Acclaimed singer/songwriter Klaude Walters has lived an extraordinary life filled with great successes and even greater tragedies. She celebrates all she has learned and the path that has led her here through a visionary collaboration between the written word, poetry, art, and music. Each chapter gives birth to its own song.
The child of an abusive, alcoholic father, Klaude learned early on that pain and neglect were just part of life. Coping as best she could, wearing a fake smile and lying to the world about the horrors that went on in her home. As an adult she survived an incredible amount of trauma that led to her own suicide attempt. The shocking suicide of her brother threw her into a tailspin that descended into darkness so deep she might never have found her way out of it.
Despite the darkness that she went through her story is a joyous one of survival and triumph in the face of unimaginable loss and adversity. Here she shares what sheâs learned and the steps she took. With her words and her music she encourages all those struggling with depression, mental health issues, and loss to find their own path to healing.
Acclaimed singer/songwriter Klaude Walters has lived an extraordinary life filled with great successes and even greater tragedies. She celebrates all she has learned and the path that has led her here through a visionary collaboration between the written word, poetry, art, and music. Each chapter gives birth to its own song.
The child of an abusive, alcoholic father, Klaude learned early on that pain and neglect were just part of life. Coping as best she could, wearing a fake smile and lying to the world about the horrors that went on in her home. As an adult she survived an incredible amount of trauma that led to her own suicide attempt. The shocking suicide of her brother threw her into a tailspin that descended into darkness so deep she might never have found her way out of it.
Despite the darkness that she went through her story is a joyous one of survival and triumph in the face of unimaginable loss and adversity. Here she shares what sheâs learned and the steps she took. With her words and her music she encourages all those struggling with depression, mental health issues, and loss to find their own path to healing.
âSuicide is a form of murder - premeditated murder. It isn't something you do the first time you think of doing it. It takes getting used to. And you need the means, the opportunity, the motive. A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind.â
- Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted
April 11, 2015
Itâs been 14 years, 91 days, 10 hours, and 52 minutes since my brother Walter committed suicide. To this day I can describe the dayâs events to a âTââŚminute by minuteâŚuntil his funeral. The rest is a blurry mess.
I often wonder why it's remained so vivid over the years while every other memory of him slowly fades away. I could say it was the intensity of the emotional and physical response I had to the event that forever imprinted it in my brain, but still, I canât explain it.
The day started as an ordinary Thursday. I was getting ready to do my usual chores and run my errands, much like every other day. I wish I could tell you I had a sign of what was to happen that day, that I had a premonition of some sort. But, no, it was benign and boring just like all the other days of my life up until that moment.  Â
That moment would forever change who I was. The only thing special about it was that it was Halloween and everyone was busy preparing for parties and the kid's trick-or-treating for candy later that day. The weather was pretty dreadful. It was cold and damp from rainy drizzle and the wind was blowing the leaves off the ground in all directions. The scene was right out of a horror film.
My brother and I had had a falling out a few months earlier and had drifted apart for the first time ever. We had never fought in the past. We were like two fingers from the same hand. Never apart for long, we were the best of friends. But I had decided to give him some space and hadnât spoken to him in a few months. Letting him stew over whatever was bothering him at the time. I was, as usual, self-absorbed in my own problems and tribulations.
I had a session with my chiropractor that day at one in the afternoon. I went in with an unusual pain in the middle of my back on my left side. It had begun about an hour prior to my visit. I couldnât understand it, and it was as if someone was stabbing me in the heart from the back. It was a sharp pain that came and went. So, when I went in, I explained this to my chiropractor, and he started working on it.
He claimed to be a bit of a psychic. He seemed to have special insight on things and seemed to know what I was feeling or thinking about during our visits, but it never really creeped me out or anything. But that day, during our session, he said something to me that now brings a chill up my spine. As I was sitting in a chair in his office after the session, he told me that my pain was heart related and that I had a new angel by my side.
