Surviving Suicide

Part 1 of an occasional series on survivor's guilt

My dad and me at Kyoto Station in Japan, 2005

Some names and identifying details have been changed or omitted to protect privacy.  

“Sorry, Dad, I’m having trouble hearing you,” I practically shouted into my cell phone over the din of the airport. Just then, the gate agent’s boarding announcement blared through the intercom. “I have to go. I know things are hard, but hang in there! I’ll call you next week.” Unable to hear his reply over the clamor, I hung up, tucked my phone into my backpack, and got in line to board my flight back to North Carolina. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have called my dad from the airport. But a twinge of guilt prompted me to pick up the phone that Sunday night. Rather than visiting my family upon flying into Chicago that weekend, I had driven straight from O’Hare to Milwaukee to visit my best friends from college. We had so much to catch up on. Since we’d last seen each other at my wedding months earlier, I had gone on my honeymoon, two of us had started graduate school, and one of us was dating someone new. And a few days ago, Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. I volunteered for the campaign in North Carolina, which swung blue. Even my dad, who usually voted conservative and teased me about being a “bleeding-heart liberal,” told me he voted for Obama. Life was full of beginnings. 

Meanwhile, my parents’ life together was ending. As part of their divorce proceedings, my dad had had to sit through a painful deposition that week–one in which he’d been forced to admit to rash decisions, addictive behaviors, and financial losses he’d have preferred to keep hidden. I wanted to be supportive, but on the advice of a therapist, I was trying to establish healthy boundaries. Maybe the fact that my graduate school schedule did not allow me to extend my trip to see my family was a blessing. Besides, I was going home for winter break next month. I’d spend time with my family then. 

Back in North Carolina, I woke up early the following Friday morning. I had no classes that day and didn’t have to be at my job at the dean’s office until the afternoon. I still hadn’t called my dad back, and it was too early in the morning to do so now, so instead I wrote him a letter. I dropped it in the mail on my way out the door and headed to campus. 

You’d think we’d sense something like the death of a parent. But I had no idea that, as I sat at my table penning my dad a note that rainy November morning, he lay dead in his apartment. No idea that while I was at work, his friend stopped by to check on him and found his body. No idea that, as I attended a dinner party at the home of a classmate that evening, the police called my sister. I left my cell phone in the car during the party, and late that night when I returned to it, I had dozens of missed calls. A few days later, my husband Rich retrieved my unopened letter from my dad’s mailbox.

My father left no suicide note, so I’ll never know for sure what led to his final act. I know that his decisions and behaviors cost him greatly, and it must have been devastating to face the stark truth of it all at the deposition. I also know that if he had shown up on my porch during that time without a penny or a friend to his name, I would have welcomed him with open arms. Did he know that? 

After my dad’s death, I had recurring nightmares. In them, I would confront him in my parents’ dim, smoky garage, as he leaned against the unfinished wall with a cigarette in his hand. I would scream at him, “Why did you abandon me?!” And he would scream back at me, “You abandoned me!” 

My father gave me everything I needed to thrive in the world. But in his time of need, I was far away. Not long before his death, he had minor surgery. But I had just started graduate school and didn’t feel I could take time away from classes to fly home and aid him in his recovery. Then weeks later, I came within driving distance of his apartment but didn’t visit. The despondency in his voice as I spoke with him from the airport had become so normal that it didn’t set off alarm bells. Did I tell him I loved him before we hung up? I couldn’t remember. 

For months, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t concentrate. One Saturday I cried so hard for so long that I finally drove myself to urgent care to see if a doctor could help me stop. Maybe I wanted someone in a position of authority to tell me it wasn’t my fault. And I’m sure plenty of the loving people who surrounded me during that time did. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I had just gone to him in those moments when it was clear he needed me, things could have been different. Maybe he would have lived. But even if he still died, at least I would have had those moments with him. At least I would have been there. 

Years after my dad died, Rich and I went to a concert and then to dinner with our friends Jack and Alexa.* The drinks were flowing, so I no longer remember what sparked the conversation. But suddenly I was railing against the phrase “Hang in there.” 

“I mean can you imagine a better way to minimize someone’s pain—to assure them that you don’t understand what they’re going through—then to tell them to ‘Hang in there!’?”

Rich raised his eyebrows. Alexa said, “I don’t know if it’s that bad. I’ve had people say way dumber shit to me in bad times.”

“Maybe so,” I said. “But it’s the last thing I remember saying to my dad, and it just feels like, ‘Hang in there on your own! I’ll be all the way over here, so if you need anything, you’re out of luck!’ I would give anything to go back in time and do things differently.” 

Rich squeezed my hand. I shook my head, wishing I could shake off the memory. “My dad was going through a terrible time,” I told them. “He was in the middle of a divorce from my mom, and he’d lost a lot of money in the market crash of ‘08 and from gambling. He was supposed to buy a townhouse, and the deal fell through–all of his money was gone. Right before he died, I flew into Chicago, but I didn’t go see my family. On my way out of town, I called my dad from the airport. He sounded so low.” 

