Leadership Journal

More than 30,000 people in the U.S. take their lives each year, and experts expect the suicide rate to increase. Recently we talked to Randy Christian, the author of this Leadership Classic, who told us, "The comment I hear over and over from pastors and caregivers is, 'You don't know how helpful it is just to be able to discuss the subject of suicide openly.' " We think those are reasons enough to bring you this article again.

Perhaps this hasn't happened to you, but it has certainly happened to others.

The secretary hands you a note. Emergency, it says. Call home.

Your throat is dry as you punch the buttons on the phone in your office. When your spouse answers after a single ring, the hello seems scared, forlorn, raw from crying.

Two minutes later you hang up the phone. Your hand is trembling. Your throat feels swollen. All you can do is stare at the wall. You've just learned that your son, age 17, has been killed in a car accident.

A mistake, you think at first. I saw him just a few hours ago. He can't be dead.

You feel dizzy as you tell the others that you have to leave. You offer no explanations, and quizzical looks follow you as you hurry out. It is all you can do to get into your car, turn the key, and drive home.

Somewhere in your numbness, guilt and anger flash. I shouldn't have let him drive. His friends shouldn't have asked him to come. He shouldn't have gone. God shouldn't have let it happen!

By the time you reach the hospital, you have felt more emotions than you ever thought possible, from guilt to helplessness to rage to grief. And there is the numbness, a feeling that makes you feel dead yourself—but does not stop the pain.

In the hospital chapel, you ask questions of a doctor and a policeman: "Was … was it quick? How did it happen?"

Though you didn't think it possible, you're thrown into deeper darkness by their answers. The police officer says quietly, "Your son drove his car into a concrete abutment. He left a note with a friend. It was suicide."

You sit, disbelieving, as it slowly sinks in. Your son didn't just die; he decided to die. It is the ultimate rejection: For some reason he felt it was better not to live than to live with you.

Finally the tears come. You sob with guilt for allowing your son's death to happen, even though you don't know how you could have prevented it. You feel guilty on his behalf, somehow, for this self-murder.

During the sleepless night that follows, your sense of rejection sours into bitterness. How could he have done this to me? Your grief turns to shame as you think of explaining this to relatives, friends, the congregation. As this shame takes hold, you begin to feel a loneliness so intense you doubt anyone could penetrate it.

This exercise in imagination only hints at the emotional whirlpool that swirls around those bereaved by suicide. The grief felt by someone who has lost a loved one to suicide is usually more terrible than most ...