I thought I'd address the elephant in the room. What I spoke at my dad's funeral is below.

I once was at a 10 a.m. funeral and the pastor began by telling us “good mourning.” I will never forget those words, because… as he would begin to explain, he wasn’t talking “good m-o-r-n-i-n-g” (like we would say before noon) but good “m-o-u-r-n-i-n-g.”

Good mourning means taking the time to celebrate the memories you’ve been given that will forever be impressed upon your heart. It doesn’t mean that you have to deny the fact that, while being temporarily parted, you will miss someone dearly. But be grateful for what will live on in your heart long aft a loved one departs for chapter two of their life, be grateful and mindful of what will live on after you depart for chapter 2 of your life.

While it’s 2 p.m. in the afternoon, I want to say Good Mourning to you as well. While my father has passed away, may you not think of his final days so much as the great days gone by. So today, cry some, but allow yourself some time to smile and laugh over the memories. In fact, I give you permission to, even in the next few moments.

As so many of you expressed yesterday, you loved my dad and have fond memories of him on the golf course, at the club, putting labels on Oasis envelopes or working at Dodge the 40 years he was there. We, his kids, have lots of fond memories as well.

One that my sister will always remember happened earlier this year. While she was on task force with Marriott in Florida for a couple of weeks, the South Bend Marriott back home, where she’s given 25 years of her life, was important and dad knew it and was proud of her because of it. The regional vice-president was coming to the South Bend Marriott for a visit and the office area was in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. She knew that she was in trouble when the people responsible to make it happen took 8 hours to do ½ a wall. So Sherri gave dad a 9-1-1 call from Florida and he came to the rescue and painted and painted and painted some more while she was away. While he had to pop aspirin and put on a lot of Ben Gay afterwards, he got the job done and done well. She was grateful and will forever remember those moments in time.

Moments that my brother will always remember happened a couple of years ago when houses were being reassessed. My brother got an astronomical tax bill. Under my father’s guidance, my brother took on the tax man. He took pictures of the houses around him, talked about the nasty road and how the trains honked every 15 minutes. By the time he left the tax assessors office, he was paying less in taxes than even before the reassessment. My father was proud of him for that, my father was even more proud that my brother continues to live in the house that he built in 1981.

Perhaps, the one that will forever be emblazed in my head and on my heart was when I was in fourth grade. In fourth grade my dad did the most bizarre, out-of-character thing I’ve ever seen him do before and since. He let my sister and me skip school and had us go fishing with him. We started the day by stopping at this little hole-in-the-wall grocery and bait store where we picked up worms, Pepsi’s and hostess cupcakes. It was a great day of fishing, with few on the lake, which was a good thing because when little girls drink Pepsi on a boat, eventually they have to go pee and since we don’t have the equipment to go over the side of the boat, I remember peeing in a bucket. That day I didn’t care, my sister didn’t care, and my dad didn’t care for we were fishin’ … together. My most recent memory was him and I playing the last game of Eurche at Chris’ house the day after Thanksgiving. We took it for a win. It was a great evening with my dad and my friends.

As far as Thanksgiving itself goes, just one day earlier, it was a day of food, friends and family. I had worked some long hours leading up to it and we had buried my cousin’s son, Brian, the day before so it was a pretty quiet holiday. After Thanksgiving dinner, my dad, my friend Loretta, her mom and I sat in front of Sherri’s big screen TV and began watching the first season of the TV series “Heroes.” I was so tired I think I fell asleep half of every episode I watched. But I was awake long enough, to watch the character development of a small Chinese or Japanese man named Hiro … H-I-R-O. Hiro had the ability to bend time … he could stop it, start it, go forward or backward.

In one episode it was love at first sight with this waitress. The problem was that quickly after meeting her, while he went to the restroom, she was in the storeroom being murdered. Hiro spent the rest of the episode trying to go back in time in order to prevent the death from happening. He wanted to change the circumstances, he was so wishing for a “do-over.”

Have you ever wished for a “do-over?” I have countless times! Obviously, last weekend was one of them. Knowing what I know today, I would have done things a lot differently with my dad. However, this wise person once told me “Judy, wish in one hand and poop (well that wasn’t exactly the word they used) … wish in one hand and poop in the other and see which one fills up the fastest.” Some of you are thinking, Judy that’s sick. It’s sick, but it sticks. At least, it’s stuck with me for years. I don’t “wish” for a lot of things, I go after what I want. I’ve been told on more than one occasion, “Judy, you are a make it happen person.” Why? Because wishing for something doesn’t get you very far and leaves you empty handed. Wishing for a do-over Thanksgiving weekend is not going to get me very far and it’s not going to get you very far.

More than one of you over the last few days have said to me, “Judy, I wish I would have known just how much your dad was struggling. I wish I had done more.” As do I, but hindsight is always 20/20. But know this my friends, know this my family, know this church when you look in the mirror and reflect, the words you should say to yourself aren’t “I wish…” but “well done.”

1. To the countless who went to his bedside while in ICU just a month ago, well done.

2. To those who have called and checked in, took him to dinner, played cards … well done.

3. To my brother, who took him into his home after his release from the hospital and tried your best to love and serve him, in your own Randy kind of way, well done. Then prepared his home for re-entry with a new storm door, rewiring the stove and getting the leaky fawcet fixed because you knew it bothered him, well done.

