The Coldest Night
A Family's Experience of Suicide

Description

ABOUT THE BOOK

‘For me there are two distinct lives: my life prior to the death of my son, and the radically changed life
that my family and I had to learn to live following his death by suicide.’ The Coldest Night tells the story of a mother’s loss of her son through suicide. The author brings us from the moment she learned her son had taken his own life, through the postmortem, the funeral and the subsequent months of bewilderment and shock as she and her family tried to come to terms with a changed life and family structure.

She emerges eventually, a different but stronger person, with a deep desire to help young people who are suffering the pain of depression and suicidal ideation, and to continue to be involved in nurturing their spirituality, which she believes is key to a healthy sense of self-worth and value.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carol Anne Milton has a special interest in nurturing the spirituality of young people and has led a school retreat team for the past eighteen years. She trained in adult education at the Dublin Institute of Adult Education and holds an Advanced Diploma in Counselling, Therapy and Education. She has recently been awarded an MA in Christian Spirituality by NUI at the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy. Following the death of her son by suicide, she speaks in schools about her own experience of bereavement and about depression, its characteristics and management. She is a member of the Irish Association of Suicidology.

First Chapter

A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER

‘Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.’
- Kahlil Gibran

BEGINNING THE DAY

Friday, 1 March 2002 began as any ordinary day would in our house. By 9 a.m. my husband, Noel, and our sons, Stephen (25) and Niall (24), had left for work. Our daughter, Noelle (15), had gone to school where she would complete her Junior Certificate mock exams that day. Our youngest son, Alan (22), was, I presumed, still asleep. My eldest son, David (28), lived and worked in Copenhagen at the time and has since married and settled in Denmark.

I finished breakfast and sat down in my favourite armchair by the patio doors leading out to the back garden, savouring the silence that ensued when my family had left, after the noise and the rushing around that was normal in our home as everybody prepared for their day. As much as I loved the vitality, the music, the voices, all the sounds and noises of our lively household, I deeply appreciated these times of tranquility, when I could gather my thoughts and prepare for my own day. I remember closing my eyes for a moment and asking for the protection of all my family, something I had done every day since each of them in turn had moved from under my wing and into the wider world of school when they were children.

I was the coordinator of a school retreat team at the time and one of my tasks was to liaise with the religious education departments in schools, so I was waiting for two schools to open in order to finalise arrangements for upcoming retreats. Having made my calls, I was just about to stand up and go into the kitchen when I glanced outside and saw a row of gardaí in yellow jackets moving down the back garden, side by side. There was a garda at the patio door beckoning me around to the front of the house. I opened the front door to find two young gardaí waiting. I invited them in and asked what was going on. One of them replied: ‘There’s a young lad in a tree in your garden.’ My first thought was that a young guy who was trying to escape would not have a chance against the burly gardaí in the garden! Not once in those few seconds did my thoughts turn to anything more sinister.

We went into the room where I had been sitting moments ago and one of the men drew the curtains. The other garda sat beside me on a settee and asked if I had sons. I told him the whereabouts of David, Stephen and Niall, and as I was saying that Alan was upstairs in bed, an odd stirring began in the pit of my stomach. I thought it strange that they didn’t stand back, but went ahead of me up the stairs, while I gave directions to Alan’s bedroom from behind. I then began to realise that this was no hunt for a runaway youngster, and that ‘young lad in the tree’ meant something else – something that I would not articulate to myself. By the time I reached the room the curtains were drawn here also, as Alan’s bedroom faced the back garden of the house. Alan’s bed was empty and had not been slept in.

My immediate thought was that he had stayed in his friend’s house, but as that was practically next door to our own it didn’t make sense. Then I thought he might have stayed in his girlfriend’s house, but ruled that out also because she had called late the previous night looking for him. He had gone for a drink with his friends, but would have let me know if he had been going somewhere after that. Standing in Alan’s room, my mind searching desperately for possibilities that would explain his empty bed, I could feel my heart beginning to race and my throat constricting. I took a deep breath and told myself to get a grip on this silliness! There had to be a perfectly logical reason why Alan was not in his room. Maybe he had gone for a spin on his bike; maybe he had just gone for a walk. My mind would not accept what I knew in my heart.

