Each night upon our pillow We rest our weary hearts Thinking of you every day The love that never parts Held within your destiny In life we always share Think of you and whisper soft We always feel you near Days may swiftly come and go But in our hearts you stay Memories that will linger on Are never far away Walk in peace with special prayer That comes with fervent love Tears may fall upon us now The sun still shines above Tenderly we hold you close With love that can't compare Turn around we see your face You're glow forever there. ~ Francine Pucillo ~ ©used with permission, Aug 12, 2002

 

"MY BROTHER, JEFF"

My first indication that there was a problem, was a call from my youngest brother Scott ~ "Jeff is dead.  He has committed suicide.  His girlfriend just found him."  With those words, our whole family changed.  First, I had to go break the news to my parents & sister.  And then we had to prepare for Jeff's funeral.

Until my brother Jeff died, I'm not sure I had really experienced fear or sorrow.  There had been times in my past that I had experienced a mild form of each of these.  However, when my brother Jeff committed suicide, these two emotions became something that I had to deal with for a long time.

The sorrow which comes when you lose someone you love is, of course, normal.  But in the 29 years that I had lived before Jeff died, that emotion was not overwhelming.  I had lost various relatives and even a few friends, but Jeff was my brother.  Someone that I had shared over 20 years of my life.  We lived in different states, but we had corresponded and spoke on the telephone frequently.  But somehow in our communication, I missed the feelings of despair that had become a part of his life.  After someone commits suicide, one of the main questions is "why?" ~ "why did he do this, why didn't he tell us, why didn't I do more to help, etc."  One of the few good pieces of advice that I received after Jeff died was that even if we knew the exact reasons why Jeff choose to end his life, those reasons would not be a good enough reason for him to be gone.  So I had to quit the question why, and deal with how I would respond to his choice and how it affected our family and friends.

The fear that I began to experience the night Jeff died, took much longer to overcome.  The fear mostly took the form of not wanting to answer the telephone when I was home alone at night.   I guess I thought if I don't answer the telephone, I couldn't be hurt by that type of bad news again.  I feared that other members of my family would be hurt or die suddenly (not by suicide but just die), and I wasn't sure that I could deal with that again.  Like many things, these fears lessened with time and experience.  I had to learn again to trust in the Lord to deal with each emotion and remember that God was in complete control.

I was fortunate to find a local support group called "Survivors of Suicide."  They get together on a regular basis to discuss how to deal with all the issues that come up in the aftermath of losing someone you love to suicide.  Most of the time it was just people sharing how they deal with issues, but we also had professional people from the coroner, police, doctors, counselors, etc. to speak with our group.  I have found that discussing with and listening to people who have a common experience does make things easier to work through.  There are many good books that deal with grief and how to work through the issues.

It is important as we deal with the trials in our life, that we take things slowly and try not to be overwhelmed by all the details which must be handled and the emotions that must be dealt with.

I still miss Jeff.  When I hear certain songs or see someone who looks like him, it reminds me again of how important family relationships are.  When he was young, he used to sign his autograph "Jeff the Great" because he thought that he would be famous someday.  Jeff might never have become famous and although he did have his fair share of foibles, I do consider him great ~ a great son, brother, and friend.

~ADULT SIBLING GRIEF WEBSITES~

~WILLIAM V. TOMS III  ~

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