On 9/29 the Calumet Park Cemetery sponsored its first 5K walk/run for Suicide Awareness and Prevention.

I was honored to be a guest speaker and I wanted to share my speech with you.

For a first ever 5K event the turnout was great. Way more than I expected. The staff at Calumet Park are outstanding. I had no idea such a beautiful place existed in NW Indiana.

 

 

 

 

I lost my son Nolan 2 years ago to suicide. He is forever 19 years old.

The question I ask myself, as I am sure you have ask as well – IS WHY?

Ask it once,   maybe one hundred times, Maybe a thousand times?

Why does someone take their life?

Now let me ask a different “why ” question- why are you here?

Many of us here have lost a loved one to suicide; a family member, a friend, a coworker, a friend of a friend. Maybe you are here in support of someone who suffered the loss.

Suicide awareness is a bit more on the radar in the last months with the loss of  celebrities Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. Our society acknowledges the loss, the media brings up the subject, a bit of time is spent on the discussion, and due to its uncomfortable and ever so sad act that suicide is — the subject  is changed.

A researcher on suicide named Thomas Joiner authored a book –“Myths about Suicide” where he states there are two psychological states of mind of the person considering suicide

-They perceive they are a burden to others

– They have a sense of not belonging

We know we do not want the numbers of loss to suicide to increase.

Today we say we want to help. To help those in our community who struggle with mental illness, PTSD, substance abuse, chronic pain and other conditions known as risk for suicide – we say we promise we will speak up if we see or hear words or actions in people we know.  More than ever we see now that asking about suicide and bringing it up is not to be feared. We are better educated and more confident to act when before we might have thought we would do more harm.

We are not better off without those we lost to suicide. They were never a burden. We acknowledge a person with suicide thoughts may feel alone and that they feel they do not belong. This is where we will work to give hope and opportunity for those that feel they need to end their pain by suicide.

So instead of asking why – I suggest we do what we need to do.

We live.

We live on and continue to help prevent more people ending their pain by suicide.

I thank Calumet  Park Cemetery for creating this event.  Our participation today will help fund two great local groups – PATH and Operation Combat Bike Saver.

While you run or walk or get pushed in a wheelchair like me – take the time to reflect on WHY you are here. We belong here – to keep our loved ones – be they a child, spouse, parent, relative, friend, veteran or first responder in our hearts and in our minds.

We want our pain of loss to help others never go where their end is too soon and our lives are forever missing them.

Nolan is in my heart and is with me every day until I see him again.

I am used to time being marked by monthly intervals.

During my residency we rotated monthly working in different parts of the hospital.  My pregnancies were a monthly countdown to the big day. Even now in my work with office schedule loads and call responsibilities, all are managed on monthly calendars. (January and February are the worst and longest months for us pediatricians!)

Now I will be marking time since Nolan’s passing in years, not months. I can’t control time marching on and I really don’t want to.

My friend Amy also lost her son at age 16. He did not die by suicide. He passed away two months after Nolan. We grieved together for a while and during our first year grieving our sons, a person who has grieved the loss of their child for many years told us that the second year is harder than the first.

Amy and I looked at each other and said “OH HELL NO!!” (I tamed this down – I said much harsher words)

Don’t tell me that my nightmare of the first year is followed by a harder second year!!!

God – I don’t have the strength for that.

Yet time continues on and I am strong and going on with my life.

Grief is individual. Ebbing and flowing. Gentle and turbulent. Quiet then madly overtaking and all-encompassing hard.

Is the second year harder? In some ways yes.

• Life continue on. Which is good. We all need that. It’s just that life expects you to go back to normal. Pre-trauma/loss/grief normal. But there’s a new normal and you are a changed person and you can’t think and do things like before.
• The first year people acknowledge your loss. They hug you, ask how you are doing, they talk about you child. Now there is little mention of Nolan. When I bring him up I find some people get uncomfortable. Look – he still is my son. I still want to talk about him.
• Holidays, anniversary, birthdays are really hard. There is little to  look forward to because you have an empty spot, a hole in you heart that you can’t fill.
• I am more tired. My body aches. I believe I am more tired because I am back to my professional life – its expectations and mental demands – yet I have the underlying grief that I need to acknowledge.  Some days are an emotional marathon. If only grief and its mental exercises would burn calories!
• In the first year it’s all new. Then the next year shows all the same milestones and he is still gone. I didn’t think I could miss him more but I really do. That is how I would describe the second year — intense missing.