He told me that a young man had appeared to my left, and that I was about to have some major news that would send me into an emotional tailspin. He told me that this young man would be there to assist me through the journey ahead. I listened to him respectfully, but most of what he said went in one ear and out the other. I thought he had probably smoked a bit of a doobie prior to my visit, but I must admit that I did feel a weird vibe in that office that day.
The same way you sometimes feel a presence behind you and you turn around and thereâs no one there, it was similar to that. I thanked him for his great insight and as I got up to leave, he took my hand and held it tightly in his. He looked me straight in the eye and said, âI know all of this sounds a bit crazy, Klaude, but just remember that everything happens for a reason even though we canât see that reason when grief strikes us to the core. Iâm always here if you need me. Donât hesitate to call me.âÂ
At that point, I was totally creeped out. I took my hands out of his grip, and quickly made my way to his door and out of his office. I got into the car and I was beginning to sweat. I felt the pain again and I started feeling really nauseous. It was 2:14 p.m. I was driving along the highway and was hit by a violent case of nausea again. I had to pull over to the shoulder and quickly open the door of the car and out came my breakfast. I was sweating and my heart was racing. I had no idea what was wrong with me at the time. I couldnât stop vomiting. I thought I was going to die. It was now 2:45 p.m.
At that exact time, my brother was being pronounced âdead at the sceneâ by two paramedics. He had shot himself in the heart at close range in broad daylight in front of a dozen witnesses who all thought it was a Halloween prank and didnât call 911 until 20 minutes later once they saw he wasnât getting up. Apparently, he had crossed the street, knelt down on the grass median in between the roadways, pulled out a .45 Magnum, pointed it to his heart, and pulled the trigger. Witnesses say the detonation was incredibly loud and then they saw him fall frontward face down and not move. Everyone stood in awe for 20 minutes waiting for him to get up, but he never did. One of the witnesses finally called 911. The coronerâs report said he died on impact. It was immediate. His heart exploded as the bullet pierced through it. And then he was gone. It was 2:45 p.m. on October 31, 1996.
I remember thinking that I wouldnât be able to drive home in that condition, but I didnât have a cell phone back in those days and was on the highway so I âhadâ to drive myself home no matter what. So, I tried to compose myself and started the car and began to drive again. I was puzzled by how I felt, and my mind was trying to rationalize it by going through everything I had either eaten or drank in the last 48 hours that would make me feel this way. Then it was going through everyone I had seen and every place I had been to try and figure out if any of those people looked sick at the time. I wondered if I had the flu, but there was something deeper than that. I felt an incredible sadness. There was a void of some sort, something I couldnât explain to myself. I thought I was losing my mind.
I remember that last stretch of roadway before I got to the house. The closer I got to home the worse I felt. Then I got to the house and turned into the driveway. My husband was sitting outside on the stairs waiting for me. He had the grimmest expression I had ever seen on his face. I knew right away that something horrible had just happened. He started toward me and suddenly, my brotherâs face came to my mind and my knees buckled. Â
I asked my husband as he approached, âWhat happened? What happened to Walter?âÂ
He started to cry and said those two words Iâll never forget, âHeâs gone.âÂ
I went into shock! I can remember being able to feel every single nerve in my body, a heightened sense of being, the largest adrenaline rush I had ever experienced. At the same time, I felt completely numb and everything started going in slow motion around me. I was having an âout of bodyâ experience. I could see myself below as I hovered over the top of myself. I saw myself completely falling apart.Â
Primal screams uttered from the deepest part of my core. It was all so surreal. I could see my husband at the time trying to console me, trying to calm me down but all the time knowing that couldnât be done. I was running around the house yelling and screaming his name. I called my mom and she was in the same state I was in. Our world had just crashed. I demanded my husband take me to him. I needed to hold him, see him; I didnât believe this was real.
