The text came through at 9:02 a.m. on December 27, 2014. I looked at my phone and panicked. My son had never sent anything like that, and Iād known heād meant it. Iād jumped off my seat and called him. I texted him over and over and pleaded, āPlease, Mike, donāt do this! We will help you!ā Loss of hope doesnāt wait.
I was living every parentās worst nightmare. From the trauma of my son's suicide, I experienced passive suicidal ideation, PTSD, and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). My life, as I knew it was gone. I was grieving my son's death, the death of the old me, my old life and my family that now has a hole in it. My daughter will never have her brother in her life-everā. The empty chair at the table-holidays, birthdays, celebrations without Mike-forever. Ironically, the thought of death seemed more appealing than the life I was now living.
I created the AftermathofSuicide.com and wrote my book to guide people through the grief, devastation, and tsunami left behind for suicide loss survivors and the depression/PTSD that can follow. Untreated depression is the number one cause of suicide(Suicide.org). It is a very lonely, dark place.
The text came through at 9:02 a.m. on December 27, 2014. I looked at my phone and panicked. My son had never sent anything like that, and Iād known heād meant it. Iād jumped off my seat and called him. I texted him over and over and pleaded, āPlease, Mike, donāt do this! We will help you!ā Loss of hope doesnāt wait.
I was living every parentās worst nightmare. From the trauma of my son's suicide, I experienced passive suicidal ideation, PTSD, and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). My life, as I knew it was gone. I was grieving my son's death, the death of the old me, my old life and my family that now has a hole in it. My daughter will never have her brother in her life-everā. The empty chair at the table-holidays, birthdays, celebrations without Mike-forever. Ironically, the thought of death seemed more appealing than the life I was now living.
I created the AftermathofSuicide.com and wrote my book to guide people through the grief, devastation, and tsunami left behind for suicide loss survivors and the depression/PTSD that can follow. Untreated depression is the number one cause of suicide(Suicide.org). It is a very lonely, dark place.
I am a silent killer. I am indiscriminate, and I can strike without warning.
I not only kill but destroy the lives of those that are left behind.
I cause chaos and trauma. Those that have not come into contact with me are
frightened to utter my name for fear that I will touch their lives.
They donāt realize that the only way you can stop me is to talk about me.
I am Depression-I am Suicide Raise Awareness-Stop the Stigma
The text came through at 9:02 a.m. on December 27, 2014. I looked at my phone and panicked. My son had never sent anything like that, and Iād known heād meant it. Iād jumped off my seat and called him. I texted him over and over and pleaded, āPlease, Mike, donāt do this! We will help you!ā Loss of hope doesnāt wait. My entire family was calling and texting him.
My sonās text:
āIām going out to visit Pop, but Iām not coming home. I have struggled with depression all my life... I just canāt take it anymore. Iām sorry, Iām, so, so sorry Iām so selfish in my decision today. I canāt bear it anymore; Iām so sorry. Please ask God to forgive me and my actions today. I went to church before I came out here and asked myself, but I donāt know... Iām so sorry; I wished I got killed in Iraq to keep you all from my selfish decision today. These last months of my life were the happiest I have ever been, thank you all for giving me such a great life. Iām sorry, please remember the funny me.ā
Full panic mode set in, and I began calling the cemetery, the police, anyone I could think of that could help. Our efforts would prove futile. So many thoughts went through my mind; 90% of me knew what had already happened and kept me stopped in time: numb, empty, and feeling the devastation of an irreversible loss. The remaining 10% of me believed he would be found alive. I could still remember when he would walk in the door, his beard grazing my jaw as he greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. I could see his face. I heard his voice. I could smell him.
Would I have ever thought my life would be like this? Oh, my god! How can you possibly prepare for the death of a child? The loss from dying by suicide is so very different and often more significant than any other type of damage. At times, my mind wanders to the day I had him: the labor; Aunt Julie, his godmother, and my mom there at the hospital in Lake Tahoe. Is this a nightmare? My mind fixated on theĀ shouldĀ haves,Ā ifs, whys,Ā andĀ could have.
Everything had to be down to a T with Mike. A mild sufferer of OCD, he was fantastically organized and paid an excessive amount of attention to detail, right down to his suicide textā229 words of detail was a hell of a lot of words. Itās strange to say, but at least we got one. Many survivors have no reason why and no insights orĀ closure,whatever that means. I know that I will never receiveĀ closureĀ from my sonās death.
Mike had suffered from depression on and off since the age of six. I had no idea a six-year-old could be depressed, but what did we know about depression thirty years ago? Especially in children? Heād never worked through all of the compounded grief he had accumulated from my fatherās death, a prior break-up, and his chaplainās suicide. My father died unexpectedly on June 2, 2009, the same day; Mike flew back from Iraq. A long-term relationship ended in 2013. Then Mikeās chaplaināwho was his best friendātook his life on January 11, 2014, eleven months before my son did. Chaplain and Mike were very close, but not nearly as close as Mike had been to my father. The hits just kept on coming.
