A Sister?s Request
Mood:  sad
A Sister?s Request

I know that there are people sitting in this room who have a suicide plan. It may not be something you plot to carry out soon but you hold on to your suicidal plan like a child holds a security blanket. It is warm and comforting thought and it is a ticket out if life ever gets to be too much. I know all about secret plans to leave life behind. I don?t actually remember not having thoughts of leaving when I couldn?t take it anymore. My plan was I would pile my car full of pillow, put on a nice CD, pull into my garage and leave the car running. That was where my plan ended...I hadn?t thought beyond my last breath.

A few days before Christmas a little more than a year ago my brother Keith took away my escape hatch. He shot himself in the mouth and he died. For him it must have seemed like a simple plan. He was alone, no one to have to clean up after him,?what could be more simple than a man and a gun and a death?

The phone rang at 8pm. At that very second my life changed in a way that I hope you will never understand. At that exact moment in time a stranger called to ask the if my brother was on a trip. The instant I heard her question I knew he had finally done it. He had talked about going to the desert and shooting himself in the mouth for decades. He talked about his death as easily as breathing. Over the years he would send me gifts and when I would ask why he would say ?I was thinking about killing myself and I wanted you to have something to remember me by.? After so many years of hearing him say it I guess it lost it?s meaning. Eventhough I knew when the woman asked his whereabouts that he was dead it will perhaps take the rest of my life to fully understand that he no longer exists.

I?m sure he never expected for it to take 24 hours of searching to find his bloody body. I don?t imagine he thought I would get a phone call saying ?We are bringing him out in a body bag now.? Did he think I would plot the route he took from his apartment to the park where he was found and see that he spent fifteteen minutes driving to his death? Did he know that I would read police reports that told me he walked a mile along foot paths before finding his killing spot?

The death that took an instant revealed itself in shattered bits over the months that followed. He died two days before Christmas so Christmas and everything that is attached to it is changed forever. I use to be a person who loved Christmas songs and now I cringe when I hear ?It?s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.? He was cremated on New Years Eve, a fact we would learn when we scattered his ashes and found a metal tag with the date of cremation on it. New Years Eve will always be the date his body was burned. It was mid January before we received his ashes and could have a funeral.

In the spring four boxes of his belonging arrived. Friends in Arizona had put together a few things they thought I might want to keep. With each item in the box all the pain of his death rushed over me. Every photo of the two of us growing up filled me with so many emotions. I remember saying I wish he had never been born just to die like this. At the same time I would wonder how I could go on without him. I sat down a few days after his death and made a list of all the things I don?t want to forget about him. Somethings I can?t help but forget. I?m afraid I?ll forget the sound of his voice. I?m afraid I?ll forget his laugh. Right now I can still hear him saying ?Deb, it?s Keith!? I half expect him to call at any time. I would be less surprised than the way I feel now?trying after sixteen months to believe he is dead.

Regardless how you try to plan your suicide so no one will be hurt you will hurt them in a way that you can?t possibly imagine. Being left behind is like the worst nightmare you have ever had but when you wake up it is your reality. I was so suicidal after his death that I can?t believe I am still here. I felt like he was alone somewhere out there and he needed me. It was like mermaids calling to sailors. I wanted to go and comfort him.

I remember standing outside the night they were looking for him and I looked at the full moon and I thought somewhere he is lying under this same moon. I begged God to not make it be true?but it was.

In the time since his death I have tried to go on with my writing but everything I write ends up being about suicide. I have a millions stories in my head but they all end the same way?in the end it is suicide.

I have met many people who have been left behind like me. They come to online support groups to find hope that they will survive being left behind. Some of them don?t. Some give up and post a goodbye and other?s write from mental hospitals because they have had a breakdown and their psychiatrist wants them to continue to have the support of their friends. Some who come to the support rooms have lost someone they loved many many years ago but still the pain is almost more than they can bare.

I know that when my brother pulled the trigger he thought Deb will be okay, she?ll get over it. I haven?t gotten over it. I have looked back at the months that led to his death and asked myself what I was doing that was so important that I didn?t realize he was thinking about dying. I feel so guilty. I should have known. I should have stopped him. I will forever live with a sense that I have failed him and yet I don?t know how I could have stopped a thirty year suicide plan.

I read his autopsy report. I kept his bloody watch he was wearing. I talk to him a lot and sometimes I scream at him and tell his I hate him for doing this. Most of the time I just look at his picture and I cry. I don?t know what could have saved him but I know if he had understood the pain his death would cause he would still be living.

My request is this?if you decide one day that it is to be your last day?wait one more. And when that day passes wait one more. If you do this I am sure you will find the courage to go on with life. The alternative is to leave everyone you ever knew to wonder what they could have done to keep you alive.

Casey Graham Memorial Page