The drive to the hospital seemed to take an eternity. I would go from soft whimpers to cursing to crying to screaming. I was going mad. There was no other word for it. I was at the edge of a cliff, and I could barely hold on from throwing myself over. I canât remember what my husband said to me during that ride. I was only hearing my internal discussions with myself stating all the ways this couldnât be true. They had made a mistake; it couldnât be Walter. Heâs probably playing a joke on me because itâs Halloween. Â
I actually uttered the words out loud, âIâm gonna kill him when I see him. How dare he do this to me. What kind of a sick joke is this?âÂ
I swear I felt completely out of control. I remember jumping out of the car as soon as we arrived at the hospital. The car hadnât even come to a full stop. I opened my door, jumped out and ran toward the Emergency entrance.Â
I busted through the doors and ran directly to the nurseâs desk and started screaming at her, âWhere is he? Whereâs Walter? Whereâs my brother? I know heâs here hiding somewhere!â
She looked terrified! I can imagine what I must have looked like to her. My face was twice its normal size because it had swollen up because I had been crying for hours now. My eyes were bloodshot. My clothes were covered with mud because I had fallen on the ground in my driveway. I hadnât changed my shirt from my being sick on the highway. She probably thought I was a drug junkie high on some heavy-duty drug. Thankfully, my husband came running in behind me and explained the situation to her.Â
She became very helpful very quickly. I was running all over the hospital, knocking my head on the walls and behaving quite erratically. All I can remember is that she came toward us and said that we had the wrong hospital. They had brought him to a hospital down the road, but he had been pronounced âdead at the sceneâ.Â
I heard the words but could not register them in my brain. So, my husband took my arm and guided me toward the car and gently placed me in the front seat. At this time my head was bleeding from the hits to the hospital walls. My knuckles were bruised as well from constantly hitting stuff around me. I was a mess.
I remember the cold and heavy silence in the car on the way to the second hospital. I was not whimpering, crying or screaming. I was completely numb. Like a zombie. I could no longer feel anything. My brain had shut down from fear of completely losing my mind. I had gone into what I now realize was âsurvival modeâ. I couldnât handle the shock, so my body did the only thing it knew how to in order to keep me alive. It shut down.Â
When I got to the second hospital, I walked in calmly, straight to the coroner who was already standing there waiting for us. The previous hospital had called them to let them know we were on our way. She had two officers with her. She took my arm and gently guided me toward the morgue. I recall taking an elevator down and walking a long, dimly lit corridor and stopping in front of two huge doors. She opened the doors and there was Walter. He was lying on a gurney, wrapped up in a white plastic material and all you could actually see was his face. The rest of him was all covered with this material. He reminded me of those Egyptian mummies.Â
I quickly approached him and placed my cheek to his and remember feeling his cold cheek and forehead on my skin. All I could think about was getting him a blanket and keeping him warm. I asked the officers to get me some blankets at numerous times during this visit. My uncle Phil had already been to the morgue before I arrived in order to identify the body for the police. I was actually the third person to come through to see him that night. I remember whispering in his ear, âPlease open your eyes. Please donât leave me here. Donât leave me this way. Donât leave me alone. I wonât make it here without you.â
I asked everyone if I could please have a moment alone with him. They left. As soon as they did, I jumped onto the gurney and lay by his side. I put my arm across his chest and nuzzled my nose into his neck and I kept telling him that all I needed to do was keep him warm and that he would open his eyes, and everything would be fine. I felt his body cold and stiff. I knew somehow that I was only holding on to a shell and that his spirit was no longer present in the room with me, but I still held on.Â
When the officers, the coroner and my husband returned, they were shocked to find me up on the gurney and immediately proceeded to try and pull me off. It wasnât an easy task. I had what seemed to be supernatural strength, and all three couldnât seem to pull me off from there. The more they tried, the more I resisted. And then my husband requested a moment and asked the officers to let me go. He gently placed his hand on my forehead and whispered in my ear that I had to let go. I had to let them take him away.Â
I completely broke down at that point and started screaming his name and would not surrender. They had to get a third officer to peel me off the gurney. I felt my grip loosen and finally I was pried away from his side. The officers escorted me out kicking and screaming. They planted themselves in front of the doors and I finally gave up from sheer exhaustion and fell to the cement hospital floor. I sat against the wall, my head resting on my knees and I wept for what seemed like hours. All these people stayed and waited with me until I was ready to go. I finally got up and staggered out of the hospital and into the car. My head hurt, my hands were swollen, every muscle in my body was in pain from battling with those officers to hold on. I felt defeated.