I fall into moods where all I can think about is the pain of missing him. 

I look at his prayer card — “Remember mom – miss me, but let me go.” 

I am trying.

 

Thank you to my family and friends – you have held me up at my lowest, made me laugh, made me smile, cried with me, and gave me time when I needed to be alone.  I am very blessed.

 

 

Since it is a hard month for me and I need to keep my head above my deep waves of grief – I want to think about my happy memories of Nolan.

The Gold house is a place where sarcasm, joking around and making someone laugh are a daily thing.

Scott is the house’s king of comedy. Not the slapstick Jim Carrey type.  He is more cerebral. He did years of stand up and improv classes at Second City. I imagine he uses those skills when he teaches.

When one of us came home after a bad day ultimately someone in the family would crack a joke or quote some lines from a favorite movie.

We forgot our troubles with laughter.

It is no surprise that Nolan made his friends laugh.

I’m sure I don’t know half the stuff he did and I probably don’t want to know. His friends tell me Nolan was a jolly and fun loving friend.  He could make anyone laugh.

I remember this side of Nolan.  I still can hear his laugh. 

 

 

 

Since it is a hard month for me and I need to keep my head above my deep waves of grief – I want to think about my happy memories of Nolan.

Right before he went off to Valpo for college – Nolan got a tattoo.

He could have picked anything.

He got one of a lotus flower.

Doesn’t it look like the symbol of his video game he loved to play?

But he told his friends and me that he picked it more for the lotus shape.

A lotus flower symbolizes spiritual enlightenment and rebirth.

Nolan told Lily – one of his close friends – his lotus tattoo meant inner peace. Something he was searching for and one of the important things to have in life.

He loved that tattoo. He wore sleeveless shirts to show it off.  It made him feel good.

A few months ago Nolan’s very good friend Tino texted me a photo of his new tattoo.

As we near the two year mark of Nolan leaving us I hope his friends remember the good times they had with him.

My heart gets stuck on missing him. On wishing he were here.

He does not want me to be sad. He has told me. Even in the afterlife he does not want to see his mom cry.

I try to focus on the good memories. The times we laughed.

He had the best laugh. 

 

 

‘

 

I don’t like getting old.

To make it worse your body does not like stress.

And grief is a big stress.

I have a running injury and it is bringing me down. With researching my injury I have dabbled a bit in reading about kinesiology and trigger points.

 

Trigger Point: a sensitive area of the body; stimulation or irritation of which causes a specific effect in another part.

Thankfully I have many people in my life that are helping my body recover from my injury.

We all have stress in our lives. I used to thrive on it.

But since Nolan passed I just can’t handle stress like I used to. I no longer work the extra hours that I used to.  I rarely work on a scheduled day off now. I say no to things and don’t feel guilty.

And I listen to my body. I wear my stress in my shoulders, back and hips. Stretching, yoga and massages help me.  If I don’t do these things my body suffers. A massage can help me release a trigger point – it might be painful to have the area touched – but the pain at that site ultimately releases pain in other areas.

I think my grief has “trigger points” too.

If I do not allow time to think about my loss, if I do not spend some time in my “house of grief” (see blog April 10)  then the stress builds up into a trigger point. And it gets to be a big nasty one.

As I approach his “Angelversary” next month I am taking some preparatory deep breaths.

As far as I have come, I can be strong and get through this.

Do you ever wonder how people in Chicago can vote twice?

Well I have an explanation.

When you die you aren’t dead to everyone….

 

I polled a few of my grieving friends with child loss to suicide… (yes we have a closed group on FB – be glad you are not a member!)

