Sometimes it’s a song that I know he loved, sometimes it’s something on a TV show that made him laugh, but other times it is just a memory of something simple that makes me smile and want to cry at the same time. Loss affects everyone in different ways and for me, the way that we lost him is something that continues to trouble me.
Suicide is such a tough word because it conjures some very difficult and haunting things to mind and I still find it hard to accept that I lost my stepdad, someone that I loved dearly, to suicide. But according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one person dies by suicide about every 11 minutes in the United States. Our family certainly isn’t alone in the fact that we lost someone we cared about to suicide.
September is Suicide Prevention Month and it also happens to be his birthday month. While we will not celebrate any more birthdays with him, I smile when I think of how funny he was, how many times he made us laugh until we almost cried, how he could talk about music for hours and how much he cherished seeing his favorite musicians in concert. He got to see Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers during their last tour in 2017 and it was one of his favorite shows of all time and that is saying something because he had been to more than his fair share of live shows. He and I went to see ZZ Top and Cheap Trick and I remember watching his face light up when Rick Nielsen threw his guitar picks out into the crowd.
I remember him introducing me to Arlo Guthrie through the song “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” during a trip to San Francisco and how much he enjoyed listening to Arlo go in and out of each verse, taking us on various tangents and then back to Alice’s Restaurant, which was about a lot more than just Alice and her restaurant. He helped me see things in a different light and appreciate things that I may not have noticed before. He wasn’t perfect, nor am I, and at times we didn’t see things through the same filter but at his core, he was an exceptional man and someone that taught me a lot about life.
The week that he died I had been listening to my album, The Very Best of Supertramp and had discovered the song, “It’s Raining Again,” and I was instantly smitten. We shared a love of the band Supertramp and lead singer Roger Hodgson and I couldn’t wait to tell him that in addition to Goodbye Stranger and Take the Long Way Home, I had fallen in love with another song of theirs. Before I got the chance though, he died by suicide and now when I listen to “It’s Raining Again,” the lyrics hit me in a different way because they really speak to how I feel.
“It’s raining again, oh no, my love’s at an end, oh no, it’s raining again, too bad I’m losing a friend, oh no, it’s raining again, oh, will my heart ever mend?”
It’s been three years now since we lost him and there are times where I want to share a song that I just discovered with him or talk about who is coming to The Gallo Center or The State Theatre and I am reminded that he is gone, which still hurts so much. I don’t think my heart will ever completely mend from the loss but I know that every day I can choose to remember the good memories, the things that will always remind me of him and how he lived his life and how he made such a difference in mine.
I wanted to write this to share my memories of him but also to remind folks that although you can’t always tell what someone else is feeling or going through, you can reach out and remind them that there are ways to get help.
To learn more about Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Resources in the Central Valley, please visit: namistanislaus.org or call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline to get help. If you have lost a loved one to suicide there are groups like Friends for Survival which offer virtual and in-person support groups. To learn more about them, please visit: friendsforsurvival.org
Kristi Mayfield is a staff reporter for The Oakdale Leader, The Escalon Times and The Riverbank News. She may be reached at kmayfield@oakdaleleader.com or by calling 209-847-3021.