My brotherâs suicide changed me to the core. It an instant, something in me broke. I became numb to life and obsessed with wanting to join him. Everything in my life stopped functioning. My actions and interactions became superficial and I started operating on autopilot most of the time.Â
The next few weeks after Walterâs death are a mix of blurry moments, of which I remember only certain scenes, much like in a movie trailer. I remember sitting up in my bed in the hotel room my husband had rented for the time we were to be in Chandler and seeing this purple dot bounce off the walls of the hotel. It reminded me of one of those light pens that you use to point at a screen when youâre giving a PowerPoint presentation. It bounced from the ceiling to the floor and from one wall to the other. I watched the little bouncing beam of light for what felt like hours. It suddenly disappeared and all of a sudden, my brotherâs ghostly figure appeared at the end of my bed. He was sitting on the side of the bed and facing me. His eyes were staring right through me. He had this strange grin on his face. It wasnât a smile. It wasnât a grin. It was something in between. It was an expression I had never seen on my brotherâs face before. His form was translucent. He was solid enough that I could make out his features, but I could see the end of the bed and the small desk that was next to the wall through his sitting figure. I wasnât afraid. I remember thinking to myself that I was hallucinating, that the trip and lack of sleep had made me so tired that I was having visions. I remember looking at my husband sleeping next to me and having this urge to wake him up so he could see this and corroborate my vision, but I didnât want the vision to disappear. I wanted to keep Walter present. I wasnât ready to let him go.Â
All of a sudden, as I stared at my brotherâs ghostly figure in front of me, my mind was taken to an event that had taken place a year before, almost to the day. I had been travelling through Europe at the time and was staying overnight at an Italian villa. I had woken up from a horrible dream and called my brother who was thousands of miles away in Montreal. It was early evening there and he was just finishing dinner. I had recounted the dream I had just had. I was crying. He had made fun of my current state and dismissed its meaning altogether. He told me that it was just a dream and to stop being so sensitive and that I had nothing to worry about. Now, I was realizing that this dream had been one of premonition. I had seen my brotherâs death a year ahead of time. In the dream, I had walked into a two-story home where I believed my brother to be living. I had heard gunshots. The next scene of my dream was me, on the ground, cradling my brother in my arms in a pool of blood. He had been shot in the heart. The grin he had on his face as I looked down upon him was the same as the one I was staring at right there and then, in that hotel room. It had all come full circle. Only, it wasnât strangers that I needed to protect him from, it was himself.
I donât recall what happened next that night. I simply woke up the next morning and got ready for the funeral. After the funeral, everyone drove to the cemetery. Again, the details are fuzzy from that scene. The only thing that is etched in my mind is that at the time they started rolling down the casket into the ground, I tried grabbing my momâs hand and she angrily shook my hand out of hers and grabbed on to my brotherâs girlfriendâs hand. It completely crushed me. The small gesture that no one caught had monumental meaning for me. It devastated me and alienated me further than I already was. I left with my husband right after the cemetery service without saying goodbye to anyone. Even though I later returned to live on the Coast to be close to my mother because all of us thought she would try and harm herself, my relationship with my mom was never the same and never recovered from that brutal moment at the cemetery.Â
What losing my brother to suicide taught me
That everyone walks around covering up a story that could break your heart if you knew it. That people only show you what they want you to know. No one is completely transparent. We all have secrets that we keep hidden deep inside of us, secrets we intend to take to the grave.
