The Dangerous Myth: Blacks And Suicide

It is the stuff of legend; the belief that death by suicide is so rare in the black community as to be nearly unheard of.  That we are the descendents of those who survived the middle passage, slavery and Jim Crow, and depending on one’s point of view we are either too strong or emotionally uncomplicated to engage in this act.  That is the myth. Yet all the faces you just saw are those of people who ended their lives by suicide.  They are all somebody’s beloved …… somebody’s brother, sister or spouse.  In some cases they are somebody’s parent.  And they are all somebody’s child. Their deaths expose the lie that suicide doesn’t happen in the black community; that those who take their own lives are exclusively White, or Asian, or anybody other than the resilient black people we’ve believed ourselves to be.  While the rate of black suicides is lower than that of Whites, things are rapidly changing. Here are the facts.    

• While female youth of all races are more likely to attempt suicide than males, males complete suicide at 3 to 4 times the rate.
  

• Between 1950 and 1981 the rates of completed suicides increased 214% for black males aged 15 to 24. And it increased for black females in the same age group by 133%.
  

• From 1981 to 1994, the suicide rate increased 83% for African American males between the ages of 15 and 24. And it increased 10% for black females during the same period.

• Although Caucasian youth remain more likely to complete suicide than African American youth, the gap is quickly closing.  As of 1995, the white male suicide rate for youth stood at 18.3 per 100,000.  The rate for black males doubled to 13.8 per 100,000.
  

• In Chicago and NYC some mental health professionals are now reporting the suicide rate for young black males is now higher than that of whites.

• The rising tide of suicide is impacting both black middleclass youth and those from poorer inner city neighborhoods.

• Suicide in black males is more often associated with rage, anger and somatic symptoms than the sadness and melancholy more typically associated with depression.

• Today, suicide is the 3^rd leading cause of death among African American males between the ages of 15 and 24.

And while these statistics are staggering, they mask the individual stories of loss that happen one person at a time, leaving family and friends shocked and devastated.

The suicide death of James Dungy, the 18 year old son of Indianapolis football coach Tony Dungy was widely reported in the press.  This high profile loss resulted in some fleeting public awareness that blacks do indeed take their own lives. But there are many stories less reported in the media that underscore this fact.

There’s the story of Edwin Jones Jr., the 15 year old straight A student who shot himself in November of 1997.  “He was always such a neat child,” his step mother said. “He even shot himself neatly so the blood wouldn’t show.”  Edwin left a picture of himself in the middle of his bed with a note reading “By the time you get this you’re going to know I received an F, and I’d rather be dead ……”

There’s the story of Kelvin Smallwood-Jones, the deans list student who was a football star and home coming king at his Washington D.C. high school. Recipient of a full academic scholarship to Morehouse College, Kelvin dabbled in photography and mentored at-risk kids.  Less than two weeks before his 20^th birthday, Kelvin shot himself on the deck of his mother’s home.  Kelvin’s mother said she used to worry about whether he was wearing a seatbelt or having unprotected sex. She had no idea Kelvin was at high risk for depression and that his life would end by suicide.

And there’s the controversial death of the 10 year old fifth grader Aquan Lewis, found hanging in an Evanston elementary school bathroom. It’s reported he made public threats of suicide after being scolded by a teacher. That same day he was found unresponsive by the school janitor. While his mother insisted her son would not have killed himself, the Cook County Medical examiner said there was no evidence of foul play and ruled his death a suicide.  

These are a few of the stories of loss due to suicide.  For the full impact of this tragedy we need to consider that in the U.S. alone an average of 33,000 suicides are completed each year; that annually there are 33,000 stories each with their individual circumstances, precipitating causes and pain so intense that in a moment they follow through with this irreversible decision. We’re talking about one suicide death every 16 minutes.

And for every person ending their life by suicide there are a host of other victims. They are the survivors; loved ones who must figure out how to remake their shattered lives in the wake of this emotional carnage.  I am intimately familiar with this carnage. On June 30, 2006 my son, Justin Donnell Woodly took his life. He was 24 years old; and this is his story.