Iād felt like a bad mother greeting my son with the unexpected news that Pop had died. It had been a bittersweet day. My son was home, yet my dad had just died. I was struggling as well, at the loss of the greatest father and grandfather. My son deserved a better homecoming then that.
It affects me to this day. I am still plagued by guilt as if somehow, I could have changed the outcome of the news. I remember the sobs I heard coming from Mike when Iād told him. Heād been inconsolable and never was quite the same again. Mike was so devastated by my dadās death. He never dealt with any of his grief or the new horrors heād experienced in the military.
I think that was the start of the major downfalls for him in 2009. Dealing with recently experienced grief right away is extremely important! Do not think you can do this on your own!
Mike had never dealt with any loss well; all it took was one more thing. His demons, depression, and loss of hope won that terrible morning.I was living every parentās worst nightmare. We gave him a good life. We loved him. He loved us. He laughed. He made others laugh. Then WHY? The most burning question for me was why he choose to leave us. I felt his death was a rejection of his life with us. I couldnāt understand why our love for him wasnāt enough to keep him alive. Since then, Iāve come to the ultimate reconciliation that what happened had nothing to do with his love for us. It had been all about his pain and sad reality.
That morning, we all called the Veterans Memorial Cemetery, where my dad is laid to rest, Mike was probably there. They said they had received many calls for him. My whole family was calling in, frantic! I was out of town and had a grueling seven-hour drive back. I kept calling Mikeās dad, Steve, to see if anyone had heard from Mike. I called my daughter as she was trying to find and use his passwords to see if he might have left some type of clue. Nothing. We thought and hoped that maybe heād gone up to Lake Tahoe where he was born and didnāt mean what heād texted us, but needed to clear his head.
My mind went everywhere, trying to think of where else he could be, but I also didnāt want to believe that heād meant what heād written. In the meantime, Steve, Mikeās dad, was driving to the cemetery, which was a thirty to forty-five-minute ride south to Boulder City, Nevada, from Las Vegas. Mike had almost forty-five minutes to change his mind; Iād kept thinking. When Steve got to where my dad is laid to rest, he saw yellow tape all around and police cars and started crying immediately. He parked, then the policeman came up to the vehicle and spoke with him and asked if he wanted to identify the body. Steve said no. The policeman showed him a driverās licenseāit was Mikeās. He broke down sobbing. The search was over. No more calls, looking for him, or texting. No moreĀ hope. Now he had to give all of us the terrible news. He told me heād dreaded telling me the most.
I was on my way home from California and had stopped to get something to eat, even though I was not hungry. I called Mikeās dadas I walked outside Dennyās restaurant to hear if he had any news on Mike. It was 12:30 p.m. I knew by the sound of his voice. Quietly, he said, āHeās gone.ā
I fell to the ground screaming, crying, āNO! NO! NO!ā
In that instant, my life had changed, and I would never be the same. My son was dead at thirty years old. My Michael? āNO! NO! NO!ā I kept screaming and crying.
I would soon come to learn that I would not just be mourning my sonās death, but the part ofĀ meĀ that died with him: the oldĀ me,Ā my pastĀ life, a marriage that would soon be ending, and I would be moving across the country. Depression, passive and active suicidal ideation (see Chapter Four), and post-traumatic stress disorder would soon follow. Nothing had prepared me for this, no matter how strong I was. The change that was in store for me over the next several years would change the course of my life forever.
Bill, my husband, at the time, came out of Dennyās when he heard me screaming. He rushed over as did other people in the parking lot, not knowing what had happened. I donāt remember much except that he wanted to take me to a hospital as I was crying and speaking incoherently. I said no, and that I wanted to get home. My thoughts were that I wanted to get on the next plane. I didnāt know what the best thing to do was. No matter how I looked at it, I was not going to get home much faster, whether by waiting for the next flight home or driving. Of all times to be away from my son. That was the longest and worst day of my life. I wasnāt there onĀ that day!Ā To this day, when I think about that, I close my eyes and feel sick.
It was the only Christmas I had not spent with my children. Billās mother had cancer, and Iād thought we should go there to be near her. Iād felt so much guilt knowing I was never away from my kids atChristmas. It had been Mikeās last Christmas, and I was not there. If Iād only known, I would have turned around and run to him.
Mikeās last spoken words to me on the speaker at my sisterās house were, āMerry Christmas Mom, I love you!ā The same words in his text to me Christmas morning. The last words I would hear.
