OUT OF THE SHADOWS

My blogger friend, who lives in Australia, volunteers on a suicide hotline. 
She recently participated in a walk, Out of the Shadows, to remember those who have taken their lives and to let the families and loved ones find a way to honor them. Sue says they have a high rate of suicide in Australia and it has recently been growing.

In the comments on this post, I noticed many people speak of what suicide survivors have said about what might have prevented their efforts to take their lives.

A man said that if only one person had said a kind word to him on the bus ride to the bridge where he jumped that day, it would have kept him from wanting to die.

It doesn’t take much to make a difference in the lives of those who are desperate and feel no hope. Just a smile, a kind word, or simply taking time to listen. So many just want to know someone hears their cry of despair.

But, we don’t do that anymore. Most of us have our heads down and eyes on our smart phones, playing games, checking Twitter or whatever. We are alone in our thoughts, and we are ignoring those who need to know they are seen and that they matter.

I have written before about my delightful mother who never met a stranger in her life. If she didn’t know someone, she made sure she spoke to them and gave them her sweet smile. They felt better because they saw my mother that day – in an elevator, at the grocery store, or in a doctor’s waiting room. No one ever seemed in a hurry to leave her presence.

I often meet people who are like my mother. 
I am like mother in many ways. I like people. I get energized when I am with other people. Unlike the shy girl who was embarrassed when mother struck up a conversation with strangers, I now find myself talking to men or women when I run into them in public.

Recently while shopping at Wal-Mart, I met a delightful woman, in her mid eighties, while standing at a counter searching for items we older people sometimes need. I heard her speaking and looked to see if she was talking to me. She smiled and said, “I’m just talking to myself. I do that a lot now.”

“I do, too,” I said. “I’m the only person who listens,” I joked.

Before long we were in such a deep conversation that we had to let people get past us in the aisle. She had only lived in the area a couple of years and during that time she cared for an ailing spouse who died.

Before I left her, we exchanged our phone numbers and made plans to meet for lunch. It takes so little to give another person a lift or brighten their day. And we gain from that effort. 

I feel sorry for the younger generations that stay buried in their smart phones and never look up to see what they are missing.

I get frustrated at the people who spend more time taking photos of themselves in places they visit, than in actually learning about and enjoying the experience. I can say that, although Barry made photos everywhere we traveled, we never missed the enjoyment of meeting the people who lived there, learning the history of the land and those who settled there. We observed those around us, animals and people, and took that away stored in our memories.

I began this post with the topic of suicide which is also increasing in the United States, and I will share a poem about the first person I knew who committed suicide. It is sad, but asks the question, why? What might have made a difference?

One Flaw

Her mother heard it from the kitchen

her brother heard it above the radio

playing in his room.

She dressed in pale blue blouse

and navy skirt, silver charms around her

wrist, for her seven-thirty date with Tom.

The night before she skated at the roller rink,

blond hair flying ‘round her shoulders,

tanned legs clad in short white shorts.

Image of the perfect sixteen-year old –

Cheerleader, straight A student.

Boys wanted her. Girls wanted to be her.

At precisely seven-fifteen, she changed all that.

Her mother found her daughter’s white bedspread,

her pristine walls, her carefully chosen outfit –

and Ann, blood splattered, destroyed

                          by a single shotgun blast.

By Glenda Council Beall

Now taking registration for The Art of Reflection by Steven Harvey

Registration is open for a writing class at Writers Circle around the Table, Hayesville, NC with Dr. Steven Harvey, author, essayist, memoirist, and English professor retired from Young  Harris College.

Dr. Steven Harvey, nonfiction writer 
and memoirist
Fee: $45

The Art of Reflection

Using Personal Experience to Explore an Idea:  Vivian Gornick writes in The Situation and the Story that essayists and memoirists are interested in their own existence only as a means of “penetrating the situation at hand.”  They are “truth speakers” and their delight is not in self-aggrandizement but in the illumination of an idea.  We will study how nonfiction writers “penetrate the situation” to discover an idea worth living for and consider ways that we can do the same in our writing.

Students will bring in an object or a photograph of an object that means a great deal to them.  Preferably this is an object in which the meaning is not already obvious, so I would prefer that it not be a crucifix, for instance, or a wedding ring, but a different piece of jewelry—a watch for instance—or a favorite scarf , musical instrument, piece of furniture, or automobile.  Any object—or picture of such an object—will do.  We will explore the meaning of this object, learning various techniques from the writers we examine in class to amplify the idea.  The goal is to have the thematic core of an essay or a memoir—one that can be the heart of a longer work.

Students should bring the object or photo—a photo on a phone will do—as well as a laptop or pen and paper for writing.

