Families touched by suicide find support

MICHELE MARR

In my second year of college, I walked home after work late one

afternoon with the cook from a small cafe where I worked as a

waitress. She opened the door as I stood just behind her but, instead

of going into the house, she stood on the stoop and screamed. She

screamed with such force it was as though the air itself was

screaming.

A few feet in front of my friend, her husband was slumped back in

a big, overstuffed chair, a rifle propped against his lap, a wet, red

cavern where his throat and chin should have been.

It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be that last time I would

know someone whose life collided with suicide. Suicide. The American

Assn. of Suicidology says it has no typical victim. It steals our

young and old, our rich and poor. It leaves families in a world of

rage and grief and, sometimes, a world of financial devastation --

all too often with little support.

On April 7, I opened an e-mail from Charlie Niederman, a member of

the Greater Huntington Beach Interfaith Council. Its subject line

read, “Terribly Sad News.”

It said, in part, “An unimaginable tragedy has befallen Sue Smith.

She returned home from [an Interfaith-related training event] to find

that her husband Lou, who had joined Sue and us for lunch today at

the training site, had taken his own life. Words cannot describe our

sadness.”

I know Sue Smith, the secretary of the Interfaith Council, from

attending its meetings and reporting on many of its events. This news

seemed, simply, unbelievable.

Smith is the essence of vitality, living for her family and for

her community. “Outreach” could be her middle name. And the peers and

patients of her husband, Louis H. Smith, a longtime Huntington Beach

obstetrics and gynecology physician, regarded him as a doctor who

provided both experience you can trust and the compassion you

deserve. He lived to bring life into this world.

“He was in [medicine] for all the right reasons,” Smith said.

“When he took the Hippocratic Oath, he lived it. He was the kindest,

most gentle soul I ever knew.”

According to Smith’s 31-year-old daughter, Lou’s stepdaughter,

Lisa Grant, Lou Smith “was the last person on the planet you would

expect to do this.”

So, believing the unbelievable was the first thing Smith’s family

had to try to do.

“I kept saying, ‘This is for real. This is for real,’” Smith said.

But she would think, “It can’t be. As Lou’s wife she was as shocked

by what happened as anyone. Grant says it felt like her skin had been

turned inside out.

Smith and Grant and Lou’s 23-year-old daughter Jackie were largely

left scrambling to find resources to help them cope and heal. What

they found was just how little support for survivors of suicide is

available, not only in Huntington Beach, but in Orange County.

They each began private counseling and Sue Smith said, “I was

blessed to have the most incredible family and friends, like those in

the Interfaith Council and others.”

But with time those people whose lives have not changed, have to

get back to their lives.

For Sue and Lisa and Jackie, life was still upside-down. Then

Jackie, who lives in Los Angeles, found the Suicide Prevention Center

of the Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center.

Founded in 1958, the center operates the only 24-hour suicide

crisis hotline in Southern California as well as several other

suicide counseling, prevention, education and support programs,

including its Survivors After Suicide Program, which provides

eight-week support groups, drop-in groups and telephone counseling

for people who have lost a family member or friend to suicide.

Jackie joined an eight-week support group and shared the

information she got from the center with her mother and her sister.

The center, Sue said, provides much-needed services for both “those

[who look to suicide] in anguish and for those left in anguish [after

a suicide].”

On Sept. 21, she and Jackie, Jackie’s fiance and Grant will all

walk in the Alive and Running 5K/10K walk/run near Los Angeles

International airport to raise money for the center’s prevention and

education services. Jackie is the captain of their Team OB MAVEN

(obstetrics expert), which is named after Lou’s license plate.

“I want to give back what they gave to me,” she said. “It’s

something I can do for my dad that hopefully will help others.” She

has raised more than $1,100 so far.

The team will wear T-shirts with a photo of Lou’s license plate on

the front and the back, a quote found by Grant in a 1789 novel, “How acute must be that torture which seeks an asylum in suicide ... oh,

my friend what scenes of anguish are here unfolded to the survivors.”

Five months after the death of their husband and father, when

people ask if things are getting back to normal, his wife and

daughters want to say things will never be back to normal.

“This isn’t something that just happens then goes away,” said Sue

Smith. “Our lives are changed forever.”

For information about the Suicide Prevention Center of the Didi

Hirsch Community Mental Health Center, call (310) 390-6612. For the

24-hour suicide hotline, from Orange County call (800) SUICIDE.

To participate in the run/walk, register and get details online at

www.w2promo.com. The cost is $20 before Sept. 16 and $25 after.

To make a pledge to sponsor Team OB MAVEN, send a check made

payable to DHCMHC to Jackie Smith, 11661 San Vicente Blvd., Suite

222, Los Angeles, CA 90049. Pledges are tax deductible if you include

your full name and address. Pledges can be made until Oct. 3.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at [email protected].