Life After Suicide by Jennifer Ashton M.D

Author:Jennifer Ashton, M.D.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-05-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year’s came and went uneventfully. Alex, Chloe, and I were together for the holidays, surrounded by family; and there were even fleeting moments when it didn’t seem odd that Rob wasn’t with us. But January 17, 2018, would be a different story—it was his birthday, after all.

With Rob’s birthday approaching, we decided that instead of grieving and being sad, we’d celebrate and throw him a party, just the three of us, at our favorite neighborhood Italian restaurant. We waited at the bar for our table, texting back and forth with friends of Rob’s who wanted us to know they were thinking about us; and I ordered a glass of Prosecco for our toast to the man without whom Alex and Chloe wouldn’t even exist. I’d just taken a sip when Chloe urgently reminded me, “Mom, you’re doing a dry month!”

Years earlier Rob had started declaring every September a dry, alcohol-free month, as an exercise in will power. It inspired me to kick off 2018 with “Dry January,” announce it on Good Morning America, and invite viewers to take the “Dry January Challenge” with me. With the exception of during my two pregnancies, when I abstained from alcohol completely, I’ve always been, at most, a moderate drinker. My motto is “Two and through.” But I was curious to see if I could follow the same advice I give my patients every day, to reduce their risk of breast cancer by either giving up alcohol completely or at least diminishing the amount of alcohol they consume. “Physician, heal thyself,” so Dry January it was, until January 17; and let me go on record as saying that one absent-minded sip of Prosecco, to toast Rob’s birthday, was my only slipup.

Rob’s birthday also gave me a reminder that none of us has any business assuming there will always be a “next time.” His birthday the year before happened to come along six days prior to our divorce being finalized. Amicable as it was in general, we’d had an argument about who knows what. I was mad at him, and to drive that point home, I deliberately didn’t call or text to wish him a happy birthday. I felt justified but kind of badly about it at the time. Looking back on it after dinner with Alex and Chloe that night, I deeply regretted it, with Rob not around to apologize to anymore. It’s a lesson learned the hard way that I hope I won’t forget—no unfinished business. It hurts to live with it later.

Rob’s birthday was on Wednesday. On Saturday I got a call from his friend Art in Florida, who’d been kind enough to adopt our Labs, Nigel and Remy, after Rob’s suicide. Remy, the yellow Lab, had developed cancer during the year; and Art and his wife, Elizabeth, had done an amazing job of giving her all the medications and treatments she needed to fight it. But she was losing the battle, she was miserable and in

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