After Suicide: Help for the Bereaved, by Dr. Sheila Clark, Hill of Content Publishing Company Pty Ltd. ISBN 0-85572-262-2

FOREWARD:
The mental anguish and depair following the death of someone we love is often chaotic, unpredictable and unfamiliar in its passionate intensity.

At this time, when bereaved people are questioning their own sanity and ability to survive, it is hard to believe that grief is a natural and healthy response to loss. It is not an illness, and does not need "treatment."

The outward expression of grief takes many forms. It depends, too, on our own character: our personality before we were bereaved, the relationship we had with the person who has died, messages we received as children about expressing feelings and the kind of support that is available.

When death has occurred through suicide, social stigma, fear, blame and our own guilt may affect the support that is offered and our responses. Most people feel lonely and alone at some time during their grieving, and these feelings are intensified if the bereaved person feels stigmatised or blamed.

Adjusting to life without the person who has died can seem a long and arduous task, and one which is even more difficult if it has to be faced alone. Dr. Clark has written this book so that people bereaved by suicide will feel validated, supported and informed about the resources which may help when their need is greatest.

Many bereaved people are tempted to ease their grief with alcohol, analgesics or prescription tranquillisers and sleeping tablets. While these may provide temporary relief, prolonged use of any mood-altering substance inevitably complicates the recovery process physically and emotionally.

As Dr. Clark suggests, bereavement counselling and/or support groups can be a healthy alternative. Talking to virtual strangers about an intense personal experience may at first seem unfamiliar or unappealing but it is worth remembering that throughout history people in pain have used counsellors and support groups. Tribal elders have traditionally carried out the functions of "counsellor." "Healing circles" have often provided important rituals of recovery and reintegration into social life. We are basically herd animals and seem to deal with adversity better when we don't have to "go it alone."

Story telling is an important part of the recovery process. It is important to be able to tell over and over again the events leading up to and surrounding the death, as well as the effect of the death on the life of the bereaved person.

People may ask about the suicide, for a range of reasons including curiosity, but it is rare to be asked to tell about the life of the person who has died. When someone cares enough to say "tell me about him/her" we are able to re-experience their life, and the high and low points we have shared with them. In so doing, we gradually decrease the intensity of our pain and, as Dr. Clark writes, "the memories become your treasures."

As time goes on, you may find you are missing information that you need. You may need to question the police, ambulance, doctors, nurses or funeral director. In my experience, they have been very willing to provide any information they can, and to talk sensitively about their experience of the death or surrounding events.

People close to you may try to discourage you from asking questions in the belief that "you will only upset yourself."

Your need to find out whatever you can is normal and healthy. The "upset" that you feel as you do so is there because someone you care about has suicided, not because you are asking questions.

No matter how co-operative the police, ambulance officers and others are, some questions may remain unaswerable: "Why did they do it?" Professional support can help us to live with such unanswerable questions.

Each bereaved person's needs are particular; there is no universal prescription for survival, and certainly none that will take away the pain of separation from someone you love.

However, there are those who can accompany you on your journey through grief so that you don't have to feel so alone.

As you read Dr. Clark's book you may find that different points are important at different times. If you follow some of the "signposts" she highlights, your journey may seem less difficult and your destination more within reach.

My Son ... My Son: A Guide to Healing after Death, Loss, or Suicide by Iris Bolton. ISBN 0-9616326-0-7 Iris Bolton is a psychologist whose son killed himself.

FOREWARD:
At bottom, life and death are our greatest teachers--if we shall but listen

Iris Bolton's personal story of her son's suicide is a deeply moving, poignant one. It is a story of both a devastating tragedy and an exquisite triumph--and the agonizing, relentless, conflicted process connecting these two oppositional pulls.

We in our Western, ultra-scientific and technological society are just beginning to discover that death, from the beginnings of time, has always been present. Life and death are inextricably bound together in the process of living. All of us have known this all the time, but we have pretended that we didn't know what we knew. Until recently, we have chosen to keep death in the shadows and separated from the light of life. As a result, we have made ourselves more vulnerable to its pain and destruction. That this is true is well documented in this book.

I celebrate our growing conciousness that death is a Presence always present in all our lives. And living life in this manner of awareness gives us a new sense of personal power and freedom. We are better enabled to live, explore, experience, and know God's universe and Love as He intended--and thereby be more adquately prepared for the final journey . . . Home.