That grief is experienced very differently from one individual to the next. There is no standard grieving manual that shows you what is appropriate or not. People have opinions about what should be felt, how people should react, but no one really knows how they will end up reacting at the passing of a loved one. Some grieve by crying constantly. They cannot seem to be able to stop the relentless river of tears. Others become numb with pain. They completely shut down as if void of all emotions. They internalize the sorrow and it festers within them until they learn to resolve their painful loss. No one has the right to dictate how anyone should grieve. It is a very private and intimate journey one has with themselves and God.Â
It is through grieving the loss of my beloved brother that I learned the value of life, of friendship, of meaning and purpose. Sometimes loss makes you realize all the things youâve been taking for granted. The pain can dissolve your ego and give birth to a new depth within you that you could have never tapped into without the experience of such a colossal tragedy. It can force you into seeking spiritual fulfillment that may very well save your own life in the end. Yes, the greatest tragedies can sometimes give birth to the most unexpected brilliant futures.Â
ACTION STEPS
Like I stated earlier, dealing with grief is an individual journey. It cannot be easily guided by others. It is up to you to search out and try different things that will help you deal with your loss. I can only share with you what I did to try and get myself out of the rabbit hole. It may or may not work for you, but these are certainly worth a try. You may use them as a starting point in your grieving process.
Look after your most basic needs at first. Â
The first thing one goes through when experiencing a loss is the fact that you may have trouble eating or sleeping. You jump into a very vicious cycle that can only deteriorate your health in the long run. The less nutrition you feed into your body, the worse youâll feel. The worse you feel, the less youâll want to feed yourself. You may suffer from insomnia, which was one of my ailments after Walterâs passing. I could no longer sleep. The more sleep deprived I was, the worse I felt and the more depressed I became. Again, itâs a very vicious cycle.Â
So, the first thing to focus on is trying to establish a routine of eating and sleeping. Use natural remedies like Melatonin or St. Johnâs Wort to try and induce sleep. Try and listen to some meditative music or digital tracks specifically created to help people fall into deep reparative REM sleep. Those were truly a godsend to me. I used herbal teas with chamomile and valerian root to help me fall asleep.Â
Then I created bland meals made of chicken and avocado. Thatâs all I ate for months. I had to simplify my life to the point of survival in order to make it through the first few months and I did this by making huge batches of baked chicken and freezing it. I also used a lot of juices to make sure I was getting the proper nutrition.
When tragedy strikes, your initial response is to curl up in a ball and stop living. And if thatâs what you want to do for a few weeks, months or years, thatâs your right. All I am going to push you to do is to eat well and get your rest while you take that time out. If you cannot do it by yourself, reach out to a friend or family member who wants nothing more than to be of service to you, and ask them to cook those meals you need and fill the freezer. I am telling you, this will be half the battle in getting your brain back to a semi-functional state. At least to a level where you can start being functional again.
Seek the help of a professional through individual therapy.Â
When surviving a crushing personal loss, the initial reaction is to retreat inward and to isolate yourself. Although you only want to talk about the person whoâs passed to everyone who will listen, it isnât the type of discussion that moves you forward. In most cases all youâre doing is reminiscing and keeping yourself trapped in the grief. We all have the tendency to idolize the lost loved one to the level of martyr and forget the humanness beneath them. It is crucial that you seek professional help from a therapist that is focused on the grieving process and who has tools to help with your bereavement.
I personally have no shame in stating that I went to see numerous therapists after I lost my brother. It took me a while to find the right one. I tried different therapists with very different approaches until I found a few that I connected with that I thought had value to bring to my experience. I found cognitive therapy to be the best approach for me. It helped me accept the reality of the loss, work through the pain of grief, adjust to living without my brother and made me realize it was okay to keep a healthy connection to him moving forward with my life. Living in denial or in the avoidance of grief will only serve to internalize your grief and cause physical âdis-easeâ in the long term.