4. To my sister who took him to church with me before I moved to Atlanta and without me after the move, then out to lunch afterwards … starting a new family tradition … well done.

5. To my niece who moved in with him last Sunday to try and provide some support and company, well done.

6. To my mom, who with her own divorce pains, stopped in and checked on him, fed the cat who has a bottomless pit and cleaned the bathroom tub for him on her hands and knees, among numerous other things, well done.

7. To my friends, who loved him, prayed for him, took him meals, stopped and talked even though it was awkward for you because he really didn’t want to talk, well done. You know over the last several days my sister said more than once “Judy, you have great friends!” Boy do I know it!

Given the outcome, while it doesn’t “feel” like “enough” right now, family you did well, friends you did well, church you did well. Let yourself off the hook that my father hung himself on. If you don’t, more than one person will have surrendered true life this past Thursday morning.

You’ve got to understand my dad struggled with being bi-polar for years. I never took “mental illnesses” very seriously, always thought with a little “self-talk,” you should be able to pull yourself out of anything. Didn’t take it very seriously that is until I lived with it up close and personal with my dad who was always solid and strong … stubborn … but solid and strong.

The most recent days weren’t his first bout with it. I remember a year and a half ago, when he was deep into a depressive swing. Often times when I’d come home late at night after work, I found myself stopping by his door…My honest goal? I stopped to make sure he was still breathing. His snoring never sounded so good. Those were tough, tough days. Recently … tough, tough days came as well. The swings from manic to depressive were becoming more frequent. Normalcy seemed illusive.

While simple, I process the whole thing this way. When someone is being tormented by another, there is usually opportunity to flee. However, when you are being tormented by your own mind, and the medicine is not working, or poorly administered, and, for some reason, answers to prayers are not coming fast enough, there is no place to flee. In the midst of his despair, he saw no way out. And, while I will never believe suicide is a solution to any situation … hear me, any situation! … I do not know what it’s like to live with a tormented mind that you can’t shut off.

Just for the record. Do I believe he’s in heaven with Jesus, yes I do. Do I think Jesus holds my father’s suicide against him, no I don’t … he was a sick man, he had cancer of the mind and it won a temporary victory.

While I expect it to unfold, I can’t see the big picture of how all of that is happening right now plays out for any good, but I do know this … I can choose to allow this situation to make me bitter and mess me up for the rest of my life… or I can choose to become better. I’ve been around the block enough to know that, figuratively, bitterness will leave me hanging on the hook right alongside my father. So today and every day, I will choose to allow difficult situations, even ones as difficult as this, to make me better. In particular, I choose to try to love better – love Jesus better and love people better - everyday. I don’t care if the people that I choose to love better the world considers the cream of the crop or the bottom of the barrel.

Every day, I want to try and love Sarah better, Josh, Dee and Ashlyn better, Sherri and Randy better, my mother better, my friends better, the rest of my family better. And now let me be very transparent: I’m up here today because I want to love you better. It would have been far easier to have asked someone else up to speak today…someone that many of you probably would not have known personally. But I thought you might be able to hear better from me … So I decided to love you better today by sharing myself. And somehow, I hope that my choice to “love you better” sends you out these doors today more determined to “love others better” in your own life.

For me, when it comes to trying to figure what it means to “love better,” I look to Jesus. Most of you don’t know this but from about 16-24, before I met Jesus, I was so angry at my dad. I hated his guts and wasn’t afraid to let him know it. I knew I was in trouble when a friend asked me right after I asked Jesus to be the leader and Lord of my life, “Judy, do you even want to see your father in heaven.” When I couldn’t answer that question with a resounding “yes,” I knew there was work to be done. And over the last 20 years, Jesus did that work and helped me to forgive and be forgiven. But I’m still a punk, less of a punk than 20 years ago, but still a punk. In my sin, I’m still a know it all … I still want to write my own story on how things should be even though sometimes I’m too stupid too know how things should be. I need help figuring out how to “love well.”

There are verses in the bible that help me. Verses I think we waste on weddings alone, but really apply to every relationship everyday. In 1 Corinthians 13 it says,

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

I’ve given it to you with magnets so maybe you can put it on your fridge.

At the bottom of it, it asks two simple questions…
How did you do at loving people well today? … and …
Who do you need to call or text?

I’m going to leave you with one last true story...
When my father was in the Navy somewhere near Spain, they came across a boat that was capsized. There was a mother in the water going under quickly, desperately holding her baby in the air. My father grabbed the baby first, and in the instant that it took to get that baby in the boat it was too late for the mother. She went under.

No matter what he did, my father couldn’t save the mother. My point? We couldn’t save my father … but we CAN make a difference in our babies’ lives. Some of our babies here today are 3 and some of them are 33. Some are biological and some are simply people God put in your sphere of influence. Seriously, the only thing we can do today that really matters for all eternity is choose to love better than we did yesterday. Love Jesus better and love others better. So that someday someone can say to our loved ones “Good Mourning” and countless things about us will have been impressed upon their hearts.