Iris Bolton's book is a powerful step in that direction.

Leonard T. Maholic, MD, Atlanta, GA. August, 1983

PREFACE:

I don't know why.

I'll never know why.

I don't have to know why.

I don't like it.

I don't have to like it.

What I do have to do is make a choice
about my living.

What I do want to do is accept it and
go on living.

The choice is mine.

I can go on living, valuing every moment
in a way I never did before,
or I can be destroyed by it and,
in turn, destroy others.

I thought I was immortal.
That my family and my children were also.
That tragedy happened only to others.
But I know now that life is tenuous and valuable.

So I am choosing to go on living,
making the most of the time I have,
Valuing my family and freinads
in a way never possible before.

Iris Bolton

The Fierce Goodbye - Hope In The Wake Of Suicide, by G. Lloyd Carr & Gwendolyn C. Carr (Out of print, check inter-library loan and used book sources)

Don't Take My Grief Away What to Do When You Lose a Loved One; by Doug Manning. ISBN 0-06-065417-1 (not specifically about suicide but a good book)

FROM THE BOOK JACKET:
Gently, with warm, consoling, and practical guidance, Doug Manning addresses the painful, often disorienting aftermath of the death of a loved one, helping the bereaved cope with the emotions and confront the decisions that are an inevitable part of this time of radical life adjustment. Beginning with the premise that "grief is not an enemy; it is a friend. It is the natural process of walking through the hurt and growing through the walk," Manning helps readers face up to grief, move through it, and learn to live again.

With the first shock of loss, a survivor is faced with what seems like an overwhelming number of arrangements that must be made immediately. Don't Take My Grief Away is a complete, helpful handbook covering such important areas as the choice of a minister, family dynamics during such stressful times, and personalizing the funeral service.

Doug Manning assists us to understand what happens when someone dies, to accept it, and to face the feelings of loss, separation, and even guilt that we experience in a realistic yet healing way. The author provides thoughtful advice for rebuilding a grief-shattered life while taking to heart the valuable lessons death and mourning impart to everyone.

Doug Manning, a Baptist pastor for the past thirty years, is currently director of the Family Growth Center in Hereford, Texas.

Words I Never Thought to Speak: Stories of Life in the Wake of Suicide by Victoria Alexander. ISBN 0-669-20904-X

FROM THE BOOK JACKET:
When her mother committed suicide in 1980, Victoria Alexander looked for help through books, support groups, and therapy. She came up painfully short in all areas because of our society's profound denial of the reality of suicide. The eighth leading cause of death in the United States, suicide is reported to claim some 30,000 lives each year. The actual number is undoubtedly much higher - perhaps two to three times higher - since many deaths by suicide are attributed to other causes. But these figures do not begin to reflect the full toll of suicide - its repercussions in many other lives. If, as a conservative estimate, each suicide leaves behind five survivors (family members, friends, and others), then 150,000 to 450,000 people experience this kind of loss each year.

Like a fatal heart attack, suicide is sudden; like an automobile accident, it is violent; and like a death from cancer or AIDS, it marks the end of a long battle with pain. Suicide is all these things, and the survivors' grief is as complex and paradoxical as the act of self-destruction itself.

Alexander spent ten years searching for and interviewing others who had endured a suicide and wanted to share their experiences. The stories in Words I Never Thought to Speak chronicle these individual journeys through grief after suicide, from the initial impact to the loss to its place in the survivors' lives years later. But more than a book of stories, this is a book about storytelling, about the struggle to find words for an unspeakable loss and, in doing so, to give it voice and meaning to one's life.

After Suicide by John H. Hewett. ISBN 0-664-24296-0

FROM THE JACKET:
This constructive guide offers much-needed information and clinically tested advice for those struggling to cope in the aftermath of a suicide. Written in clear, everyday language, it presents the facts and demonstrates how to deal with feelings of guilt, anger, bewilderment, and shame. It shows how to live as survivors of a suicide, how to explain the event to children, and how to reconcile the death with religious beliefs. Also included is an Anniversary Memorial Service that enables family members to recommit themselves to life. After Suicide presents positive steps that can help family and friends find strength together as they readjust and return to healthy, productive living.