Birthday Remembrances

Every year since Justin’s death I’ve written a poem to him on his birthday which is September 9th. The following piece was prepared for what would have been his twenty sixth birthday and it expresses more than anything the struggle going forward.

Upon Your 26th Birthday

How do I construct a day that honors you,

rather than surrender to my grief.

These seem to be my choices.

Fitful, restless sleep and a 10 o’clock a.m. rising

suggest I’ve begun the day missing the mark,

failing you again.

How do I recover, placing you boldly at

the center of this day; Evoking you completely in thought and word,

commanding total recall, absent debilitating sorrow?

Rematerializing you in minds-eye so vivid you

are present with us, smiling, long-lashed, playful,

tall and muscled, in one of your good moods.

How do I intentionally summon the feel of your

beating heart, ear pressed to your chest,

embraced in one of your all consuming hugs,

without the desperate, glacial void of missing you?

How do I construct such a day,

without inviting bleeding, intolerable loss:

Serve as resident keeper of all your hopes and dreams,

chronicler of your fleeting age, from beginning to end,

and survive this telling?

How do I construct a life that honors you,

rather than surrender to my grief.

This is the struggle for all that is left;

God’s uncompromising final exam.

And the answers remain a mystery.

Forever,

Your Mother

9/9/07

To reconcile the fact that I live on in spite of this awful hole, the only tolerable thing I’ve determined I must do is to spend my life time honoring him. The question remains how to do that. I have come to know this. Justin deserves to be remembered for his life, not his death. Above all I must recall his compassionate concern for others, his quick wit and quirky sense of humor, his unwavering discipline, his kind thoughtfulness and his continual desire to make things right for those he loved. And the horrible image I saw on the day I found him must somehow be forever replaced by the memory of him smiling.

I Have Two Children

I have two children. One is a girl child who just got married in June, and is now expecting my first grandchild. The other is a boy child who ended his life on June 30, 2006 at twenty four years old, and will be lost to me for the remainder of my mortal life.

My daughter just turned thirty and has completed her PhD at a prestigious university. She is now junior faculty at an innovative college in NYC, and has found the love of her life in her new husband, with whom she will work to build a wonderful, meaningful life. On July 1, 2006, I found my son who was an intensely earnest and disciplined young man, hanging from the back porch of our home in the early morning hours. I suspect this image of him will be forever with me.

Each is my beloved child and I am proud of them both. They are similar in their determination and work ethic, their achievement motive and the heart felt desire to accomplish their dreams. They are different in that one survived the difficulties and rigors associated with their lofty pursuits and the other did not.

I am deliriously happy for my daughter, and thankful that she stands on the precipice of this beautiful new life. I am forever heart broken for my son, who in the face of deferred dreams gave in to a fitful but deliberately executed impulse to take his own life.

Being a mother who is equally vested in both her children, I am having some difficulty reconciling these two very different realities. I am struggling with balancing the mother who is joyous, excited and enthusiastically supportive, with the mother who is forever traumatized, mournful and scared by loss. You see, I am both of these things simultaneously, and occupying these duel spaces is proving to be very challenging for me.

Years ago when they were very little, my ex-sister-in-law and I ran into a glitch when we were planning a trip for our kids to travel solo to visit Grandma and Grandpa in upstate New York. At the time, my daughter and hers were both six years of age, and my son was three years and eight months old. In those innocent pre 9/11 days, the airlines would fly minor children to their destinations without an adult escort. A problem arouse when we discovered children traveling in this way had to be a minimum of five. At the time, my sister-in-law suggested our daughters make the trip together and my son would just have to stay behind. She seemed annoyed when I said no; that my son would not be left out, and if his sister was to go, he must be included also.

The dilemma was resolved when I decided all of them would make the trip. They were all big and quite precocious for their respective ages. While my son was just short of four years old, he communicated well enough to pass for five and the girls were both protective, chatty young ladies who could easily pass for seven. That was the guise under which they traveled. The identification tags attached to their wrists stated they were five and seven respectively. Being the personable, talkative children they were, we latter found out they spilled the beans sometime during the flight, sharing the truth about their ages with one of the flight attendants they’d charmed. I understand the flight attendant seemed amazed by this revelation and responded by being even more attentive and charmed than she’d been before. She made sure they were delivered into the loving arms of their grandparents.

