Bad news always seems to come via the telephone. At least it seems that way. And because you are not expecting it, you answer the phone's ring in a cheery voice only to hear something muffled which demands that you ask, "What, what did you say?" And then, there it is...the bad news, perfectly clear, this time.
It happened this week when a friend called to tell me her daughter had committed suicide. Her daughter, a 53-year old unmarried mother of four was adopted when she was a week old by a couple who had tried to do everything they could to give her a privileged life. She was told her birth parents were killed in a crash in an attempt to protect her from feeling rejected. She found out in her teens that there was no crash. Her birth parents were alive, married and with other children. She sought them out as soon as she was of age and was spurned by her birth mother again. The next year she ran away from home and began the life of a gypsy. She was 15 and completely out of control.
She married, had a child, left her husband and moved out West. Three more children came after that, each to a different father and without the benefit of marriage. She refused anyone else's influence in her children's lives. She kept moving and landed in Hawaii where she stayed. During her roaming she lived off the grid. Money came from odd jobs. She went to school on occasion. Her children who had different last names changed schools with each move. Throughout her meanderings, her adoptive parents gave her money and the encouragement to change her lifestyle and offer more stability to her children. They asked her to see a professional, she refused. She took advice or guidance from no one.
When her oldest child, a daughter, was 15, she also ran away, never to be seen again. Her second child, a son was an unwed father by the time he was 20, and her two youngest girls 17 and 19 are floundering.
On Saturday, this headstrong woman committed suicide. She leaves three children adrift. After the long flight to Hawaii to attend the funeral, my friend called and asked, "What can I say to the children? What can I tell them that will allow them to go forward and not see their mother's life as the only course they have?" I don't have a perfect answer to that question, but I will tell her this: "Remind them that they are separate individuals; they have free choice and can choose a different path. Remind them that their mother refused help: it takes courage to ask for help when needed. And help them and yourself make peace with what happened; there was nothing you could do to stop it."