Steve Harvey is a professor emeritus of English and creative writing at Young Harris College, a member of the nonfiction faculty in the Ashland University MFA program in creative writing, and a senior editor for River Teeth magazine. He is the creator of The Humble Essayist, a website designed to promote literary nonfiction. 

His most recent book is The Book of Knowledge and Wonder a memoir about coming to terms with the suicide of his mother when he was a child.

He is also the author of three books of personal essays. A Geometry of Lilies, Lost in Translation, and Bound for Shady Grove and edited an anthology of essays written by men on middle age called In a Dark Wood.   

He lives in the north Georgia mountains.  You can learn more about Steve and his work at his web site:  www.steven-harvey-author.com 

Send check for $45 made to Glenda Beall, 581 Chatuge Lane, Hayesville, NC 28904.  Be sure to give your name and email address.

September is Suicide Awareness Month

Depression is a disease, not a weakness, and suicide is its tragic consequence. 
Having come from a family in which depression lurks, I can recognize most of the symptoms. 

My father became depressed when he was in his early forties, about the time my little sister was born. Throughout my life and hers, we knew a father totally different from the man my older brothers and older sister had known. He worked hard every day on the farm. He paid his bills. He managed to overcome physical illness most of the time and lived a quiet life. But depression changed him, and he was not the happy man who teased and played ball with my older siblings. His emotions were always right on the surface. The slightest little thing could make him lose his temper. 
As a result, my little sister and I stayed as far from him as we could, not knowing when he would blow up. Mother was the calm presence in our lives, the only one who could settle him down. Looking back, I think his depression caused him to worry abut everything. He would not go anywhere except to the doctor. He voluntarily gave up the keys to his truck when he didn't feel capable of driving. He did enjoy watching sports on TV. Perhaps that was his escape from reality. And he planted and harvested a big garden, which seemed to bring him joy.

As far as I know, my father never thought about taking his own life, although he had a beloved family member who did. Mother said my father almost had a “nervous breakdown” in the 1950s, which was what people said when someone became so emotionally distraught they could not function. 

Looking back, we are fortunate that he did not give up on himself and us. I give my mother and my older brother much of the credit for pulling him through those dark days. 

Suicide is no stranger to me. My first experience with someone taking their own life was when I was sixteen years old. A teenage girl I had seen many times at the local skating rink, killed herself with a shotgun. No one ever explained it. That shook me to the core. She had everything she could have wanted—money, looks, prestige, and a nice family. At least that is what outsiders saw. Who knows what went on behind that family’s doors?  (see poem below)

I was older when the suicide of a dear friend broke my heart and left me feeling terrific guilt. She and I rode horses together when we were kids, and we had stayed in contact. She had been the happiest, devil-may-care kind of girl, bordering on being a rebel, but not quite. Although we lived distances from each other over the years, we always kept in touch and loved to be together. When she visited, we sat up till the wee hours discussing everything from books, to plays, to religion and relationships.

I knew she fought demons even when she seemed happily married to her high school sweetheart. Once she told me she had flown to NYC to see a doctor she hoped could help her. But she was disappointed when she did not get better.

She continued to fight those awful feelings as much as possible. She sought counseling several times and was given prescription drugs. Like many with depression, she turned to alcohol to blot out the desperation. Nightmares, fears she could not explain to me, left her asking questions about an afterlife. I had no idea how the mental anguish stripped her of energy, of happiness, of the desire to get out of bed each morning.

Her husband asked for a divorce after twenty years of marriage. That must have been the tipping point. Her health spiraled down. She found a job in a factory where she stood all day and used her arthritic hands. They swelled so badly and hurt so much, she came home each day and buried them in a pan of ice. Her mental and physical illness drove her to withdraw into a shell, isolated from friends and family.

My only contact with her at the time was by telephone, and often she didn’t answer the phone. Although I was concerned about my friend, I had no idea her situation had become so hopeless. When I heard she had taken her life, I cried for days wondering if I could have helped. I think that is what everyone does when this kind of tragedy happens. 

In the poem below you will recognize the first girl I mentioned above.

Anne’s One Flaw

Her mother heard it from the kitchen.
Her brother heard it above the radio
playing in his room.

The night before, she skated at the roller rink,
blond hair flying 'round her shoulders,
tanned legs clad in short white shorts.

She was sixteen; a cheerleader, and a perfect student.
All American girl with eternal promise.
Thomas loved her and he thought she loved him, too.

She dressed in a powder blue blouse
and navy skirt for their seven-thirty date.
She combed and curled her shiny hair,
and pinked her lovely lips.

Then she sat down upon her bed,
and pulled the trigger on the gun that splattered red
her white bedspread, and left her family stunned.


This poem was first published in Wild Goose Poetry Review

https://wildgoosepoetryreview.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/one-flaw-by-glenda-beall/