A SISTER’S MESSAGE…

by Michelle Linn-Gust, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Dear Denise:

It was two weeks ago that I came home to cover the men’s basketball team in the NCAA Tournament.

I only spent the night before the game at home because Mom and Dad live 45 minutes from Rosemont Horizon.  But I had no idea that when I knocked on your door the morning of the game, to see if you were awake, that it would be the last time I would talk to you.

And to think I couldn’t understand what you said to me.

I still can’t believe that as I was searching for my seat on press row for the Ball State-Kansas game, you were walking in front of a train — just two weeks before your 18th birthday.

I’ll never understand why you did what you did.  We can only speculate about what was going on in your head.  Everyone thought you were getting better, but apparently you thought the bulimia had gotten the best of you and you would never get control of yourself again.

Everything I watched you go through in your high school years was nothing out of the ordinary.  It took me to this year to really be happy with myself but I couldn’t tell you that because you wouldn’t listen.

You were so close to graduation and college — starting all over.

Instead you chose to end your life and leave the mess for the five of us to clean up.  I was angry when the high school principal called the weekend after your death to tell us how the school would be open for students needing someone to talk to.  A number of the faculty were going into the school on the weekend because of you.

And then I watched so many students walk by your casket to pay their last respects.  I wonder if you built a wall around yourself and couldn’t feel that so many people cared about you. Mom let those who came to the house after the funeral up in your room.  They stood in a bunch in the middle of it staring, unsure what to say or do.

Remember Mrs. Martin, the high school journalism adviser?  She came to the wake and asked me to stop by the school the next day.  The newspaper staff was having a hard time deciding what to print.  She thought with my being a journalism major and because you were my sister, I might be able to help them out.

When I got there, I saw how uncomfortable they seemed in talking about your death.  Some didn’t want to print anything about your death because they knew how unhappy you were at the school.   But that would have been denial that you even died!

You shocked them and everyone else because your smiles and laughter hid so much  pain.  We knew how you had been depressed for so long and how you tried to kill yourself last fall, but we also thought you had put that behind you.

The night before you died, you were telling me what a great time you had at the spring dance the weekend before.

I’m glad you did get to go to one dance, because there are so many things you’ll never get to do, and that bothers me.  You only made it halfway up to the ‘M’ on the mountainside at the University of Montana last summer.

But then, you thought you’d return and have the chance to climb the whole way up.  You never got the chance to use the towel I bought you for Christmas to take to college.

You life was just beginning.

Mom and Dad just wanted to get you out of high school because they knew things would get better after that, but you couldn’t do it.  When we went to find a cemetery plot for you, I watched them sit in the first pew in the chapel.  They are probably hurting more than you could ever imagine.

Instead of four of us kids, there are now three.  My name will come after the “and” in all the Christmas cards.  I hate that.  I don’t want to after the “and” — that’s your spot.

I wanted to come back to school right after the funeral but I felt strange going back to my classes and the newspaper .  My life has changed so much and everyone else’s is the same.  I’ll never see you again.  Who will trim my hair?

You taught me the game of baseball when I was in high school and now who will go to Kane County Cougars games with me?

I find comfort in the thought that you are out of pain now.  I know there is a reason for everything that happens.  Your death is no exception, but it bothers me that you had to be everyone else’s lesson.               April  1993

Michelle Linn-Gust  has just published her book on suriving the suicide loss of a sibling, “Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven?”.   for more info: www.siblingsurvivors.com,      www. boltonpress.com, Order from Bolton Press,

1090 Crest Brook Lane, Rosewell, GA 30075, $14.95 + 2.50 S/H per book.

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