When M. failed to answer the door, her daughter did not find anything strange. It was often that the old woman was napping, or upstairs and not quick to descend. A key turned the door, and all in the house was quiet. Did M. have an appointment she forgot to mention? Had a neighbor called? The youngest daughter opened the garage door to see if the car was still there. It was. And behind it, she found the carefully laid out cot, the empty bottle of sleeping pills. The keys were still in the ignition, but the gas had probably long run out.

The death was a tragedy, we all knew. M. was not so old, after all, in splendid health, we thought. It took a long time for anyone beyond the one daughter and her husband to realize that it was a suicide, and as it was, few people were ever supposed to know. The death by one’s own hands seemed too messy, too questionable, too unsuitable for a reputable family. And yet, the daughter who found her mother cold and inexplicably dead that morning said that she would have done the same thing.

Up to the time I knew of the suicide, M. seemed an amazingly resilient woman. Letters and other documents found after M.’s death hinted at a less than auspicious diagnosis, perhaps from a cardiologist. One thing was certain, though: M. had said many times that she never wanted to be a burden to her children or anyone else. She had enjoyed a high level of independence her whole life. What did life mean to her if she needed assistance?

A suicide must always leave questions unanswered, but the questions it poses reach far beyond the life that is taken. I was surprised to learn that the daughter so fully supported her mother’s actions. Her own pronouncement of similar suicidal intentions if faced with similar potential dependency cited anthropological examples of the practice of “going off to die.”

I was judgmental of the dead woman, hurt. How could someone I loved and admired not let the people who loved her actually care for her when she needed them? What makes life worthwhile? Can we even answer those questions ourselves?

Life can be intolerably painful in so many ways. I cannot imagine what for certain caused M. to end her life, or what I would do in her place. After the suicide, though, the context of the family began to make more sense, and I was out of context. Never being a burden seemed more a selfish thing, never allowing another person to extend a kindness, to serve a meal, to make a bed: not good enough, perhaps? Not thoughtful, but selfish. Always giving, but never receiving: yes! there is a selfishness in that. The familial stoicism was overbearing; pain, heartbreak and illness were impossible to discuss aloud, but were whispered in tributes to the character of those who hid their weaknesses. Bad things simply did not exist in that make-believe world.

Oh, demons exist everywhere, but they become dangerous when they are hiding. Everyone knows about the bear hunt:

“We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. Oh no! We have to go through it!”*

Go through! Go through! Go through this life. Why hide? I want to love, and I want to rejoice in the real connections we have, the efforts we make, the love we give to one another… and the love we courageously take.

*From Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, We’re Going On a Bear Hunt, 1989.