While some might see this as irresponsible on my part, in retrospect, I’m glad I made this decision to deceive. It ended up being the last full summer of my father’s life, and that trip provided the few early, hazy memories my son would have of his grandfather. Besides the importance of ensuring my son this precious gift of memory, I had taken the stance I would hold for the rest of my life; that my children were equally important and dear to me; that we must find the money and means to send both of them to Japan as high school exchange students; that we must do whatever was necessary to provide each of them equal opportunity to pursue their talents and dreams. My instinct about this has not changed. Like my love, it survives even through death. While I can no longer touch or see him, my son will always have my equal attention. And while that creates a difficult, painful duality in my existence, it is the only way I know how to do this.

Crying While Driving

Things started out badly this morning. All of a sudden, at about 7:00 a.m.on the way to work, I collapsed into tears while driving. Sounds pretty dangerous in retrospect. But at the time the potential danger to traffic was the furthest thing from my mind. I was overwhelmed with regret and guilt. And the re-recognition of how I let you slip through my fingers that day was more than I could handle without a thinly controlled implosion. How I let my frustration with the rest of my life prevent me from giving you my full attention is reprehensible to me. Clearly you needed it. And while I have no illusions about being God, I believe my full attention would have made a difference. At least it could have made a difference on that day, and that day might have been all you needed to have a life time. I don't know when or if there will ever be a point I feel some permanent peace; not as long as I live with this understanding. No matter what happens in the future, I don't think I'm going to get past this. In some ways, I hope I'm wrong about that. In another way, I feel its appropriate penance for such grievous negligence. There may never be total peace. There may never be any rest. There may forever be bouts of crying while driving.

God Grant Me The Serenity

How to go on with the rest of my life is the challenge for me now. What does one do when their child precedes them in death by their own hand? How does one make peace with that? Justin’s father takes his direction from the Alcoholic’s Anonymous Serenity Prayer.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

the courage to change the things I can;

and the wisdom to know the difference.”

But accepting a thing you cannot change is difficult when that thing is patently unacceptable to you. Missing my son for the rest of my mortal life is unacceptable to me, and to date I have not been able to defer to the will of God on this. Maybe that makes me a sinner. Maybe it makes me a foolishly stubborn person unable to yield. Maybe I am my own worst enemy in this. But as Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote in her poem Dirge Without Music, “I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.”

Things That Will Not Be

I will never again look into your soul-lit eyes,

ocean deep, heavy-lashed and richly brown.

Nor see them, full and tender as you look on

the face of your first born child.

I will not hear the living cadence of your voice,

with quick-paced, clear delivery.

Nor listen to it round and

deepen with the years.

You will not be present at holiday gatherings,

across the dining room table, laughing with siblings,

talking politics and philosophy, as you catch

up on each others lives.

I will not see the three of you rapt in conversation,

against the background din of grandchildren at play;

Basking in each other’s company, after second helpings

of candied yams, collard greens and lamb.

I will not catch a stolen glimpse of affection bestowed on the special

woman you chose. Or marvel at the way your toddler

runs to you, big-eyed, beautiful, and laughing

as you bend to pick her up.

I will miss your precise, long-limbed, athletic movements,

as they grow contained and cautious over time.

And won’t witness your spirit mellow with acceptance,

into the peaceful steadiness of age.

I will not watch your narrow, muscled frame give way

to mid-life thickness, or your hairline recede against

thinning salt and pepper gray.

And I won’t receive your teasing phone calls to check

on me, and ask me how I’m doing. Or hear

with sudden recognition how much

you sound like my father.

And in the twilight end of days,

there will be no final visit from you at my bedside

to hold my hand; proof of how much

I’ve been loved.

You will not stand by my grave, scatter my ashes,

or speak fondly of me to your children,

living on in devoted remembrance.

All this,

you have stolen from me.

I have been partially erased,

irrevocably robbed of future;

Cursed forever

by the memory of things,

that have not been,

and will not be.

