20 Seconds of Courage: How a Simple Yes Lessens Grief

 by Beth Saadati

 

I yanked the iPhone from my ear and stared at the screen. A long pause ensued before the chat resumed.

“He’s coming . . . when?” I asked. 

My middle daughter answered matter-of-factly. “The Friday before Thanksgiving.”

“How long does he want to stay?”

“Something like ten days.”

“But your brother will be on a camping trip and at school half that time. And you’ll be away at college until Tuesday. That leaves just Dad and me.”

“He said that’s okay.”

My words vanished. I couldn’t imagine a college sophomore from Germany, whom I hardly knew, would ever want to. This was all so unexpected. Absolutely awkward. Wildly weird. Kind of, well, crazy.

Then again, I had extended the spontaneous invitation. My offer had been one hundred twelve percent sincere. But when he laughed and instantly replied with, “Thanks, but I could never accept that,” I figured this year’s Thanksgiving would be my family’s new normal—laced with the same deathly silence of my oldest daughter’s absence I’d endured for the past eight holiday seasons without her here.  

“Lukas might be miserable the first five days,” I finally told Christa, “but tell him he’s welcome to come.” 

Before You Reach the End

 “Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don’t believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong; take your pills. Exercise because it’s good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds. Eat when food itself disgusts you. Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason.”

~Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

 

by Beth Saadati, with guest songwriter Heidi Haase 

The deep sadness—sometimes hours, sometimes days, sometimes weeks of depression—began when a beloved daughter died by suicide. It’s lingered seven years. Although the intensity of the sadness has decreased, intermittent waves of grief still crash, still threaten to pull me under, still leave me grasping for a lifeline to hold onto while I wait for each wave to break and recede.   

During one severe surge a couple years ago, my lifeline was a song—a song written and recorded by Heidi Haase, a beautiful family friend whose personality, character, and appearance reminded me more of my oldest daughter than any other high-school student I’d taught. I played the song again and again. I let the words sink in.

And I wished Jenna also could have heard and taken them to heart.

So today, on World Suicide Prevention Day 2020, Heidi and I extend that lifeline to you—for any day of the year you may need it, for every wave that tries to drown you, for all the pain friends and family cannot see.

Reason with yourself.

Listen. Believe. Be brave.

You’re not alone.

You’re stronger than you know.

 

With love, 

Beth

 

note: Please view the YouTube song video in the web version if it's missing here in the mobile version.

Suicide Kept You from Turning Twenty-Two: 20 Vignettes

by Beth Saadati

“What I would give for a couple of days—a couple of days.” 

~TobyMac, “21 Years” 

 

Today. Thursday. August thirteenth. You were born on another Thursday, another August's same date. You were finally here, making that day lovely. And good. And right.

Vignette 1: I schedule my first-ever salon appointment at the beginning of this year. The price is outlandish. But I want to see your friend. She’s grown up. Beautiful. She cuts my hair’s broken ends. We talk about you, we talk about her. She says her fiancé is wonderful, they’re buying a house, they're planning a wedding. An invitation never arrives. I don’t understand why. Later I'll learn the ceremony was small, private, only for family. Maybe it’s for the best, because you should have stood by her side in the bridal party. And I would have cried—imagining what could have been—and wrecked the special event.

Vignette 2: Your second friend supports and encourages your brother and me. After fighting to overcome unforeseen health challenges that stump the country's top MDs, he takes the MCAT. He will study to be a doctor. He’ll follow your dream.

Vignette 3: I see your third friend at a graduation party. She approaches. She radiates joy. For a long time we talk about her college, her graduate-school plans, her study of art therapy as a tool for grief counseling, the great guy she’s dating. Later her dad tells us she visited your grave where she yells, cries, and finds more healing.

Vignette 4: Your fourth friend drives two hours, unexpectedly stops by for supper. We eat. He stays until nine. He talks about the hardship, the struggle, the reality of life. He hasn’t forgotten. He speaks your name.  

Vignette 5: My phone pings. I check the text. An ultrasound picture with two words and two question marks: Guess what?? I burst with gladness for your fifth friend and his wife. I’m touched that he privately told me before publicly announcing the news. I’ll never receive a surprise ultrasound photo from you.

To the Broken...

by Beth Saadati

I can’t say I wasn’t warned.

On a chilly 65-degree early-October South Carolina evening—yes, chilly…my Northern blood has turned Southern—a friend leaned in close during the high-school football game. “I heard the marching band’s voice-over this week,” she said. “It’s intense. It might be hard for you to listen to.”

I gave a faint smile, assured her I’d be fine, and buried the words in the back of my brain. Why be afraid? In public—okay, pretty much anywhere, even at home unless I’m alone—my guard stays up. I don’t get emotional. I protect my heart.