A good therapist will help you through this journey and give you the tools you need to begin to live again.
Journaling.Â
I cannot stress enough the power that journaling can have in your life. As I said before, after a loss, you may want to isolate yourself and talking to others may be the last thing you want to doâŚand thatâs okay. The problem is the ânot expressingâ yourself. If you donât want to talk with others about the loss, thatâs okay, journal instead. Go to the dollar store and buy a bunch of notebooks and just start filling the pages with everything you are feeling inside. Write everything and anything just as long as you keep pouring it onto the page. Donât worry about what youâre saying or how youâre saying it, none of that matters. All that really matters is that you are sharing and expressing what youâre going through.Â
When going through grief, just remember that there is no specific way to deal with it. Everyone feels things differently and you shouldnât try and standardize the process or be how you think others want you to be. Just look after yourself first and forget about everyone else. The crucial element is that you survive the loss. Focus on making it through one day at a time. If thatâs too much, try an hour, a minute.Â
For me, it took a very long time to make it through my tunnel of grief. It took a lot of effort and patience with myself and my progress, but I made it through, and you will, too. Slowly but surely, the pain dissolves and gives way to brighter days.Â
The first time you smile or laugh out loud again youâll catch yourself wondering if you should, if itâs okay to do so even though your loved one is gone and you feel you should never feel joy again. Know that, with time, youâll come to understand that not only would your loved one want you to bring joy back into your life if they were still around, they would want you to thrive as well and itâs okay to wish it for yourself again.
Move slowly through the windy storm, it will soon come to cease, and the sun will bare us with its presence again.
Suicide Kills has an arresting title. The content within is equally captivating. Defying categorisation, it is part memoir, part self-help book and part elusive, hinting at layers that will be discovered only on repeat readings. Klaude Walters presents many facets from her life experiences in an âauthentic, engaged, and honestâ way.
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Each chapter starts with one of Klaudeâs original songs. The monochromatic images underneath the lyrics bring appealing aesthetics, although the difficulty to determine some decreases their impact somewhat. Then follows a quote pertinent to the topic. This layout ensures that prior to learning of the situation which triggers the theme of each chapter, the reader has already received formidable messages of resilience.
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Walters has had undeniably hard times through childhood traumas, depression, cancer, and her brotherâs suicide: events which reappear through âbefriending the demons, not ignoring themâ. She shares her strategies for recovery at the end of each chapter. Although the themes vary the practical, achievable action steps are often the same, causing unnecessary repetition. At times they appear as the only solutions, which is off-putting, despite Waltersâ repeated statement that she can speak only from her experience and what worked for her.
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Klaude writes in first and second person â which can take some getting used to â and her underlying message is that âwithin you is the power to go from invisible to invincibleâ. Her messages are not new to people who have previously invested in self-improvement work. Nevertheless, they are delivered with compassion, with the everpresent intent that âYOU hold the key to your futureâ.
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Walters has an impressive CV of public achievements, her music being easily accessible. More remarkable, however, is her wish to help others be âa true version of yourselfâ, because âthe more you try and stifle who you truly are inside, the more the dragon wants to roar and make its way to the surfaceâ and suppressing it leads to âdis-easeâ. She emphasises that people can always choose their reactions (even if they canât change past events) and that by loving themselves and being âaccountable for their own lifeâ everyone can become empowered. Her mission in writing this book is âto inspire others to cultivate their inner light and become beacons for others around themâ, in body and in mind.
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This book is best read with time and mindspace to spare, allowing the powerful messages to integrate for each individual. Waltersâ words and her actions are inspiring: take the challenge to pursue âa limitless mind ⌠expect the unexpected and believe it will happenâ.Â