The awkwardness of grief tempts all of us to hide from the truth, but doing so only makes it harder to recover from the grief.
—Randy Christian
It’s 10:55 on a Thursday night. Your meeting with the board is running late. Just as you’re about to vote on rules for keeping the multipurpose room clean, the church secretary returns from answering the phone. There is something about her face—the tightness or the worry in her eyes—that makes you uneasy.
She hands you a note. Emergency, it says. Call your wife.
Your throat is dry as you punch the buttons on the phone in your office. When your wife answers after a single ring, her hello seems scared, forlorn, raw from crying.
Two minutes later you hang up the phone. Your hand is trembling. Your throat feels swollen. All you can do is stare at the darkened wall, swallowing again and again. You’ve just learned that your son, age seventeen, has been killed tonight in a car accident.
A mistake, you think at first. I saw him just a few hours ago. He can’t be dead.
You feel dizzy as you tell the others that you have to leave. You offer no explanations, and quizzical looks from board members follow you as you hurry out. It is all you can do to get into your car, turn the key, and drive home.
Somewhere in your numbness, guilt and anger flash. I shouldn’t have let him go out tonight. His friends shouldn’t have asked him to come. He shouldn’t have gone. God shouldn’t have let it happen!
By the time you and your wife reach the hospital, you have felt more emotions than you ever thought possible—from guilt to helplessness to rage to grief. And there is a numbness, a feeling that makes you feel dead yourself—but does not stop the pain.
In the hospital chapel you ask questions of a doctor and a policeman: “Was … was it quick? How did it happen?”
Though you didn’t think it possible, you’re thrown into deeper darkness by their answers. The police officer says quietly, “Your son drove his car into a concrete abutment. He left a note with a friend. It was suicide.”
You sit, disbelieving, as it slowly sinks in. Your son didn’t just die; he decided to die. It is the ultimate rejection: for some reason he felt it was better not to live than to live with you.
Finally the tears come. You sob with guilt for allowing your son’s death to happen, even though you don’t know how you could have prevented it. You feel guilty on his behalf, somehow, for this self-murder.
During the sleepless night that follows, your sense of rejection sours into bitterness. How could he have done this to me? Your grief turns to shame as you think of explaining this to relatives, friends, the congregation, the board. As this shame takes hold of you, you begin to feel a loneliness so intense that you doubt anyone—even your wife—could ever penetrate it.
This exercise in imagination only hints at the emotional whirlpool that traps those bereaved by suicide.
It’s impossible to predict precisely how any of us would react to such a tragedy, because grief is not a tame emotion. But it is usually true that the grief felt by someone who has lost a loved one to suicide is more terrible than most of us can imagine.
When suicide strikes, the survivors often find that few of their friends are able or willing to help. Often a pastor or other spiritual leader is called to the suicide scene, home, or hospital to comfort the survivors—whether or not he or she knows what to do.
That was my predicament when I first faced suicide bereavement. I was a police chaplain, called to assist a family whose son had shot himself in the head with a shotgun. I had no idea what to do, what to say, or what in the long run would be healthy for the family.
Since then I’ve had opportunities to serve many families who were bereaved by suicide. Those experiences, along with the insights of others I’ve worked with in this ministry, have helped me train pastors, police officers, police chaplains, and counselors. I’ve found that we can have a tremendous ministry to those left behind by suicide, even in the midst of their shock and sorrow.
Be Honest
The first and perhaps most important insight I’ve gained is the need to be honest. This starts with our choice of words, speaking plainly to the survivors, using “suicide” instead of euphemisms like “the unfortunate incident.”
This isn’t easy. The awkwardness of grief tempts all of us to hide from the truth. This is especially true of those bereaved by suicide, who are tempted to avoid the painful fact that a loved one took his or her own life. But hiding from the fact only makes it harder to recover from the grief.
Clara tried to hide. When she was a young woman, her husband died in a tragic “accident.” She lived in a small town, where everyone knew she and Jim had been having marital problems and that Jim had been deeply depressed.
Clara suspected Jim’s death was suicide when the police explained the “accidental” circumstances. She heard the cruel gossip of those who had picked up rumors concerning the coroner’s findings. She knew that many in town were saying Jim had killed himself—and that the coroner, an old family friend, was trying to ease Clara’s pain by ruling it an accidental death. In fact, the rumors were true. But Clara didn’t dare confront the truth, and friends shielded her from having to do so.
Years later, when her son was old enough to question his father’s death, Clara was forced to face the reality: Jim had committed suicide. The shock and shame were too much for her; admitting years of deception and accepting the suicide of her husband nearly crippled her emotionally. Clara’s friends had done her no favor by helping her hide from the truth.
No one is comfortable with the reality of suicide. No one should expect to be comfortable talking about it or even thinking about it. But I’ve found that grieving can’t be completed, and healing can’t come about, if dishonesty takes over.
Honesty, of course, doesn’t mean emotional brutality or insensitivity. The facts can be faced gently and lovingly. It’s understandable if we try to mask our own fear and sadness by being brusque or superficial with survivors, but it’s dishonest. We don’t have to pretend that we aren’t afraid, awkward, or hurting. In fact, when we show these feelings, we assure the bereaved that it’s all right for them to feel and express these emotions.
