Thursday, September 12, 2019

Was It Worth It?



It certainly wasn’t what I was expecting to read when I opened the email from one of my former English students:

Hey, I know this is kind of out of the blue, but I just started songwriting. One of the songs I wrote is about suicide. I hope to show people who experience suicidal thoughts that there are people who love them, that suicide doesn’t get back at people who’ve hurt them, that it hurts the people they’re closest to. If it's ok with you, I would like to dedicate it to Jenna. I've included the lyrics for you to read if you don't think it would be too painful. If it is, I completely understand. I'm so sorry to throw this at you.

I can’t think of anything more worth sharing for National Suicide Prevention Month. The story within Olivia’s beautiful song is so powerful, so heart-wrenching, so true. I urge you to take four minutes to listen to it. If only we could remember these words when depression and lying suicidal thoughts arise, I believe far fewer lives would end before their time. 

Please stay,
Beth 


by Olivia Henn

Several years ago I attended a funeral which shouldn't have had to take place—at least not for a very long time. 

She was a young teenager—beautiful, full of life, and a joy to everyone around her. Unfortunately, she was the victim of some bullying at her school, and somewhere along the way she lost hope. 

Sadly, I never had the opportunity to know her. Watching her pictures scroll across the screen and hearing countless testimonies from all the people who loved her, I could only cry and imagine the pain her family was going through. I was much younger then and couldn’t understand why anyone who had touched the lives of so many would ever take their own life.

Time passed. During February of last year, I read Beth Saadati’s blog post “3 (or 13) Reasons Why Not: From One Left to Survive a Non-Fictionalized Suicide” in response to the book and Netflix series Thirteen Reasons Why. This inspired me to write my first song.


Sunday, August 18, 2019

A Letter to the Girl Who Should Have Turned 21


by Beth Saadati

Dear Jenna,

When Dear Evan Hansen came to Greenville, I wasn't ready to see it. (I am, however, currently working through the novel.) In the Broadway musical, Evan undertakes a common challenge given by counselors to help survive the pain in this life. He writes letters. Which reminded me of something I've been meaning to do. Although you won't be reading this, it’s long past time I write one to you.

I wish I could have told you Happy 21st Birthday this week. Twenty-one is a BIG DEAL. I wish I could have seen your smile once again and taken you out to mark the occasion. Or, if you’d been away, at least emailed . . . or texted . . . or talked by phone and heard your voice—and, yes, I’m crying as I type this line.

I wish I knew whether I should think of you, now, as my vivacious 14-year-old girl or as a beautiful young woman. For all your years here, you loved that August 13th date. This is the seventh birthday you’ve missed. Supposedly seven is the number of perfection . . . but not in this case.

I wish you could have celebrated—with friends, cousins, grandparents, your dad, me, and other extended family. I still see and talk with some of your friends, Jenna—we text, catch up over a meal, or meet at their universities—and that’s been good, so good, except you should be there. At the core your close friends are the same, though they've grown and matured. With others, I’ve lost touch. That might have happened anyway—after all, relationships sometimes change—but I’d like to think, if you’d remained, those sweet connections wouldn’t have drifted away.

I wish you could be here for your sister and brother. You’ve missed several significant milestones, but even more, all the little moments of greater worth. You would have shared wisdom to guide them through the turbulent teen years. Told stories that let them laugh. And, no doubt, encouraged them on life's journey as their number-one fan.

I wish you could watch Christa, who plays your clarinet, and Josh march with the high-school band. I wish you could return with the other alumni to cheer them on. This year's competition show is powerful. The title? To the Broken… Which, also, is a letter—composed by someone who finds his voice through writing. The premise and theme certainly ring true.

I wish you were starting your senior year of college. You’re the one who should be taking classes—not me. I wish I could figure out how to rightly re-imagine and plot your bittersweet story, wish I were teaching full-time instead of wrestling to word it in graduate school. I was the teacher and editor: you were the writer. Crafting a novel is such a lonely journey, and nothing about this inherited assignment feels quite right.

I wish I knew your fictional characters well enough to finish your book and fulfill your final letter's request. Really, you’re probably the only one who can do that. Nevertheless, I long to. My inability to give you this last parting gift tears a piece of my heart apart.

I’m afraid this sounds selfish, but I wish you were here while I go through cancer treatments—wrapping your arms around me, resting your chin on the top of my head and whispering, “It’s gonna be okay, Mom”. . . the way you used to whenever a sky-high stack of students’ essays lay piled on my desk to grade.