What Will Help Me? by Jim Miller. He writes about Grieving and it is beautiful. He is also a minister but speaks of spirituality in general. He also has a webpage at: http://www.opn.com/willowgreen/grief.html

Silent Grief: Living in the Wake of Suicide, by Christopher Lukas and Henry M. Seiden, Ph.D. One author is a therapist while the other is a suicide survivor. No longer in print. Check library loans and used book stores.

FROM THE BOOK JACKET:
Silent Grief is a book about healing. More than twenty million Americans have lost a loved family member or friend to suicide. Many of these survivors have suffered severe medical or psychological problems as they have tried to understand what happened and to go on with their lives. It is for these survivors that Christopher Lukas, a survivor himself, and Henry Seiden, a psychologist, have written Silent Grief.

Authors Lukas and Seiden send both emotional and practical messages to survivors: first, the authors assure survivors that they are not alone in their pain. There are countless people who share the survivor's feelings of shame, guilt, anger, and bewilderment. And there are countless others who care.

The second message is practical. Survivors should take steps to come to terms with their grief. They must acknowledge that the silence that follows suicide can be their enemy; they must be willing to talk and find people to listen; they must understand that both talking and listening require a certain amount of skill, a skill that can be acquired; and they must learn to respond. To respond means to take charge of one's life, to venture out from behind psychological barriers, to grow.

Silent Grief brings the taboo subject of suicide out into the open, where survivors, their counselors, and friends can begin to understand and accept the past and look toward the future with new hope and compassion. Authoritative, deeply felt, Silent Grief is an important book that can make a difference in millions of lives.

Healing After the Suicide of a Loved One, by Ann Smolin, C.S.W. and John Guinan, PhD. Publisher: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-79660-7

FROM THE BOOK JACKET:
As the survivor of a person who has ended his life by suicide, you are left a painful legacy, and not one you chose. This book can help you take the first steps toward healing. While each individual becomes a suicide survivor in his or her own way, there are predictable phases of pain that most survivors experience sooner or later, from the grief and depression of mourning to guilt, rage, and despair over what you have lost.

Too often people suffering the aftermath of a suicide suffer alone. You may be torturing yourself with repetitive questions of "What if...?" and "Why didn't we...?" and "Why, why, why?"

"Healing After the Suicide of a Loved One," written for the living, is filled with case studies, excellent information, and advice, and includes a list of suggested readings and a directory of suicide support groups nationwide.

Remember, your wounds can heal and you can recover. You can still laugh and love. This book invites you to begin this journey.

Survivors of Suicide, by Rita Robinson.

Suicide: Survivors, A Guide For Those Left Behind, by Adina Wrobleski

Suicide:Why?, second edition - Adina Wrobleski. Afterwords Publishing, 2615 Park Ave. Suite 506, Minneapolis, MN 55407 (612)871-0068 ISBN 0-935585-05-2

Suicide of a Child; Adina Wrobleski (IBID) ISBN 1-56123-021-9

When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold S. Kushner. ISBN 0-380-60392-6

FROM THE JACKET:
When the young die tragically and freak accidents reach out at random to destroy good people in their prime -- why should we turn for comfort to the same God who makes it happen?

Harold S. Kushner asked that universal "Why?" for ten long years as he lived with the knowledge that his son was doomed by a disease so rare most people have never heard of it.

Through his family's shared ordeal, this distinguished clergyman came to see God as he never had before -- a God who does weep with us, won't abandon us, and can fill the deepest needs of an anguished heart.

Ripples of Suicide - Harold Elliot with Brad Bailey - 1993 WRS Publishing 701 N. New Road, Waco, Texas 76710 ISBN 1-56796-012-x

By Her Own Hand--Memoirs of a Suicide's Daughter by Signe Hammer. It's very interesting from a survivor's point of view. Very dark look into her family.

Stronger Than Death, When Suicide Touches Your Life, A Mother's Story by Sue Chance, M.D. Avon Books, 1992. ISBN 0-380-72110-4

FROM THE JACKET:

Sue Chance, M.D., has devoted her life as a practicing psychiatrist to helping patients understand and overcome the emotional turmoils that cloud their lives. Yet when her bright and personable only son abruptly ended his own life at the age of twenty-five, Dr. Chance was spared none of the almost unendurable emotional anguish experienced by other suicide survivors. Following her own tragedy, this highly qualified doctor and mother gives a vivid personal account of her pain, guilt, and anger, and with incredible power and honesty, shares her experience, her professional knowledge, and her methods for finding peace along the road to recovery.