Accept “Outrageous” Feelings
Being honest doesn’t mean short-circuiting survivors’ feelings, either, no matter how objectionable their emotions may seem. Hearing and accepting feelings is an important part of this ministry, but it can be tough—as it was when I went to see Mark’s family.
Mark had shot himself. Now his family was so intensely angry at him that some members actually expressed the wish that he were alive again—just so they could kill him!
My first reaction was to try to calm them down. “You don’t really mean that, do you?” I asked.
The answer from Mark’s sister was cold and clear. “You bet I do!” As I looked into the eyes of that suffering woman, I knew she was serious. But somehow when she voiced these feelings, she disarmed them. Slowly she was released from their power. Eventually she was able to let go of her hate and to deal with the loss she felt. Had I successfully stifled her comment, this might not have happened.
I learned a valuable lesson from this. Everyone has the right—maybe a need—to feel and express such feelings. Mark’s sister could no more stop her rage than I could stop a cloud from passing over my head. She needed to face that rage, and when she did, she eventually was able to control it.
We need to be ready to hear and accept a wide range of emotions. Some survivors feel intense anger and hatred; others experience remorse or guilt. Still others may feel a sense of relief or even peace and happiness. The question is not whether people should have these feelings. The feelings are there, and they won’t leave just because a would-be counselor gets indignant. Nor is a question whether or not these feelings are healthy, though this may become an important issue later in the person’s life. The question is this: What feelings are there, and what is the healthiest way to express and deal with them?
When I feel survivors’ emotions are too extreme or not deep enough, I force myself to listen, to hear them out without cutting short their need to express these things. This frees them to experience grief in their own way and sets an example for other family members to follow. It is a way of saying, “I’m open to listening to any feelings you might have, and you need to do the same for each other.”
Leave Judgment to a Higher Court
I remember John, who seemed to be handling his mother’s suicide as well as could be expected. But every night he would wake up, tormented by the thought that his mother was in hell because of what she had done.
Had God condemned her for killing herself? I knew theologians had long debated the question of a suicidal person’s eternal destination, but I could find no justification for John’s fear in Scripture. I encouraged him to trust God, the only One who could judge his mother.
John began to do so. As he did, his focus changed from what his mother had done to what God had done for both of them.
Leaving judgment to God is especially important for church leaders, who are often seen by the bereaved as God’s bodily representatives. By refusing to pass judgment on the one who committed suicide—even when the bereaved want such a judgment—we encourage the survivors to leave judgment in God’s hands.
This does not mean offering false judgment. Many grieving relatives have approached me, asking of a loved one, “Is she with God?” Hard as it is, the only right answer for me is, “I don’t know.” Judgment is no more my right when I want to pardon than when I want to condemn. My role is to remind the bereaved that God is the only rightful Judge, and that the basis of his judgment is our relationship with Christ.
Replace Rejection With Acceptance
Life may be filled with rejections—an unkind word, a failure to listen, walking out in the middle of a conversation—but none of these begins to compare with the total rejection felt by many survivors. To them the suicidal person has said, “I don’t want to be around you anymore—ever.”
A friend of mine, a police chaplain, was able to help in such a case. He met with a young woman whose husband had killed himself while arguing with her. Just before the husband had pulled the trigger of his revolver, he had shouted, “I’ll show you!”
The young wife was devastated. She felt that her husband, who a few years earlier had committed himself to spending his life with her, had chosen to end his life to get out of that commitment. She had been rejected in such a final and horrible way that she believed she was the most worthless person alive.
My friend sat with her for hours. He called her the next day. He stopped in to see her occasionally after that. By his words and actions he was saying, “God accepts you.” Had he not been there, she might not have believed this message.
Offering this type of acceptance can be time-consuming, and the bereaved can become too dependent on the helping person’s presence. To avoid these problems, the primary helper can, without breaking contact with the person, introduce others who also will care. This tends to show the bereaved that others also accept them.
Remember the Power of Presence
The temptation for some pastors, thinking they must have exactly the right words for the bereaved, is to avoid this ministry for fear of saying the wrong thing. It helps to realize the value of simply being there.
On one of the first suicide calls I received, I was asked to sit with family members in their dining room while the police and coroner worked on the other side of the house to examine the scene and remove the body. It was a small house; we could hear virtually every word, every sound.
I asked family members whether they would prefer to leave the house while the coroner finished his work. They declined and sat silently. For ten minutes I tried to start conversations that might have some meaning to the survivors, but in vain. So I asked whether it would be all right if I simply sat with them. They agreed.
For more than an hour and a half we sat. Occasionally someone would shift his or her weight, and our eyes would meet as if we were all having some kind of visual conference. I have never been more uncomfortable than I was in that dining room, but I felt the family needed someone.
When the coroner and police had gone, I stayed for another hour. By the time I left, I doubted whether we had spoken even for fifteen minutes.