I wish I knew what you’re seeing. And thinking. And experiencing. I wonder what you know, wonder if people who’ve left this life since your death have shared stories from home. I have a ton of unanswered questions. I’ve gone to sleep hundreds of times begging God to please give me a dream of you. There have been none. I struggle to believe what I cannot see, to hold onto such distant hope. It’s not the way I ever wanted this to be.

I wish this letter were happy and positive, light-hearted and fun. I think it would have been if you had truly turned 21.

There’s more I’d like to tell you—enough to fill a book—but this will have to do.

Before I go, though, I’ll explain the attached photo. My friend Sam, a teacher and writer who leads a ministry called Recklessly Alive, was visiting from Minnesota. If you’d heard him speak before making your decision, I’m pretty sure you’d be around. I went with Sam to a 1924 textile mill in order to photograph Mary, the photographer, while she snapped some pictures for him. That’s when we saw this—the month and day you were born stenciled onto the floor. The reminders are everywhere. I'll never forget.  

To conclude, I continue to journey—life doesn’t exactly stop—and mostly live in the moment, because there are plenty of memories to make and much reason to live.

But I really, really wish you were here. So many of us do.

I miss you. I love you. Someday I’ll see you again.

We’ll have a lifetime of catching up to take care of then.

All my love,
Beth (or maybe I’m still ‘Mom’ to you?)


[Photo Credit: Mary Denman]

Thursday, May 30, 2019

Funeral Flowers: A TeenVoice Post



I’ll confess. Sometimes I inwardly cringe when I hear the question (especially when it comes from complete strangers who email or hand me their work) that, as an English teacher and writer, I’ve been asked thousands of times: “Would you like to read what I’ve written?”

“Of course,” I normally answer, regardless of whether I really have extra time.

The standard reply I gave my 17-year-old nephew, however, was 100 percent sincere. I’d never seen his writing. I was curious. Best of all, since he lived several states away and wasn’t my student, I could set aside my red pen and simply enjoy his work with no obligation to critique, grade, or give feedback.

Without expectation, I nestled into a quilt and opened his St. Joseph High School college-writing class binder. I began to read, awed and delighted by the content, craft mastery, and word choices on the typed pages. An hour in, however, I paused. Tears fell. This can’t be, I thought. It happened six years ago. I’m reading too much into this.

The next day I asked; Jonathan confirmed my suspicions. He’d written the poem about his oldest cousin, my oldest daughter. Jonathan's powerfully transparent words, emailed during his drive home to Michigan, deserve to be heard:

“Every time I visit South Carolina, in the midst of all the family and good food and fun, I think of Jenna and how much better it would be with her here.

I have so many great memories of games, plays, and conversations about books that I had with Jenna. She always spoke to me like I wasn't just a silly elementary kid. Love and respect defined who she was.

She was the best cousin and friend I could ever imagine. So, it was really hard to write the poem “Funeral Flowers.” I wrote it by myself in silence. Although I cried as I finished it, I was happy because it communicates the ache I feel.

I think we all share a longing for the way things used to be—a longing that will someday make our joy incomprehensible when Jesus makes all things right. But for now, I hope other people know that, in their pain, they’re not alone.”

Please stay. Hope remains.
~Beth Saadati

Thursday, April 11, 2019

Can We Kill the Stigma?



 by Beth Saadati

It’s only two steps. I remind myself this is probably nothing—the odds are ever in my favor!—still, I tremble inside as I climb.

I lie down on the hard table, a pillow beneath my head, a pillow beneath my feet, and turn my head to the side, away from the bustle and noise. A painted scene—beauty to decorate the sterile?—hangs on the wall. Inches away from my face, a CD boom box rests on a ledge. From it, falsely soothing music begins to play.

“We want to make this as comfortable as possible,” says a nurse I can’t see. “Almost like a spa. Don’t hesitate to ask if there’s anything you need.” She’s kind, quite kind, and sincere, but…a spa? Despite the heated blanket draped over me and the wedge pillow cocooned in one arm, it’s not. It’s terrifyingly not.

With no wasted time, the process starts—the prep to be done before the doctor comes. I close my eyes. I try to relax. I make a respectable effort to push all that’s vulnerable, awkward, and exposed out of my mind. It works, somewhat, until Dr. Chaney arrives.