I was beside myself and losing my mind at the same time over the death of my son, and didnāt know the massive amount of guilt that I would put on myself for not being there. For the possibility that maybeĀ ifĀ I had been there, he would not have left that morning. The never- ending sickening feeling that I could have made a differenceĀ ifĀ I had been there. TheĀ ifās, shouldĀ haves,Ā couldĀ haves, andĀ whyāsĀ that would soon follow. It would become part of my vocabulary.
The nature of suicide makes the aftermath damn near impossible to navigate compared to any other type of loss.
I called my friends and different family members, crying and crying, on autopilot. They said they could hardly understand me. Everyone was shocked. The bodyās way of coping with trauma is through shock. I pulled in the driveway to go into my house. My daughter, Nicole, and her boyfriend were there for Christmas week. Her dad, Steve, came over to tell her that her brother was dead. He later told me that when heād told her, he had to hold her up as sheād nearly fainted, and her face had turned green.
Nicole, who was twenty-five at the time, told me, āWhen dad went out to greet you, I sobbed knowing what he was going to tell you.ā Her brotherāmy sonāhad shot himself in the head, in his truck where my dad is laid to rest.
Here is a poem written by Beverly Levin Copeland about her friendās son, who shot himself as my son did. I picture my son onĀ thatĀ morning as I read it.
An Ending - in Memory of Isaac
The blackest possible darkness descends.
The walls come closing in.
Fear, exhilaration, panic, and unreality loom within.
A shiny silver object lies within armās reach.
A hand moves closer, fingers flex and unflex,
then flex again as the object is grasped in a sweaty palm.
The heft and intent of the instrument are considered, again and again.
The cloak of blackness grows tighter,
An arm is shakily raised, eyes are closed,
the cold of metal on skin,
An instant of heat..........and all is dissolved
.
Beverly Levin Copeland January 23, 2020.
I would ask myself over and over, āWe gave him a good lifeāthen why?ā Mike was a real soldier inside and out. He loved his family so much that I knew his pain level must have been unbearable to do this to us. I know he didnāt do this toĀ us.Ā Again, the whys, ifs, and should-haves that would follow.
I remember trying to make sense of it. But I wonāt, ever. I still shake my head to this day, thinking about his choice. All kinds of thoughts flashed through my mind. How did this happen? Weād just celebrated Christmas. Mike was great, the happiest we had all seen him.
I remember feeling like I had been in a boxing ring. My head was fuzzy, and the sounds were faded in my head. People were all talking and crying. My daughter mentioned that Mike had come in the night before.She said he seemed checked out. He went upstairs to my room, and that was the last time she saw him alive.
For the first few weeks afterward, my daughter felt that if she had heard him leave, maybe it would have made a difference. I told her it was not her fault. How many times will we say, āIf,ā āshould have,ā ācould haveāĀ orĀ āwhy?āĀ We cannot stop our loved ones from taking their lives. There are limits to what one can do to stop them. If they want to, they will find a way.
How do I do this? I thought, my mind spiraling. What do I do now? Where do I go? What happens now? I was in shock. It was Christmas week. My life was crumbling like a building rocked by a 9.0 earthquake. Meāsomeone who was always so strong, one of the things Mike admired about meāmy kidsā rock.
Look at me now, Mike. I was drowning, drowning in the storm. Little did I know what lay ahead....
During specific times of days gone by we come to realize (upon reflection) in a more modern era how much we didn't know that may have rescued those we loved. Foreshadowing, as seen by a graphic image in this author's son's case, where a heart-shaped cloud is in the sky with stubbed out cigarette butts on the ground; and a particular broken cigarette in the foreground, signifying a heart that's broken, often doesn't register or have the same meaning in the moment as after a loved one's tragic, jarring death by suicide.
Sometimes, it's only in retrospect you're able to connect the dots. The biggest thing is for you to not succumb to blaming yourself for the actions of another even when the person that took their lives is your son or brother.
This book has a strong message from the perspective of a mom that suffered from loss upon loss upon loss. Loss of a son, loss of a marriage, loss of her independence, and a brief loss of mobility; a laying bare of all she had once been able to lay hold of that had been stripped away. Losses change you fundamentally and shape you into someone new.
Grief comes in waves. You may be brought low carried out by undertow or seek help that keeps you afloat; may you come to see, a life changed is still worth living!
As much as I write reviews to encourage the reading of books I also seek to encourage authors within their writing. One area of growth that could be achieved by this author is to edit out words that tell readers they'll find "xyz" information within Chapter Four. While attempting to help the reader know information will be expounded upon further on in the book it unintentionally takes away from the material being read in the moment.
Overall, a book that is written to give voice to ones pain that has been suffered by many but often in silence will benefit those who have shied away from using their voices to raise them in unison. By lifting up what traditionally has been a taboo topic to a public sphere, light will pierce the darkness and the darkness will flee. May this book serve to lower suicide rates and may more people find their way to a life they fully believe is worth living and where their roots grow deep.