They have graciously shared with me some of the mail that they have received addressed to their now passed children. Children can be very young or up to adult age at passing. Some of the mail we get …

• Award from college
• Junk mail – up to 14 years later
• Survey from doctor’s office, ambulance company
• survey from girl scouts on effects of bullying
• offers from banks
• alumni mailings
• jury duty notice (my favorite) 
• realtor wanting to buy condo – sold 2 years earlier
• 401K statements every 3 months (after notice of the death)
• Credit card applications
• Notice to register for selective service
• College propaganda
• Free razor from shave club -on 18^th bday
• NRA membership request
• notice from child’s psychiatrist that office is moving, > 1 year after child passing  (I personally told Nolan’s psychiatrist he died)

Please note all these parents made the appropriate notices to whom they could that their child had passed. Death certificates sent out, emails and letters sent telling banks, institutions etc that they are no longer here.

How about a phone call asking about your dead child?

EXACTLY one week after Nolan passed Purdue called me.

Go back one year prior- Nolan did one semester at Purdue. He did not enroll for the fall semester there since he had transferred to Valpo. He emailed Purdue months before telling them he was not returning. He got a reply email acknowledging his transfer. Yet he got an email from some kid one week before Purdue started that fall semester – the kid said he had Nolan’s name down as his roommate!! Nolan told him Purdue’s error and he confirmed Purdue did not have him listed as returning.

I did not tell the man calling me asking “If I was happy Nolan was attending Purdue” anything other than he transferred to Valpo.

Go forward another week and VALPO UNIVERSITY calls me – a young college girl asks me  “How am I doing? How is Nolan doing? Does he seem satisfied in his first weeks at Valpo?”

I know this young woman was doing a job at the school – she has no idea that Nolan passed. I was having a good day when she called so I did not break down on the phone.   I told her Nolan had died and I understood he was still on the list as a new student. She was shocked and apologized.

I have not gotten any more mail or phone calls from Purdue or Valpo since then.

Some of my grieving friends welcome this mail and some find it a harsh jab reminding them their child is gone.

We have our children on our minds everyday. Not every minute of the day. But at least once in the day we think about them. I wish we could always have that thought be a joyful and pleasant one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are a lot of hard things I think about in my grief mind.

I miss Nolan every day.  His absence may not be on my mind all day, but the minute I wake up I remember he is gone.

The hardest, most heartbreaking time is when he is missing from an occasion he should be at. Like his birthday, and most holidays.

Christmas.

               That is the hardest one for me.

I don’t know if that holiday is going to get any easier.

When your kids are young you look forward to milestones you imagine and anticipate in their future.

In a way I am glad I rarely dreamed of Nolan’s future – like his college graduation, his first job out of school, or my attending his wedding. Those where such unknowns.

Forever I am stuck in the world where he went off to college.

He should be heading off to another year back at school.

But he never came back the first time.

I don’t know how I will be when his friends graduate – or his cousins marry or have kids. I will celebrate them of course – and I know I will mourn my empty space that Nolan left me.

I miss him so much.

 

It is no secret I am an upbeat person.

Heck – I am a pediatrician! Have you met a grumpy pediatrician? Well – maybe we aren’t sparkly happy all the time but overall we are the fun and smily group in the doctor lineup.

 

 

 

 

I watched a great program where survivors of the holocaust talked about their sense of humor during their internment at concentration camps. During the most bleak and hopeless time of their lives they still sought humor.

Humor connects us to each other. It makes the painful times and experiences of this world be more tolerable. It allows a different perspective.

It was about a week after Nolan passed that Scott and Sam and I watched a movie. I laughed at a humorous part and immediately felt guilty. How could I laugh? Could I feel happy and not feel guilty? My  fellow parents at my Compassionate Friend’s chapter talk about the guilt the first time they laughed after their child died. Would Nolan want me to be sad and constantly miss him all the time? Absolutely no.

So goes my thoughts in this the second year of my grief:

For the balance of my sad crying times I really enjoy the times that I am happy.

I really really love a good laugh.

 

I call my blog The Grieving Doctor Mom but I haven’t spent much time talking about the doctor side of my life.

The life of a doctor. More specifically – a pediatrician. First off – if you need quiet at your workplace – then you don’t become a pediatrician.