IDENTITY CONFIRMED

Downstairs once more, one of the gardaí asked me to describe Alan, which I did, and the garda said he would go and check outside. I was glad of this, because it would prove once and for all that I was being silly in thinking it could be Alan. Any moment now, Alan would walk in the door having been for a swim. I brightened up: ‘That’s it! He went for a swim … or something … or anything. God, no … this will be perfectly okay, right?’ Confusion. The young garda returned, took my hand and very gently said that from my description, it could be Alan. I told myself that there was still nothing certain so it would be okay. A second later, another garda came into the kitchen holding a bank card. He held it out to me, and as I read Alan’s name etched clearly on the card, all hope died. Alan had carried out the final act that he believed would relieve him of the anguish with which he had struggled valiantly for the last three years of his life.

DENIAL

At that moment, my life and the lives of Noel and our family were irrevocably changed. The joie de vivre that I was beginning to recapture after the death of my father and my brother, in 1998 and 1999 respectively, was shattered as the bank card confirming Alan’s identity was shown to me. I recall that as soon as I knew that it was Alan, that he really had gone from me, my immediate feeling was one of gratitude to God that Alan had been released at last from the agony of the unpredictable mood swings, the crippling anxiety and the periods of depression, which had dogged his life for years. This was a very fleeting sense of gratitude, barely lasting a second, and I have wondered why I can remember it so clearly, or indeed how I could feel grateful at all in a situation so terrible. I have learned since that this is quite a common initial reaction; that when depression, despair and previous suicide attempts have been experienced by a family, there may be relief following the final successful attempt, because the deceased is no longer in despair and the constant threat of suicide is over.

I only have snippets of memory of the time following this and I am inclined to confuse the sequence of events, but I do remember trying – and failing – to swing into ‘mother mode’, wanting to protect Noel, my sons and my daughter from this horror. We got everybody home except Noelle, whom we decided to leave to finish her exams. David would have to learn the devastating news over the phone. It was heartbreaking to watch as Niall and Stephen learned what had happened, and I felt so helpless that there was nothing I could do to alleviate their pain. The hurt on Noel’s face as he tried to take in the horror of what had happened to his child is one of my most terrible memories of that day. Here was a father who had taken part in every moment of his children’s lives, who had been involved in every stage of their growing up, who had taken them out for drives and treks in the mountains every weekend, talking to them about the wonders of nature, exploring with them old castles and cathedrals, teaching them the history of places they visited. Here was a father who had passed on to his children his love of the mountains and waterfalls, summer days and the joy of swimming and fishing in a river, who had so often brought them home, muddy and dripping wet after a day of adventure, who had so often lost patience with their squabbling in the car, threatening to throw them out and make them walk, until they all collapsed in giggles at their dad’s irritation – all squabbles forgotten. Here was a man who deeply, deeply loved his children, and who now had heard that his treasured youngest son had just been cut down from the tree where his children, and he himself in his childhood, had played. I found this almost unbearable. I would have taken all his pain on myself if I had been able to. It was dreadful to watch his heart breaking like this.

SUPPORT FROM NEIGHBOURS AND FRIENDS

The day wore on in a haze of people coming and going; neighbours, friends and relatives bringing tray upon tray of hot and cold food; everyone crowding into the kitchen and around the table, from which neither Noel nor I had moved since morning. I remember looking at Noel and wondering how he was managing to chat about ordinary things to people. I realised that this was his way of coping with his devastation – being surrounded by people, being his usual sociable self. I recall being glad for him, however, I couldn’t bring myself to enter into it. Listening, I silently screamed: ‘Why are you not talking about Alan? How can you all talk about ordinary things when you can see what has happened?’ I remember the rage I felt when some well-meaning soul launched into a story of how sad they had felt at the funeral of some distant cousin or other. I was screaming inside again: ‘I don’t care about your cousin’s funeral or the gruesome details of his terminal disease, or how his widow crumbled in a devastated heap on her way out of the church. Why can’t you just shut up and either talk about my son or go!’