The next day I was asked to conduct the funeral because the family had no church home. During the months that followed, I had sporadic contact with them. All that time I felt defeated. I don’t have what they need, I thought. If only someone else had been available to them.
Nearly a year after the suicide, a mutual friend mentioned seeing one of the family members. “I don’t know what you did,” my friend told me, “but they sure are grateful to you.”
All I had done was commit myself to being with them. Had I attempted a monologue or continued my drive toward conversation that day, I don’t believe the result would have been so positive. Those family members needed someone who would simply be with them and hurt with them. Now I purposely allow a period of silence at such times; it is one of the few things the survivors comment on when they talk to me later.
The amount of time spent “being there” depends on the helper’s schedule, of course. I’ve found that one to three hours in the beginning is usually sufficient—and very much needed—to show the family that I care. During that time I don’t leave family members alone unless they ask me to. I know they don’t want me there forever, but they want to sense that I’m committed to them.
Point to Forgiveness
Do I remain silent whenever I spend time with survivors? Not at all. Sometimes my willingness to be there earns me the right to share personal thoughts and feelings. When this is the case, I can begin to lead them toward forgiveness.
Two kinds of forgiveness may be needed. The first involves the survivor who hungers to be forgiven, who feels somehow responsible for the suicide. “If only I had watched him more closely,” this person mourns. “If only I had been more loving, or had let her see her boyfriend, or …”
While no one can take full responsibility for another’s decisions or actions, sometimes the “if onlys” have enough legitimacy to cause great pain. This was true of one family I encountered.
Janet’s family knew she was considering suicide. They were determined to stop her if they could. They kept watch, driving past her home every fifteen minutes or so to check on her. On one of those “drive-bys,” they saw her car running in the driveway and investigated. There was Janet, sitting in the car with the windows rolled up—except where a vacuum hose from the exhaust pipe was pouring deadly fumes through a back window.
They had arrived early enough; Janet was not injured. Removing the hose, they moved the young woman into her house and discussed what to do. Should they call the police or take Janet to the emergency room? Janet assured them that she would not try anything else that night; she only wanted to get some sleep. Finally, the family took Janet’s car keys and the vacuum hose and left.
But Janet had a duplicate set of keys and another hose. The next morning, neighbors found her in the car. Dead.
The members of Janet’s family knew they had made a bad decision. They kept bringing this up when I met with them, and it would have been dishonest of me to deny it. But I could show them that they could be forgiven for their error.
My first step was to show that I could forgive them. They needed to see in my actions that Christ was willing to forgive them, too. Then they needed to understand how to forgive themselves. Over the next several months I kept reassuring them that forgiveness was available; in time they accepted it.
Theological discourses are not the cure for people like those in Janet’s family. But a simple sharing of Christ’s love for us and his willingness to forgive our sins is always appropriate. I would explain the concrete, practical side of forgiveness.
“I know you don’t feel forgiven right now,” I might say, “and you probably shouldn’t expect to. Forgiveness is more of an action than a feeling. It’s deciding not to make a person pay for what he or she has done. That’s what God does for us in Christ—not making us pay for our sin. If God forgives you, then you can forgive yourself, too.”
When a survivor feels forgiven, it may help to explain that he feels angry with himself for not preventing the suicide. The anger is rooted in hurt, and he will probably feel angry with himself as long as he feels the hurt. But he doesn’t have to act on the anger by refusing to accept forgiveness.
“Think about what you’re doing to yourself,” I might say. “You’re trying to ‘pay yourself back.’ But you don’t have to pay. You don’t have to keep punishing yourself, constantly reminding yourself of what you did, depriving yourself of the help you could be getting from others. You can decide, step by step, to accept God’s forgiveness, forgive yourself, learn from your mistake, and maybe help someone else.” Once this is accomplished, the survivor is free to move ahead in the grieving process.
Some, like Janet’s family, need forgiveness themselves. Others need help with a second kind of forgiveness: the ability to forgive the person who committed suicide.
This was the case with a boy named Jack. Only thirteen years old, he had experienced the ultimate rejection from his father, who had killed himself. Jack had loved his dad but now felt abandoned. He needed help to forgive the father who had left him.
No matter how many explanations Jack heard about his father’s mental state, no matter how many times he was told about the pressures his father had felt, it didn’t help. Jack couldn’t change his anger and resentment.
The first step in helping Jack was to let him see others forgiving his father—not condoning the man’s action, but showing a willingness to forgive. Then it was important to help Jack see that refusing to forgive was not hurting his father; it was hurting Jack.
It took a long time for Jack to accept his father’s imperfection, but eventually the boy was able to forgive and proceed with his grief.
When the Next Call Comes
There are no surefire formulas for helping those left behind by suicide. And there may be times when, in counseling the bereaved, we will feel out of our league and will need to refer. But that need not keep us from answering the next call from a stunned, devastated survivor.
Standing with those who have experienced the pain of suicide is a special opportunity to serve. As helpers, we become special to the survivors because we are there. To them we represent God, and they will usually take our ambassadorship seriously.
That does not require perfect performance on our part; it gives us a unique chance to model the compassion and forgiveness offered by the One who sent us.
Copyright © 1997