Lubricated by my whiskey cocktail, the words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them.  “I didn’t know what to say to him, and my flight was boarding… so I told him to ‘hang in there.’ A few days later, he shot himself. We don’t even know exactly when he did it. Because he was alone.” I hoped my friends couldn’t see my cheeks flush with shame in the dim restaurant. 

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Jack.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He paused.

“What do you mean?”

“I was working for Jeremy Star* just before he died.” 

I dropped my fork. “I’m sorry, what?” I asked incredulously. Jack was an entertainment-industry veteran, and I knew he’d worked for many household names over the years. But not Jeremy Star.  

“I don’t talk about it a lot, because it’s…hard.” Jack set his glass down and leaned in. Always mindful of his clients’ privacy, he rarely talked about work. I was fascinated by his career working for people whose posters had adorned the walls of my teenage bedroom. But, not wanting to seem nosy, I rarely asked him about it. 

Alexa, Rich, and I leaned in over the votive candle that flickered on our table. The light danced across our faces. 

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, working for Jeremy was amazing,” he said. “But it was also hard. By that time, he was really struggling. We were traveling constantly, and everyone with us knew things were bad.”

“More water?” Our server chirped. We waited silently while she refilled our glasses, and then Jack resumed. 

“The last time I saw Jeremy was at the airport. After a particularly bad few days, we all decided to go home for a while to rest and regroup. I didn’t know what to say to Jeremy. You know what my last words to him were?”

“What?” I stared at Jack intently.

“Take care,” he muttered. “Take care? What does that even mean? ‘Take care of yourself, because I sure as hell won’t be there!’? Anyway, I get it. I know what you’re talking about.”

“Wow,” I said. “Yeah. You do. I’m so sorry.”   

The press coverage of Jeremy Star’s death had been relentless. And I had consumed as much of it as the next person. But now I wondered, what must it have been like for his family and friends to watch their personal hell play out on the world stage? Star and my dad both struggled with addiction, and his loved ones must have foreseen his death the way I had my dad’s. We knew it was going to end badly–we just didn’t know exactly when or how. Maybe it’s this knowing that makes us feel so responsible when the end actually comes. After my dad died, my survivor’s guilt held me hostage, the what-ifs and if-onlys tightening themselves around me like a rope. 

But when Jack shared his experience, something clicked for me. Because of Jeremy Star’s fame, I knew enough of his story to know there was nothing Jack could have said or done, at the airport or otherwise, to prevent his death. And no last words spoken between them, however poignant, would have shielded Jack from the agony of this loss. 

If those things were true for Jack, weren’t they true for me, too?

Survivor’s guilt makes it hard for us to believe we deserve the same compassion we show others. I thought about this in early October when I talked to my friend Marta who lives in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Her community was devastated by Hurricane Helene. But even though she’d lost power and cell service and water and much of the infrastructure in and around her town, she felt guilty for evacuating. She struggled to accept offers of help, including a temporary apartment in another part of the state. “How can I leave when so many people are so much worse off?” she asked. 

As I listened to my friend minimize her own needs, I marveled at the power of survivor’s guilt. It had reared its head in recent conversations with other friends, too: With one who survived a mass shooting within his family when several relatives did not; with another who was released from prison, leaving behind men who had become brothers; with still others who survived serious illnesses or addictions or lost loved ones to them. 

In these situations, anyone could look at us and see someone in need of care. But survivor’s guilt hinders our ability to see ourselves as deserving of grace. Why do so many of us experience this? And how can we channel it into something healing? 

I wish I had the answer. But last month on the anniversary of my dad’s death, I was seized by the same guilt-riddled grief that pulled me underwater and threatened to drown me 16 years ago. I’m afraid I’ve spent the years since in an exhausting, never-ending attempt to be a better family member, a better friend, a better coworker, a better ally, a better citizen, a better person than I was back then. Maybe I thought that if I could be the one who shows up for everyone and everything, I would never again have to live with the regret of my failures. In this attempt, I’ve stretched myself so thin for so long that anyone really looking can probably see right through me. Right to the pain that I’ve been trying to avoid. 

In this occasional series, some of the friends I mentioned will share their stories of survival, guilt, and what comes after. The hardships we’ve endured vary. But one thing we have in common is that our pain has deepened our empathy, making it easier to step into the shoes of others. In fact, it has moved us to compassion—a deep desire to walk with others. The paths we walk together are lit by our stories. These are our survival guides. At times we might feel like we’re alone in the darkness. But as our eyes adjust, we find each other in it. And in each other’s stories, we might begin to see ourselves in a new, more compassionate light. 

If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

*Names changed to protect privacy. 

*Name and identifying details omitted to protect privacy.