The following night, however, something changed. It happened at a different high-school stadium, thirty minutes away. Scanning the scene like an anxious teenager looking around a lunchroom for any familiar face, I climbed the bleachers. The crowd contained no one I knew, but I spied an empty spot beside a friendly looking couple. With repeated excuse-me’s, I shimmied my way across a tightly-packed row of viewers and plopped down on the concrete bench.

Next to me sat an elderly white-haired man, beside him his pom-pom-waving wife. They told me they’d come to watch their grandchildren perform. My teens’ grandma has never gotten to see my kids compete, I thought. She’s eight years in the nursing home, ravaged by Alzheimer’s, unaware of who she is, being fed supper by their grandpa as we speak. I felt the familiar sting of absence but managed to utter with full sincerity, “Your grandkids sure are blessed to have you here.”

He nodded his agreement and asked, “Do you have a dollar?” An odd request to be sure, but I rummaged through my purse. He extended one hand. I gave him the bill.

Meticulously, he folded it, creased it, transformed it with care. Then the origami artist presented his creation—George Washington’s picture converted into a tiny two-inch shirt. His eyes twinkled as he inquired, “How many kids do you have?”

It shouldn’t have been hard to answer. This wasn’t calculus. But I mentally froze upon hearing the innocently asked question I HATE. My paralysis produced an awkward silence as my panicked mind pondered: Two? Or three? What should I say? Finally I lied and betrayed. “Two,” I muttered. Sometimes it’s easier not to explain.

“Girls or boys?” he asked.

Again, I lied. “One of each.”

When the Memory of One Night Won't Go Away

by Beth Saadati

January 2 started like any other day—a welcomed return to structure and routine after two weeks of winter break, with all the hope and promise that accompany a new year. At 3:45 I naively wove through the high school car line to pick up my freshman daughter, completely unaware the world I’d known was about to change.

In the backseat, Jenna chatted lightheartedly with a carpooled friend and recounted the day’s happenings. One awkward moment peppered the list—circulated talk about a guy with a girlfriend who’d asked Jenna to the I.B. Ball, even though she’d said no. “I always attract drama,” Jenna declared.

She laughed it off then asked how many friends had emailed to say they planned to come to a game night she’d host in three days. “You’re already up to fourteen,” I replied. She smiled, seemingly happy with the news.

On the afternoon of January 2^nd, Jenna waved no red flags. Her arrival home was followed by a little time in her room, the customary change of clothes, a request to go to her “thinking spot” by the stream as long as she returned in time to finish AP world history homework before attending youth group. Without hesitation I agreed and returned to editing a friend’s novel—the chapter in which the villain appears. Unsuspecting fingers clicked laptop keys.

Time ticked by. Darkness replaced light. Jenna never arrived.

January 2 ended like no other night. A long search. A police interrogation. Friends thoughtfully picking up my two young kids. Sirens, flashing lights, yellow caution tape. Fear of abduction, fear unlike anything I’ve ever known, concluding with a friend’s gentle delivery of eleven terrible words: “Your daughter is dead. It appears she took her own life.”

Then a wailing of “no” that didn’t sound like my voice. A sleepless night. A suicide letter to read, a funeral to plan, painful decisions to make.

The morning before visitation, I sat in the funeral-home parking lot with a family friend—a friend who wanted to say his goodbye privately before the evening crowd came in. We sat in the Accent for over an hour, neither of us ready to see the beautiful girl who, in this world, would no longer smile, laugh, or open her eyes. He glanced towards my seat, said he’d known someone who’d walked through trauma and was never the same, said he didn’t want me to end up that way. I internalized the challenge, assured him I’d be okay.

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.

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 21^st 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 13^th 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]

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

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.

The 4-Word Motto I'm Choosing to Follow

by Beth Saadati

The quick glance out the window was innocent. Unintended. A lazy Saturday morning thing. But it was enough to view what I by no means wanted to see.

In the middle of my backyard stood an uncommonly large, Edgar Allan Poe raven-like crow. Beside it lay a coiled mound.

I squinted to focus my nearsighted eyes then called for my husband, Komron, and asked him to step outside. 

As we stood on the patio concrete, I pointed to the pile. “What is that?”

Part of me hoped he’d lie and let me live deceived. Instead, he minced no words.

“It’s a snake,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

A snake…take a deep breath…it’s just a snake. (For the record, “just” NEVER belongs in the same sentence as “snake” as far as I’m concerned.)

Needless to say, the internal monologue failed to persuade my scaredy-cat self. My heartbeat escalated to 200 beats-per-minute as I waited . . . paralyzed.

[A responsible blogger would insert a picture of the snake here. But was photographing that nemesis anywhere on my radar at the time? Heck no.]