Sometimes my office is a chaotic scream factory. We give a lot of shots.

Even if the visit has no shots planned some patients just don’t want to be there. (pretty much all 15 and 18 month olds)

Doctor= The master to compartmentalize

To compartmentalize: separate something into parts and not allow those parts to mix together

Doctors are AWESOME at this. And we have to be. It starts in medical school and is especially used during residency. To succeed you cannot mix emotion with your work. You must be mentally sharp, not clouded by your feelings. A mild example:  I talk to a mom of a teenager with a diagnosis of depression and anxiety, inpatient psychiatric care, school failure and drug use, recommend care and state a plan, give mom reassurance that her child will be ok,  comfort mom as she cries and says it is all so hard (in 15 min ) then regroup and enter the next room to a rowdy 2 year old wellness exam with a tired mom with three crazy healthy siblings bored from waiting for you.

I have survived so far with this skill. During residency no one cared if you had problems at home. Well, your colleagues cared but the work still had to get done, so you had to leave it at home.

Four years of med school and three years of residency where you left your problems at home and did your work. My art of compartmentalizing is automatic now. 22 years of practice, every day. Remember my house of grief? It does not connect with my work life.  And I really don’t want to. I am focused on other people’s problems. Their world. Their concerns. I am the problem solver. The conduit to healing and guide to finding the answers.

So I have many hours of my week where I am focused on my life as a doctor. I am proud  I can still practice pediatrics. I can focus and do my life’s work. I still want to help people. Even more now.

My compassion has increased by my loss. 

The hard part is my time away from my work. I have to put my work worries and thoughts aside and be the grieving mom. Not doctor. The transition can sometimes be easy and other times it slams me in the face.

My grief is like a garden. I have to visit it in brief but frequent trips, weeding the garden as it calls for every few days. If I spend too much time away the garden is taken over by overgrowth, weeds, bugs and what not.  I then spend my time lamenting that I have this garden. It can overwhelm me to care for it and put it back to the condition I want and can tolerate.

Finally – when Nolan died I did not keep secret the cause of his death. But now I wonder if the parents and older patients of my practice, the ones that know about my loss, if they think differently of me.

I wonder if they think I failed him.

I know we did all we could for Nolan. He took his life. He made his choice. We helped him connect with psychiatric help and a therapist he really could talk to. (which is amazing for a 19-year-old shy depressed anxious young man to do) I don’t know what happened in his last days or hours of life to make him end his pain.

But I was his mom and a doctor. Why couldn’t I save him?

I don’t worry if people think I could have stopped Nolan from taking his life. They don’t know the details.

But I do hope they see the doctor that is standing before them now is very grateful to still do her life’s work and serve God’s children in compassionate care.

 

I can’t say I am happy for having grief be a big part of my life. If I had a choice you know I would grab the time machine I so wish for and go back to stop Nolan from taking his life. Or go back further and recognize that he was depressed the last years of high school. (he denied he was depressed – I asked him many times)

As I am a glass half full kind of gal I can share with you the good I now have in my life even though I am forever missing one of my children.

 

• I live in the present as much as I can

• I tell people I love them. A LOT more often now

• I listen better

• I don’t judge. I remember I am hearing one side and one perspective  of a situation

• I love to laugh. I always have but I really enjoy when I am happy

• I stop and smell the flowers. And I listen and look for signs. Yes -I see them often from Nolan and my parents

• I pray more then ever. Sometimes for me and most of the time for others

• AND THE BIGGEST CHANGE: I do NOT sweat the small stuff. Thing that used to piss me off or make me waste my mental energy are now meaningless. I feel free from that past burden

I am sure others who had a life changing experience appreciate things in a different way. It is not just a grieving life that provides this perspective.

Finally – I know I am strong.  I made it through medical school, residency, 20+ years of being a full time pediatrician AND a mom of two great kids AND and married 25 years to a man I still love.

Nolan’s suicide is a nightmare I wake to everyday.

I would never say I have been thru the worst because I could lose even more. I know others who have lost two children to suicide.

But I know I have not for one minute questioned if I can go on. 

Hell yes – I can and I will.