Forever,

Your Mother

Richie, Deva and Justin Laughing

Confessions of A Survivor

Guilt and regret are common emotions when we lose someone. That’s often the case no matter how they leave us. But when the method of death is suicide these two emotions loom unbelievably large for survivors; Some who will spend the rest of their lives agonizing about how they failed the person, wondering what they could have done to stop it. Among the frank but gently delivered bits of wisdom offered by Survivor support group leaders is the fact that your loved one’s method of death was their decision, not yours. As a mother, it always seemed to me that might be easier to rationalize if the suicide was your spouse, parent, sibling or friend. I always felt it was harder to accept if the suicide was your child. To put it in perspective I’ve heard group leaders pose the question, “Wouldn’t you have done anything in your power to stop them?” The answer to that is “Of course I would have!” But in my head I would always follow that with “But I didn’t stop it.” Like Justin told me in the birthday letter he wrote to me “…..you are undoubtedly primary in anything I have been or ever will come to be.” What he ended up being was a beautifully complex soul who took his own life at 24 years old. And I can’t help but believe some of this was due to my failings. As a parent, I took my eye off the most important thing in my life and it slipped through my fingers. I let go. And while it runs counter to a basic tenant of Survivor 101, I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for that.

Like Glass

Looking back, I believed I was the perfect gardener,

the infallible architect.

That against the force of fickle circumstance,

I would stand.

And with grit, certainty and perseverance,

painstakingly mold the shape of life.

Nurturing my seedlings to unrivaled harvest.

Protecting what was precious.

Preserving the essential. Fending off evil.

Fierce earth mother, I believed I had built an

impenetrable fortress against the storm. An

affirming, gentle space, armoring you

with steel for departure.

Tethering you to safety with a fibrous, living

cord, fed by blood and memory.

Resilient and unbreakable.

A consecrated bond, linking us all, one to another.

Stretching forward in time as far as I could see.

How was I to know that love, pure and unconditional

can be fatal; that undying perseverance

can kill you, deadly parasites to their hosts.

When did the slow infusion of toxic air

seep into our fortress. And when did it become lethal?

How could such determined labor so profoundly miss its

mark? How could I have fallen? How could I have failed?

Looking back, I believed I was the perfect gardener,

the infallible architect.

Sheltering fragile beauty with stone and mortar.

Protecting, Determined, Unbreakable, Fierce.

Made brave and believing by love, will and tenacity.

But a growing firestorm, undetected and cruel

laid waste to all I had built.

Charred all that was green and living.

Fired mortar and stone to glazed, brittle finish.

Splintering belief into a thousand pieces.

Dispersing certainty into tiny, reflective shards on the ground.

Leaving me shattered and broken,

like glass.

Forever,

Your Mother

1/17/07

Reflections From Last Evening

It's been more than three years since you left us. But last night, I had an intense feeling of missing you, and I cried. It was an overwhelming moment, as it typically is. I saw you in mind's eye clearly and felt your presence. I imagined you looking down at your own child, a child you never had. And you had the most focused and poignant expression on your face; A serious look of intense love and caring. I know that's the kind of father you would have been. 

I've tried to connect with you in my dreams since we lost you. And while you came to your father with regularity, you wouldn't come to me. It was frustrating. You had to know how much I needed to see you .... to talk to you. Then, about 3 months ago I woke recalling a dream of you. But you were not a tall, muscular 24 year old young man. You were the beautiful baby boy I remembered.  So far, this is the only way you've come to me clearly.

When I Dream of You

I've needed to see you again.

Struggled to rematerialize you in my dreams.

Raise you to real presence;

Strong, Willful and Physical as you were.

But your visitations eluded me.

And waking from black restless sleep yielded nothing,

No visions, no feeling, no rendering, no trace.

When you finally came to me,

held in memory past the boarder of sleep,

you were your child self.

Trusting, Beautiful and Open.

Reintroducing us to original innocence.

Inviting me to hoist you on my hip,

kiss your forehead.

Your dimpled toddler hand grabs my hair.

Your laugh is Pure and Gleeful.

And in my dream, you smile at me with

settled, knowing eyes,

as if granting us the chance to start over.

