All the Things We Never Knew (37 page)

Suicide is self-inflicted and violates the fundamental norm of self-preservation. Consequently, suicide survivors may grieve differently than others grieving a natural death. Suicide survivors show higher levels of guilt, blame, and responsibility for the death than other mourners. They frequently feel that they may have directly caused the death through abandonment or mistreatment.
Dr. Katherine Dunham, department co-chair of psychology at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, noted that the spillover stigma from suicide attaches to the bereaved. These authors report that survivors of suicide tend to be viewed “as more psychologically disturbed, less likable, more in need of professional mental health services, and more likely to remain bereaved longer.”

In Dunham's research, 76 percent of those bereaved by accidental death reported positive changes in social interactions, but only 27 percent of suicide survivors reported positive changes in social interactions. Withdrawal is a common reaction to suicide. It is difficult to explain the actions of the suicidal and therefore difficult to explain our reactions to our social networks. Survivors may pull away from their social groups out of shame, causing friends and even family members to pull away in frustration and confusion.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I heard the music of Frank Sinatra as I was coming up the steps, loaded down with two grocery bags full of ingredients for a chicken risotto dinner. I'd started cooking again—a healthy sign.

I paused to watch the two of them through the window—Colin, dressed in his work slacks, his jacket removed, shirt sleeves rolled up and tie unhitched, twirling Sophie around the living room floor. She'd changed into the white taffeta gown I bought her for Easter the year before, with shoes that looked oddly small on her feet. Every time he turned her, she watched him as carefully as she could, and then she'd whip her head around to catch his eye. Ha, he'd taught her how to spot! My arms felt weak from the surge of delight that moved through me. I opened the door, smiling.

“Who knew you two were so talented?” I asked.

“Mama!” Sophie said. “Watch, Colin's teaching me to dance!”

“Here, let me get those.” Colin kissed me on the cheek before taking the bags.

Sophie turned her lip down, hands by her side, disappointed the dance had ended.

“No, no, don't stop. I'd love to watch you two,” I said, flopping myself down on the couch and kicking off my heels.

Sophie put her arms back up in the stance of a ballroom dancer, and Colin rejoined her, twirling her to the tune of “Fly Me to the Moon.” Colin had mentioned he'd taken ballroom dancing in college;
now he counted out the steps for Sophie carefully, “One, two, three.” He moved around the room as if he were Fred Astaire and she were Ginger, saying, “One, two, three.”

Sophie smiled at me over her shoulder, struggling to keep up with Colin's fluid steps. “Let's do the lift,” she said, “the lift!”

Colin put his hands on her hips and swooped her high to the air, an angel flying above his head. Sophie's cheeks flushed pink, her body nearly skimming the ceiling, Colin holding her expertly as he sashayed around the floor. Sophie's eyes danced, too. Then she touched his head as if to say, “I'm dizzy.”

In one way, I was worried that Sophie had bonded with Colin so quickly. I wanted her to protect her heart, to hold her most emotional self at bay. This was my old pattern repeating itself, looking for safety in defense. Sophie did just the opposite, relying on Colin's consistency and his goodness to help her heal. She read with him, called him on the telephone, and jumped into his arms when he arrived home. Over time, she learned how to navigate the jealousy she felt when Colin's girls arrived for their biweekly visits.

Blending families is an unnatural act, but we were determined to make it work. I'd never met a man who doled out so much affection to his children or was fairer or more capable of juggling the demands of domesticity than Colin. Sophie learned valuable lessons in sharing, patience, and kindness because of her stepsisters' refusal to treat her differently than they treated one another. We never romanticized the difficulty of bringing two families together, and the challenges, though many, always led to personal breakthroughs. I'd been through much tougher, and far less valuable, experiences.

In the same way that mental illness forces us to make decisions about how we will react, blending families presents an opportunity—do we choose to withhold or to expand our love? Can we be more generous, more present, and more available? I challenged myself to say yes.

Things were changing at the radio station as well. My cohost and I were promoted to the morning show, and I settled into an early morning routine others consider grueling—I saw it as a necessary part of working the most coveted time slots on the radio. The alarm sounded at 3:30 a.m. I showered and tiptoed out the door at 4:15.

From 4:15 until 5:30 a.m., I researched the morning's news—local, national, and international; I downloaded sound clips from CNN and MSNBC; and wrote eight newscasts and found as many “kickers,” or the types of stories that add a little levity to the show. I edited two interviews, one that would air in a newscast and another that would air on our website. I prepped for the interviews with the artists who would be calling in later, posted pictures and stories to the website, tweeted and blogged, and checked up on the constant chatter of email from our listeners.

After the live show, I settled back into my editing, a chance to breathe, slow down, and enjoy the conversations with authors, artists, and musicians. On this day, the interview was with Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay and the husband of actress Gwyneth Paltrow. The digital recording of his interview was displayed on my computer screen in what is called wave form—sound waves that look a little like the up and down lines of a seismograph. Seeing the wave form made it easy to edit the interview. It also gave distinct clues to people's personalities: those who are animated have waves that show up as wild and erratic as a heart attack reading. Depressed or dour interviewees often show up as a long, flat line, with very little emotion on the high or low end of their voices. Children's waves are thinner and weaker. Trained speakers often have thick sound waves that look like the jagged ups and downs of the Dow.

David never would allow me to record his voice. I often wondered if he suspected the sound waves might reveal something he didn't want to see.

Chris Martin's voice was in my headphones. I was totally engaged in what he was saying about the making of his most recent album. The white light in the studio flashed, a sign that the phone was ringing.