Andrew, You Died Too Soon, A Family Experience of Grieving and Living Again. By Corinne Chilstrom, 1993. ISBN 0-8066-2684-4

FORWARD (by Martin E. Marty, The University of Chicago):

Acquainted with sorrow, the author shares her grief, invites others into the circle of mourners, offers quiet counsel on grieving to others who need it and welcome it--and still succeeds in having written an affirmative book.

The most hardened readers are not likely to get past page two or three without finding their eyes blurring with tears, or to be able to read through all the pages without finding them welling up from time to time. But don't each of us have enough disappointments, shadows, and difficulties sustaining morale even on good days, to say nothing of occasions for sorrow in bad seasons, to find reason to avoid having to take on the burdens of such a story?

Yes: we do have our problems and traumas. But it is the author's intent that reading this will be an experience which enhances life; one which will help make an encounter with grief not only more bearable, but actually growth-producing. Readers will find here therapy, catharsis, understanding, and even fresh grounding for faith, hope, and love--hope, being at such times and momentarily, "the greatest of these."

Why? Many of us, without knowing the source, may share the theory that writers of autobiographical material should remember that the reader will not implicitly be saying, "Tell me about you!" Instead they will be thinking: "Tell me about me, using your experience as a model or example." So it is here: tell us, author Corinne Chilstrom, about the resources on which I and mine can draw in times of crisis. Tell us, author, you who for the moment become Everyparent: tell us about the tears of God, the strength of a love that will not let us go when our anger wells up. Tell us about how faith upholds you when doubt and despair would overwhelm. Tell us about hope and how it will outlast the bleakness of shock that comes with the worst things that can happen to those around us. Tell us. She does.

A final word about the style of the book. I note that with forthright candor, Corinne Chilstrom lets her outreach to certain special readers break through her narrative and reflections. She names names of people who formed the company of burden bearers and tells how they lightened hers. She sends explicit cards of thanks, so direct and to the point that no editor would have penciled them out as being disruptive to plot or unfitting. With this device, she shows us how grief and joy in the abstract are thin and passing, but deep sorrows and rich exaltations are concrete. They get associated with real names, as they should: Corrinne, Herb, their Jesus, specific congregations. And Andrew. Who died too soon.

What does the Bible say about Suicide? by James T. Clemons ISBN 0-8006-2399-1. A sample Paragraph headings: Was Jesus a suicide? Perspectives on Suicide - James T. Clemons Editor ISBN 0-664-25085-8 The book is a collection of sermons on suicide and explores a variety of topics (e.g., God's relationship with those who suicide, the Church's views on suicide, etc.). It's published by Westminster/John Knox Press; the copyright is 1989. Dr. Clemons points out several instances in the Bible where suicide is mentioned. Some of them have already been mentioned. Samson (Judges 16:28-31), Saul (1 Samuel 31), Abimelech (Judges 9:50-54), Ahithophel (2 Samuel 17:23), Zimri (1 Kings 16:17-18), and Judas (Matthew 27:3-5) all killed themselves. The Bible doesn't condemn any of them. He points out that Biblical verses point both directions. Those that speak against suicide include "thou shalt not kill" and "no man ever hates his own flesh but nourishes it and cherishes it" (Eph. 5:28). Those texts that seem to condone it include "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Dr. Clemons notes that during its first three centuries, the Church had very little to say about suicide. But by 250 A.D. so many Christians were taking their own lives to "follow Jesus" and become martyrs that the Church had to respond. In the fourth century Emperor Augustine decreed that funeral rites be denied in suicides. That prohibition continued in the Roman Catholic Church until 1983. I found the final sermon in the book to be the most interesting. Titled "Suicide: An Unpardonable Sin?" it uses Biblical and historical references to examine whether or not suicide is such a horrific sin that even God will not forgive it. After I heard of my loved one's death, I feared that he had been denied God's love and Heaven. Now I don't think so. The final paragraph from the sermon summarizes well what I now believe: "Scripture, in 1 John 1:7 says 'The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us all from sin.' This assures us that no sin can place us outside the love of God as revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord, and I submit to you that suicide does not have that power either."

--12/14/97