Unanswered

If you had gotten past that lethal patch of life,

moved through it to reach the other side,

Who would you have become?

If you had lived to manifest the full measure

of your talents, contributing all your gifts,

What lives would you have touched?

If that day had ended with more resolve than anger,
and your determination to buck life trends by living,

What could you have accomplished?

If those speaking at the memorial service had
stayed in touch and called you on that day,

Would you have gone to visit them instead?

If I had stopped you on your way out the door,

professed unyielding support and belief in you,

Would you have greeted me that evening wanting to talk?

If your father had faced his demons upright
and strong, showing you endurance by example,

Would you have held on to belief in the future?

If I had listened to you with respect and reverence,

sought your guidance, demonstrated high regard,

Would you have survived withering doubt?

If at the moment of your decision you envisioned

me handcuffed, forehead smashing into the car,

Would you have stepped down from that stool?

If you had foreseen the bleeding, terminal

wound your departure would rip open,

Would you have chosen death anyway?

Forever,

Your Mother
1/21/10

Visitation

The other evening, Justin made a nocturnal visit to his father and it made all the difference in the world. He visited him in a dream at a time when his dad was struggling with doing the right thing. And his influence moved his dad to overcome fear, facilitated enlightened action and supported him in facing one of his most difficult demons. In this instance, Justin’s visitation helped his dad overcome the pride, anger and resentment that continue to threaten, allowing him to marshal the strength to take a step he was resisting and would otherwise not have taken. It was a crucial step moving our family further on a path towards healing, even in the awful void of missing him. And while I continue to wish for my own personal message from Justin; my time to feel his presence with me, I am content to know he took this time with his father and I feel more than ever that he is O.K., that he has found the peace he wants for us, and that he is watching.

Another Year

Another year of missing you ..... of you not being here ...... of not hearing your voice on the other end of the phone, or sitting in your company during holiday visits home. This missing you will never end, I think; no matter how long I live.

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.