I took off the headphones and picked up the receiver. “Hello, Sheila, dear, I do hope I haven't disturbed you.” It was Alice, calling from a new number. “I've moved closer to Nini. I just thought it would be better to be closer to family after Lew's and David's deaths. I thought you might want the number.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” I said, turning away from the computer. “How are you?”

“I'm better. I'm getting stronger. The asthma attacks have subsided for now.” That's right—I reminded myself of his family's propensity to suffer from asthma. Even David had started to have breathing problems later in his life. I made a mental note to myself to watch Sophie for any early signs of the disorder.

She paused. “I thought you might need some support during this week.”

I nodded. “Yes, David's birthday. It's a tough day, but they all are, really. I thought, somehow, that time would make it easier, but in fact, it's just the opposite. When the shock wore off, I had a new round of grief to deal with.”

“Quite right,” she said. “How is our lovely Sophie?”

I hesitated before I spoke. Sophie was great, incredible really, for what she'd been through. She'd started going to a new school; she was happy at home and healthy. “She's fine, Alice, thanks for asking. She's reading a ton of books, playing tennis again. It's been a good summer for her.”

Alice drew in a breath. “Does she speak of David?”

I considered my words carefully. “She is in a different place right now, Alice. When David first died, Sophie grieved long and hard. I would lie with her at night while she cried so hard I thought she might break. But after a few months, she stopped talking about him. She stopped wanting to hear my funny stories about him. We're in a different phase now. I'm sure it will change.” I waited to breathe. The truth was so hard, but I was through with secrets—it was the secrets in my marriage that had destroyed us. I hoped Alice would accept my candidness in kind.

“Hmm,” she said. “Well, I suppose we all grieve differently, don't we. Especially children. They just need more time.”

“Yes,” I said. “Sophie still refuses to see a psychologist.”

“Well, I certainly understand that,” she interrupted. “I still think those people did David more harm than good.”

“I was just going to say that I hope one day she will be willing to talk to someone other than me about what she's gone through. I expect she'll need to process it all at some point.”

“Or, perhaps not,” Alice said. “As I said, we all grieve differently.”

For a split second, I was back in Diedra's cabin with Alice, her face drawn by the realization that David was gone for good, knowing the experts we'd hoped could help him couldn't save him any more than we could. The memory sent a strange sensation through my body, the same way a flu bug feels when it first announces itself in your stomach. His family had denied the gravity of his illness, denied me the truth when I first met them. I considered asking her why, and then I stopped myself. I knew the reasons: they were the same reasons that had prevented me from telling my family the truth about my crumbling marriage. We were both ashamed.

For a moment I fell silent, forgiving myself, David, his family. We were wounded, all of us. David had escaped his pain in the way he thought best.

“I do hope to see Sophie again,” she said. “Perhaps next summer?”

“I'm sure she'd like that,” I said.

I weighed the obligation of keeping David's memory alive for Sophie—the stories, the pictures, the reminders I put on her calendar to write her relatives and thank them for the cards they sent on her birthday. She would one day want to know more exactly what went wrong, why her father decided to leave her so abruptly. Even if she avoided the pain of David's memory now, Sophie would want to know the whole story; she always did. I would write it down, knowing my memory would be clouded, my objectivity hampered, the sharp, instinctive tools of a reporter deadened by overwhelming emotion and personal involvement in my own story.

The fact that David hadn't left a note, denying us any written record of his final moments, or any insight into his decision, troubled me. Because of his illness, so much of his purpose in the world went unclaimed. He wouldn't live to see his greatest achievement, Sophie, learn French, or win a tennis match, or ski a black diamond run. David's story was so unfinished.

I once heard a pastor speak about suicide, about how those who take their own lives force us all to examine our untapped promise, our purpose, the reasons we put our dreams on hold. I'd been thinking about it so much, examining how I had loved, how deeply, what my part was in David's life and his death. My own purpose had come under searing self-scrutiny. Even if I could never forget him or move on from him in the way other people described, I was claiming the promise David left behind.

I put my headphones back on. Chris Martin was talking about living a life he, too, never imagined, one with infinite possibility. “If your wife had slept with Brad Pitt, you'd be shaking your head too.” I threw back my head and laughed out loud.

Grief is like an unwelcome stranger, an abductor who comes just at the moment you least expect and puts a black sack over your head, whisking you away to a dark, unknown place. Just when I thought I could cope with the idea of David's absence, I would wake up confused and traumatized all over again. His birthday, Easter, Christmas, and the anniversary of his disappearance all seemed to tear at the scab that had formed over the emotional wound.

Two years had passed since David's death, and I could not shake the feeling that there was something more I needed to do to fully understand David's decision.

I had overwhelming feelings of despair at the most unexpected times: Watching Sophie kick the soccer ball reminded me of the dozens of nights she and David spent kicking the ball across the hardwood floor in our kitchen. When Sophie sang the lead in the
school play, I was reminded of how David would prod Sophie to sing louder at our campfire gatherings. Sophie skied the way he did, cracked jokes with the same rhythm, shared his nose and his cheekbones and thick, thick hair—how could he have left her? Were there reasons that made sense at least to him? Was there a logic, however twisted? Or was it just the disease, the darkness, something no one, not even David, could understand?

I petitioned the doctors for his medical records, desperate for any answer. When the documents were ready, I drove to the hospital and parked in the same parking space I had used to visit David. It was the first time I'd been back to the hospital since his lockdown.