Mortician Diaries by June Knights Nadle

Author:June Knights Nadle
Format: epub
Publisher: New World Library
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Unresolved grief or anger can create behavioral, mental, and health problems over time. When I learned that a memorial service was held but Phillip demanded that the ceremony be brief, I wondered if Phillip would ever seek help in dealing with his intense anger and its underlying grief. I knew that he’d been unwilling to talk anything over with his son, which was one reason why David came back to the mortuary to talk to me. At least David was looking for the help he needed to overcome his own grief.

When David came to my office, he said he wanted to apologize for his father’s behavior. As a matter of fact he was puzzled by the behavior of both parents. His eyes misted up as he said, “I never dreamed anything like this could ever happen in my life. I still have a hard time believing all of this really happened.” Taking a Kleenex from a box on the table, he covered his eyes and said, “I just can’t figure out why she did this to me.”

“I don’t believe for one minute that your mother did this to hurt you,” I interjected. “There are deeper issues here. In listening to you talk about your mother’s self-imposed isolation, lack of appetite and loss of weight, sadness, and indifference, it reminds me of my own experience with clinical depression. And in my own case, when I was at the very bottom of depression I thought of suicide frequently. I felt like I couldn’t handle the negatives anymore, and I couldn’t clearly see the positives. In those moments, it seemed like it’d be easier to die than to live.”

David interrupted. “But how come she was so happy for that week before she did it?”

I explained to him that I’d heard of other suicide victims who had seemed happy once they’d made the decision to kill themselves, perhaps because they feel relieved that their pain will end soon. I recommended that he seek out a grief support group at the university, and that he read The Broken Brain, by Nancy C. Andreasen, MD, PhD; The Mind, by Richard M. Restak, MD (especially chapter six, which is about depression); and A Brilliant Madness, by Patty Duke with Gloria Hochman (especially chapter ten, “Families Suffer and Learn”).

A month later David reappeared. He carried a folder and he placed it on the table, saying, “After I left here last time I went through some of my mother’s drawers in her room. I found this.” He opened the folder and placed before me some newspaper clippings. As I read them, each one reported a suicide and the method used to accomplish it. Under the folder he found a copy of the book Final Exit, by Derek Humphry, which talks about methods of committing suicide to reduce the chances of failure.

“What do you think now?” I asked David.

“I think what you told me last time makes sense. I have spent hours at the library reading. She sure wanted to

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