Forever,

Your Mother

11/5/09

Event Horizon

Definition:

Event Horizon: The boundary at the edge of a black hole from which nothing, not even light escapes, and the space time continuum becomes warped. The Event Horizon marks the point of no return where all matter is absorbed.

Event Horizon

In an attempt to sanitize hell;

Contain it by naming this murder of my soul,

I've put pen to paper many times.

Obsessed with recounting the

narrative of the of the moment I found you.

In my attempt to process carnage,

I've tried to mark the instant of the peripheral sighting,

and the turn full face towards inconceivable horror.

But I have been mute,

because there are no words.

Just images seared on ravaged, swollen memory,

blinding seconds in which there is no air.

Just the silence of you hanging there.

At first, I imagined you standing.

Then it became clear.

The blue wind breaker you wore,

long arms limp at your sides;

Head bowed as if in prayer.

Serious, Serene.

Tips of sneakers nearly touching ground,

and the beauty of your lashes, black and

thick against caramel cheeks.

You look peacful.

As if there was no struggle, no remorse,

just a decision.

I feel the rounding of my mouth into scream.

But there is no air, so there isn't any sound.

Nor is there any recollection of how I spanned the

25 feet to end up beside you,

trying to lift you to awareness,

shake your eyes open.

The stiff unnatural coldness made it final.

An icy tremor shoots through me,

jolts me into knowing

you will not be roused.

I gain my footing

and run in circles, buoyant, on air.

And then it came.

A cry, guttural, medieval,

involuntarily hurled like vomit.

Nooooooo .......

I return to hoist you once more,

relieve the orange cord's precise, tight knot

around your neck. But I fail you this last time.

I am ghostly, a specter, and materialize in the front yard.

The neighbors run towards me, faces contorted and red.

Then there are sirens.

Your father standing crushed and defeated in the distance.

I find the pills inside, whatever they are.

Swallow a palm full to slow me down,

but it doesn't work and I am running again.

I bend to beat the image from my head on the trunk of the car;

Try to split it out through my forehead,

but it doesn't work.

The policeman follows me to the edge of the yard,

the edge of the world,

and I am running. He lets me go.

But when I try to drive he handcuffs me;

Hands behind my back.

Captured,

a wounded animal.

I try again to beat the image from my skull,

transmute reality,

ascend into ether.

But there is no escape

until the temporary blackness of drugged,

merciful sleep.

In an attempt to exercise demons;

Release seared trauma into thin air,

I have sought to order a clear, coherent record

of these moments.

But I have been mute .... have failed in this,

because there are no words.

Forever,

Your Mother

11/17/09

The Day Life Changed Forever: When The Time Continuum Split

Is there a day you’ve lived that marked a point when your life changed in a profound, fundamental way? Not the day you got your first job, or moved into your first place. I mean a single event that turned your life upside down, shaking you to your foundation. I’m talking about a day when your personal life continuum split in two so that from that point forward you would mark time as before the event and after the event.

If you’d asked me this question before June 30, 2006, I might have told you that pivotal point was the day I got married, the day my first child was born, or the day my father died. I might have told you there were several of these days, so it’s impossible to pick just one. Before June 30, 2006, I didn’t know what a day like that really was. I‘d heard the expression before, but didn’t truly appreciate the meaning of the phase, “Your life can change in an instant.” On that day in June 2006, an unbreechable chasm opened for me, like an earth quake, separating the before from the after, the then from the now. It severed my life from a state of uninformed, blissful ignorance to one of anguished, awful wisdom. It was that day I came to understand those things that happen only to other people could happen to me; that impossible, shrieking terror can strike right in your own back yard. And after it happens, nothing will ever be the same.

On June 30, 2006 I experienced such a day when my son, Justin Donnell Woodly took his own life. He was 24 years old.

Now when I reach back to life experiences from my past they are marked in time as before Justin’s death or after Justin’s death. The day we lost him seared a bright red dividing line through my existence in a way no other event has, or probably ever will. Those of us who’ve lived through such a day can tell you that the after death portion of this time continuum begins in a desolate, alternative universe; and the best we can do is to struggle towards some kind of equilibrium in an awful “new normal”.