I wanted to run, to escape from the incessant chatter, to be alone with what had happened, to process this nightmare in my mind, and yet I was afraid to be without all these people, afraid to be left alone with the reality of what had happened. This is all I remember of a day that no parent should ever have to go through. Noel and Niall went to the hospital where Alan had been taken for an autopsy. Noel said that this was one of the more traumatic events of that time, knowing that Alan was there and not being allowed to see him, because they were about to begin the post-mortem examination. He hated the thought of what was about to happen to Alan’s body and assured the person dealing with the formalities that Alan was not a heavy drinker, nor a smoker or any type of drug abuser, hoping that they would take his word for it and not carry out the autopsy. However, this is a legal requirement in all suicide cases. The post-mortem examination revealed that, in fact, Alan had quite a high level of alcohol in his blood at the time of death.

Glenealy

Some time between the Friday that Alan died and the removal of his body to the church on the following Tuesday, I felt strongly drawn to Glenealy, Co. Wicklow, where my grandparents and my father are buried. My godmother is there too, but my desire was to go to my beloved granddad and my dad, two people whom I had truly loved and whose love for me I had always been certain of. Noel drove me and I remember I had my eyes closed to block out everything around me. I couldn’t bear to see life outside going on as usual. I felt safe in my own interior world. I was aware that Noel was coping better than I was by facing reality head-on, while I wanted to run from it. We didn’t speak much and, soon after we began the journey, I silently pleaded: ‘Where are you, Alan?’ and had an immediate impression of Alan’s face, radiant and smiling at me, saying: ‘It’s deadly, Mam!’This lasted for just an instant and then it was gone. ‘Deadly’ is not a word that I use, and six years later the memory of that couple of seconds is as vivid as when it happened. I make no judgement on this – I am aware that intensity of emotion can cause a person to conjure up all sorts of things – but this was real to me that day and it brought me some comfort.

When we arrived at the old graveyard overlooking the village of Glenealy, I sat down on the stone edge of the grave and looked down at the little village church, and behind that the ‘fairy hill’, which was inhabited – according to the stories my father told us when we were children – by mischievous leprechauns whose trickery on the local people was the subject of these exciting tales. This came into my mind that day, along with other sweet recollections of my childhood in this beautiful place. It was so peaceful here now, so tranquil, like a balm gently soothing the hurt in my soul. I remember wishing I could stay there forever and not have to return to the heartbreak and chaos from which I had been given brief respite. I wished that Noel, my children and I could stop the clock – and the pain – right here.

Very softly, into my mind came my father’s voice: ‘That’s the stuff! That’s the stuff!’ Then my grandfather’s voice saying: ‘Carol Anne, Carol Anne’. Over and over these words were repeated, all very softly, all seeming absolutely real. ‘That’s the stuff’ was always my father’s way of saying, ‘Good for you!’ or ‘Well done!’ when we did well at something. My grandad was the only one in our family who had always called me by my full name, and it always sounded like ‘Carlann’ in his Wicklow accent. The memory of hearing those two distinct voices, soft and loving, stay with me to this day. Again, I make no judgement; if hearing these voices was a product of my intense grief and desire for consolation, so be it. If there truly is such a thing as the spiritual presence of our loved ones after death, I thank God. However, the fact that all this happened within a couple of hours on the same day, that each seemed to speak in his own voice, that each brought me – and continues to bring me – solace, and that this has stayed fresh in my memory for six years, makes me wonder … In my fear of being overwhelmed by the loss of Alan, in my trying to cope with the horror of his suicide, was my dad trying to tell me that I would survive, that I would be okay? Whatever the explanation, it brought me comfort in the aftermath of Alan’s death.